The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966 Page 10

  and I’m red, all red inside,

  punctured with heart and intestine and lung,

  I hope they don’t arrest me,

  I practice pretty good

  and I’ve got a steak, a cigar

  and a fifth of scotch,

  I’ve read most of the classics

  and I watch the birds fly this morning

  and I can see most of them,

  many of them that you can’t see,

  and I’m going to take a bath pretty soon,

  put on some clean clothes

  and drive South to the track.

  it is not an unusual morning except that

  it is one more,

  and I want to thank you

  for listening.

  I Kneel

  these legs need to run

  but I kneel

  before female flowers

  catch the scent of

  forgetfulness

  and grab it

  sure

  and evenings

  hours of evenings

  grey-headed evenings

  nod

  and afterwards

  fall asleep.

  Freedom: The Unmolested Eagle of Myself

  justification of blood and rock is

  justification of you

  waiting in the doorway

  justification of gun and club and pincers is

  justification of you

  spreading a tablecloth

  the tree’s mathematics is the pounding dull leaves of

  your eyes

  my feet pushed into socks is an Arab crawling up to

  kill

  juice of christ in a pear is myself driving away

  at 90 miles an hour

  and

  the flak and the gruel and the words are riveted to the

  walls

  they are

  packaged like bombs to explode under my

  enemies

  and the evening comes down smiling and humming one

  more dead tune

  and

  it’s hooray: look out: wait:

  starve and be covered by dirt until

  life is tall and silver

  again.

  Singing Is Fire

  the birds are on fire

  now

  out there

  and I walk across the room

  and hold back the shade

  and they are out there now

  burning at

  5:05 a.m.—darkness lifting like a

  horse falling through sand. well,

  I’ve got a blazer of whiskey left and

  there are enough stretchers to carry the dead

  but

  not enough water to save the burning

  birds: and they are telling me now:

  FLAME! FLAME!

  FLAME!

  as old trains move through the

  desert

  as the whores sleep with the job

  done

  as the schoolboys dream of laborless

  love

  the birds BURN and

  die before me—

  they

  fly away done

  leaving the grass for what’s left of the

  worms what’s left of the worms

  what’s left of them

  for what’s left of me:

  old tin song with lunatic tears:

  which

  is nothing new

  except it’s different now

  feeling so bad

  they used to call it the blues

  but it’s not so bad

  whatever you call it

  because at this time of light

  say 5:36 a.m.

  I still have a little whiskey left and

  therefore a

  chance.

  The Sun Wields Mercy

  and the sun wields mercy

  but like a torch carried too high,

  and the jets whip across its sight

  and rockets leap like toads,

  and the boys get out the maps

  and pin-cushion the moon,

  old green cheese,

  no life there but too much on earth:

  our unwashed India boys

  crossing their legs, playing pipes,

  starving with sucked-in bellies,

  watching the snakes volute

  like beautiful women in the hungry air;

  the rockets leap,

  the rockets leap like hares,

  clearing clump and dog

  replacing out-dated bullets;

  the Chinese still carve

  in jade, quietly stuffing rice

  into their hunger, a hunger

  a thousand years old,

  their muddy rivers moving with fire

  and song, barges, houseboats

  pushed by the drifting poles

  of waiting without wanting;

  in Turkey they face the East

  on their carpets

  praying to a purple god

  who smokes and laughs

  and sticks his fingers in their eyes

  blinding them, as gods will do;

  but the rockets are ready: peace is no longer,

  for some reason, precious;

  madness drifts like lily pads

  on a pond, circling senselessly;

  the painters paint dipping

  their reds and greens and yellows,

  poets rhyme their loneliness,

  musicians starve as always

  and the novelists miss the mark,

  but not the pelican, the gull;

  pelicans dip and dive, rise,

  shaking shocked half-dead

  radioactive fish from their beaks;

  indeed, indeed, the waters wash

  the rocks with slime; and on Wall St.

