You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense Read online

me.

  wearing the collar

  I live with a lady and four cats

  and some days we all get

  along.

  some days I have trouble with

  one of the

  cats.

  other days I have trouble with

  two of the

  cats.

  other days,

  three.

  some days I have trouble with

  all four of the

  cats

  and the

  lady:

  ten eyes looking at me

  as if I was a dog.

  a cat is a cat is a cat is a cat

  she’s whistling and clapping

  for the cats

  at 2 a.m.

  as I sit in here

  with my

  Beethoven.

  “they’re just prowling,” I

  tell her…

  Beethoven rattles his bones

  majestically

  and those damn cats

  don’t care

  about

  any of it

  and

  if they did

  I wouldn’t like them

  as

  well:

  things begin to lose their

  natural value

  when they approach

  human

  endeavor.

  nothing against

  Beethoven:

  he did fine

  for what he

  was

  but I wouldn’t want

  him

  on my rug

  with one leg

  over his head

  while

  he was

  licking

  his balls.

  marching through Georgia

  we are burning like a chicken wing left on the grill of an

  outdoor barbecue

  we are unwanted and burning we are burning and unwanted we are

  an unwanted

  burning

  as we sizzle and fry

  to the bone

  the coals of Dante’s Inferno spit and sputter beneath

  us

  and

  above the sky is an open hand and

  the words of wise men are useless

  it’s not a nice world, a nice world it’s

  not…

  come on, try this nice burnt chicken-wing poem

  it’s hot it’s tough not much

  meat

  but ’tis sadly sensible

  and one or two bites ends it

  thus

  gone

  it left like the ladies of old

  as I opened the door

  to the room

  bed

  pillows

  walls

  I lost it

  I lost it somewhere

  while walking down the street

  or while lifting weights

  or while watching a parade

  I lost it

  while watching a wrestling match

  or while waiting at a red light

  at noon on some smoggy day

  I lost it while putting a coin

  into a parking meter

  I lost it

  as the wild dogs slept.

  I meet the famous poet

  this poet had long been famous

  and after some decades of

  obscurity I

  got lucky

  and this poet appeared

  interested

  and asked me to his

  beach apartment.

  he was homosexual and I was

  straight, and worse, a

  lush.

  I came by, looked

  about and

  declaimed (as if I didn’t

  know), “hey, where the

  fuck are the

  babes?”

  he just smiled and stroked

  his mustache.

  he had little lettuces and

  delicate cheeses and

  other dainties

  in his refrigerator.

  “where you keep your fucking

  beer, man?” I

  asked.

  it didn’t matter, I had

  brought my own

  bottles and I began upon

  them.

  he began to look

  alarmed: “I’ve heard about

  your brutality, please

  desist from

  that!”

  I flopped down on his

  couch, belched,

  laughed: “ah, shit, baby, I’m

  not gonna hurt ya! ha, ha,

  ha!”

  “you are a fine writer,” he

  said, “but as a person you are

  utterly

  despicable!”

  “that’s what I like about me

  best, baby!” I

  continued to pour them

  down.

  at once

  he seemed to vanish behind

  some sliding wooden

  doors.

  “hey, baby, come on

  out! I ain’t gonna do no

  bad! we can sit around and

  talk that dumb literary

  bullshit all night

  long! I won’t

  brutalize you,

  shit, I

  promise!”

  “I don’t trust you,”

  came the little

  voice.

  well, there was nothing to

  do

  but slug it down, I was

  too drunk to drive

  home.

  when I awakened in the

  morning he was standing over

  me

  smiling.

  “uh,” I said,

  “hi…”

  “did you mean what you

  said last night?” he

  asked.

  “uh, what wuz

  ut?”

  “I slid the doors back and

  stood there and you saw

  me and you said that

  I looked like I was riding the

  prow of some great sea

  ship…you said that

  I looked like a

  Norseman! is

  that true?”

  “oh, yeah, yeah, you

  did…”

  he fixed me some hot tea

  with toast

  and I got that

  down.

  “well,” I said, “good to

  have met

  you…”

  “I’m sure,” he

  answered.

  the door closed behind

  me

  and I found the elevator

  down

  and

  after some wandering about the

  beach front

  I found my car, got

  in, drove off

  on what appeared to be

  favorable terms

  between the famous poet and

  myself

  but

  it wasn’t

  so:

  he started writing un-

  believably hateful stuff

  about

  me

  and I

  got my shots in at

  him.

  the whole matter

  was just about

  like

  most other writers

  meeting

  and

  anyhow

  that part about

  calling him a

  Norseman

  wasn’t true at

  all: I called him

  a

  Viking

  and it also

  isn’t true

  that without his

  aid

  I never would have

  appeared in the

  Penguin Collection of

  Modern Poets

  along with him

  and who

  was it?

  yeah:

  La
mantia.

  seize the day

  foul fellow he was always wiping his nose on his

  sleeve and also farting at regular

  intervals, he was

  uncombed

  uncouth

  unwanted.

  his every third word was a crass

  entrail

  and he grinned through broken yellow

  teeth

  his breath stinking above the

  wind

  he continually dug into his crotch

  left-

  handed

  and he always had a

  dirty joke

  at the ready,

  a dunce of the lowest

  order

  a most most

  avoided

  man

  until

  he won the state

  lottery.