  the market staggers like a lost drunk

  looking for his key; ah,

  this will be a good one, by God:

  it will take us back to the

  snake, the limpet, or if we’re lucky,

  the catalysis to the

  sabre-teeth, the winged monkey

  scrabbling in the pit over bits

  of helmet, instrument and glass;

  a lightning crashes across

  the window and in a million rooms

  lovers lie entwined and lost

  and sick as peace;

  the sky still breaks red and orange for the

  painters—and for the lovers,

  flowers open as they have always

  opened but covered with the thin dust

  of rocket fuel and mushrooms,

  poison mushrooms; it’s a bad time,

  a dog-sick time—curtain,

  act III, standing room only,

  SOLD OUT, SOLD OUT, SOLD OUT again,

  by god, by somebody and something,

  by rockets and generals and

  leaders, by poets, doctors, comedians,

  by manufacturers of soup

  and biscuits, Janus-faced hucksters

  of their own indexterity;

  I can see now the coal-slick

  contaminated fields, a snail or 2,

  bile, obsidian, a fish or 3

  in the shallows, an obloquy of our

  source and our sight…

  has this happened before? is history

  a circle that catches itself by the tail,

  a dream, a nightmare,

  a general’s dream, a president’s dream,

  a dictator’s dream…

  can’t we awaken?

  or are the forces of life greater than we?

  can’t we awaken? must we forever,

  dear friends, die in our sleep?

  On the Failure of a Poet

  pinch-penny light, rifted, pitied light

  like the drunken face of God in the sand,

  smiling forgiveness…some old candle burning

  in some old house

  on the last nigh
t of earth,

  house burning,

  earth burning

  in tears and poetry

  scorching the filthy stars.

  stalwart death, clean-up batter,

  picking his nose and his victims,

  old buddy, chewing stale bread,

  always successful

  as I listen to the crickets

  while the master poets snore,

  as I bring up the walls of China

  in my poor brain

  and walk them in wet dark

  dropping lilies into ponds

  calling to the dead

  who have crawled away to hide;

  while the master poets snore

  I pay homage to bombs

  the face of Baune turning to blood

  with only the eyes holding still to the edge of sunset,

  not wanting to go down…

  now I cling evilly to these walls

  and stand before a mirror

  examining my content:

  I represent rent, cheap labor

  and nickle-coffee nights,

  dancer in the splendid hock-shops

  and rooms that close across the throat

  as words fly from my small white hands

  as the master poets snore…

  are their birds more silken than mine?

  perhaps, perhaps…it is so hard to deny!

  what trick hikes their wings?

  I tell you, no sparrow is more carved or

  craving than mine…and yet

  across my window

  no voice answers, nothing responds;

  I hear only the electric voices,

  the shuffling of plates and lives,

  on and on

  these same simple dead sounds

  enfolding me in their unchallenged weight,

  while the master poets sing

  and are praised,

  and even fools love and are loved;

  faith burns away:

  I am a beggar hoisting lulled

  sacked thoughts,

  knowing I have the bolt to throw

  but the catcher’s out of sight.

  The Beast

  Beowulf may have killed Grendel and

  Grendel’s mother

  but he

  couldn’t kill this

  one:

  it moves around with broken back and

  eyes of spittle

  has cancer

  sweeps with a broom

  smiles and kills

  germs germans gladiolas

  it sits in the bathtub

  with a piece of soap and

  reads the newspaper about the

  Bomb and Vietnam and the freeways

  and it smiles and then

  gets out naked

  doesn’t use a towel

  goes outside

  and rapes young girls

  kills them and

  throws them aside like

  steakbone

  it walks into a bedroom and watches

  lovers fuck

  it stops the clock at

  1:30 a.m.

  it turns a man into a rock while he

  reads a book

  the beast

  spoils candy

  causes mournful songs to be

  created

  makes birds stop

  flying

  it even killed Beowulf

  the brave Beowulf who

  had killed Grendel and Grendel’s

  mother

  look

  even the whores at the bar

  think about it

  drink too much and

  almost

  forget business.

  A Rat Rises

  in some suburban cellar

  a rat rises and tongues the leaky bottom of your life;

  dreams of Cairo leave the body first,

  such a November!—sweet pain tickling

  like a fly, brushed off, it circles back

  and settles again…

  I will not lie: I hear the cackle of the grave

  on nights that cannot be drunk away,

  and it has rained all this same day

  and buying my paper

  I saw the drops falling

  from the newsboy’s hat

  to his nose

  and then falling from his nose…

  but I doubt he ever considered

  cutting his throat,

  ending a quick love.

  Ramsey, says a voice on the phone,

  Ramsey, you sound so damned sad!

  downstairs a child draws circles in the mud,

  it has stopped raining.

  circles, circles

  weep less, wonder less.

  I hear a voice singing.

  I open a window.

  a dog barks.

  in Amsterdam a holy man trembles.

  Pansies

  pansies in a glass

  this is sterile

  sterile meaning

  less trouble,

  the arms of color

  lifting

  like cobras,

  everything standing

  around the glass

  in the room.

  I am thinking

  of the

  bee.

  The Man with the Hot Nose

  I am stuck with a snarl,

  by God,

  that would walk up the side

  of a house;

  I snarl, kissing maidens,

  50-year-old whores

  and torn-up mutuel

  tickets;

  all affected, I think,

  as the motorcycle cop

  writes out his ticket

  and I think of myself

  killing him,

  laying him in the sunlight

  badge upwards

  for butterflies

  and stares;

  I snarl when I shit

  or read the

  stock market quotations;

  I snarl when it rains,

  I am almost depraved,

  seldom laugh,

  misunderstand flat tires

  and various things

  such as

  human decay of mind and

  body, spiders at

  work,

  all the dead troops of

  forever,

  toy crosses for sale

  in stationery store

  windows,

  elephants for sale

  or thirsty,

  riot for useless

  causes; stuck elevators,

  constipation,

  I understand nothing

  except maybe

  falling off a couch

  drunk;

  ariel ariel by God,

  the clown’s tin sides

  thumping,

  I bring the cigarette

  close,

  light it,

  not setting my hair

  on fire

  (I guess this is

  important);

  I snarl a bit

  in case there is Anybody

  on the stairway,

  on the roof,

  on the mountain,

  pissing from the tower of

  Pisa (which must be

  leaned back a bit

  for ten million dollars)

  and looking.

  Hangover and Sick Leave

  I know very little

  and while I have eyes inside my head,

  and feet to walk with, and

  there are universities and

  books full of men and

  places like

  Rome and Madrid—

  I stay in bed

  and watch the light rise in the curtains

  and listen to the sounds

  that I dislike, and

  I fear the angry wife

  the landlord

  the psychiatrist

  the police

  the priest,

  yet in bed h
ere

  the sun of myself working around my

  bones

  I am real enough

  while

  thinking of the factory workers with

  sweating crotches

  I know enough

  of Los Angeles

  in this room

  so that there is nothing to

  prove

  and I raise the covers

  to the ears of my empty head

  and breathe in and out

  in and out

  within these walls

  the beautiful cardboard day of

  the mole.

  Mercy, Wherever You Are, Come Running in to Me and Grab Me in Your Good Arms—

  sterile faces squeezed out from squalid tubes of

  bodies ream and blind me to any

  compromise.

  I would crawl down into the black volcanic gut of a

  chicken and

  hide hide hide.

  listen, I know you think I am bitter and

  maybe insane, well

  that’s all right

  but find me a place:

  a doorman at the casino

  where I may separate the drunks from their

  florins

  or let the air out of the tires of the

  mayor

  until the years pass by and they

  burn the world

  until the difference in faces is

  indifferent.

  or now look

  while I’m asking for things

  I’d like to tell you

  this:

  I would like a piece of ass

  I have always wanted a piece of ass

  most of the

  time.

  I mean good

  stuff not like what

  I’ve been

  getting.

  I want all

  silk and garters and flesh and

  snake wriggle and the

  diamond earrings and the

  accent, and the smell of

  small cotton

  animals.

  I don’t ask for a field of flowers in a

  coal mine.