  now

  you should see

  him: always a young laughing lady on

  each arm

  he eats at the finest

  places

  the waiters fighting to get him

  at their

  table

  he belches and farts away the

  night

  spilling his wineglass

  picking up his steak with his

  fingers

  while

  his ladies call him

  “original” and “the funniest

  man I ever met.”

  and what they do to him

  in bed

  is a damned

  shame.

  what we have to keep

  remembering, though, is that

  50% of the state lottery is given to the

  Educational System and

  that’s important

  when you realize that

  only one person in

  nine

  can properly spell

  “emulously.”

  the shrinking island

  I’m working on it as

  the dawn bends toward me…

  I almost had it at 3:34 a.m. but it

  slipped away from me

  with the wizardry of a

  silverfish…

  now

  as the half-light moves toward me

  like motherfucking death

  I give up the battle

  rise

  move toward the bathroom

  bang

  into a wall

  give a pitiful mewking

  laugh…

  flick on the light and

  begin to piss, yes, in

  the proper place

  and

  after flushing

  think: another night

  gone.

  well, we gave it a bit of

  a roar

  anyhow.

  we wash our

  claws…

  flick off the

  light

  move toward the

  bedroom where the

  wife

  awakens enough

  to say: “don’t step

  on the cat!”

  which brings us back

  to

  matters

  real

  as we find the bed

  slip in

  face to ceiling: a

  grounded

  drunken

  fat

  old

  man.

  magic machine

  I liked the old records that

  scratched

  as the needle slid across

  grooves well

  worn

  you heard the voice

  coming through

  the speaker

  as if there were a person

  inside that

  mahogany

  box

  but you only listened while

  your parents were

  not there.

  and if you didn’t wind

  the victrola

  it gradually slowed and

  stopped.

  it was best in late

  afternoons

  and the records spoke

  of

  love.

  love, love, love.

  some of the records had

  beautiful purple

  labels,

  others were orange, green,

  yellow, red, blue.

  the victrola had belonged to

  my grandfather

  and he had listened to those

  same

  records.

  and now I was a boy

  and

  I heard them.

  and nothing I could think of

  in my life then

  seemed better than listening

  to that

  victrola

  when my parents weren’t

  there.

  those girls we followed home

  in Jr. High the two prettiest girls were

  Irene and Louise,

  they were sisters;

  Irene was a year older, a little taller

  but it was difficult to choose between

  them;

  they were not only pretty but they were

  astonishingly beautiful

  so beautiful

  that the boys stayed away from them;

  they were terrified of Irene and

  Louise

  who weren’t aloof at all,

  even friendlier than most

  but

  who seemed to dress a bit

  differently than the other

  girls:

  they always wore high heels,

  silk stockings,

  blouses,

  skirts,

  new outfits

  each day;

  and,

  one afternoon

  my buddy, Baldy, and I followed them

  home from school;

  you see, we were kind of

  the bad guys on the grounds

  so it was

  more or less

  expected,

  and

  it was something:

  walking along ten or twelve feet behind them;

  we didn’t say anything

  we just followed

  watching

  their voluptuous swaying,

  the balancing of the

  haunches.

  we liked it so much that we

  followed them home from school

  every

  day.

  when they’d go into their house

  we’d stand outside on the sidewalk

  smoking cigarettes and talking.

  “someday,” I told Baldy,

  “they are going to invite us inside their

  house and they are going to

  fuck us.”

  “you really think so?”

  “sure.”

  now

  50 years later

  I can tell you

  they never did

  —never mind all the stories we

  told the guys;

  yes, it’s the dream that

  keeps you going

  then and

  now.

  fractional note

  the flowers are burning

  the rocks are melting

  the door is stuck inside my head

  it’s one hundred and two degrees in Hollywood

  and the messenger stumbles

  dropping the last message into a

  hole in the earth

  400 miles deep.

  the movies are worse than ever

  and the dead books of dead men read dead.

  the white rats run the treadmill.

  the bars stink in swampland darkness

  as the lonely unfulfill the lonely.

  there’s no clarity.

  there was never meant to be clarity.

  the sun is diminishing, they say.

  wait and see.

  gravy barks like a dog.

  if I had a grandmother
/>
  my grandmother could whip your

  grandmother.

  free fall.

  free dirt.

  shit costs money.

  check the ads for sales…

  now everybody is singing at once

  terrible voices

  coming from torn throats.

  hours of practice.

  it’s almost entirely waste.

  regret is mostly caused by not having

  done anything.

  the mind barks like a dog.

  pass the gravy.

  it is so arranged all the way to

  oblivion.

  next meter reading date:

  JUN 20.

  and I feel good.

  a following

  the phone rang at 1:30 a.m.

  and it was a man from Denver:

  “Chinaski, you got a following in

  Denver…”

  “yeah?”

  “yeah, I got a magazine and I want some

  poems from you…”

  “FUCK YOU, CHINASKI!” I heard a voice

  in the background…

  “I see you have a friend,”

  I said.

  “yeah,” he answered, “now, I want

  six poems…”

  “CHINASKI SUCKS! CHINASKI’S A PRICK!”

  I heard the other

  voice.

  “you fellows been drinking?”

  I asked.

  “so what?” he answered. “you drink.”

  “that’s true…”

  “CHINASKI’S AN ASSHOLE!”

  then

  the editor of the magazine gave me the

  address and I copied it down on the back

  of an envelope.

  “send us some poems now…”

  “I’ll see what I can do…”

  “CHINASKI WRITES SHIT!”

  “goodbye,” I said.