New Poems Book Three Read online

  the red and white barrier lifted.

  I drove in,

  drove around and around.

  I finally found a parking spot a good distance away,

  a football field away.

  I walked in.

  I finally found the entrance and the elevator

  and the floor

  and then the office number.

  I walked in.

  the waiting room was full.

  there was an old lady talking to the

  receptionist.

  “but can’t I see him now?”

  “Mrs. Miller, you are here at the right time

  but on the wrong day.

  this is Wednesday, you’ll have to come

  back Friday.”

  “but I took a cab. I’m an old lady, I have almost

  no money, can’t I see him now?”

  “Mrs. Miller, I’m sorry but your appointment

  is on Friday, you’ll have to come back

  then.”

  Mrs. Miller turned away: unwanted,

  old and poor, she walked to the

  door.

  I stepped up smartly, informed them who I was.

  I was told to sit down and wait.

  I sat with the others.

  then I noticed the magazine rack.

  I walked over and looked at the magazines.

  it was odd: they weren’t of recent

  vintage: in fact, all of them were over a

  year old.

  I sat back down.

  30 minutes passed.

  45 minutes passed.

  an hour passed.

  the man next to me spoke:

  “I’ve been waiting an hour-and-a-half,” he

  said.

  “that’s hell,” I said, “they shouldn’t do that!”

  he didn’t reply.

  just then the receptionist called my

  name.

  I got up and told her that the other man had

  been waiting an hour-and-a-half.

  she acted as if she hadn’t heard.

  “please follow me,” she said.

  I followed her down a dark hall, then she

  opened a door, pointed. “in there,” she said.

  I walked in and she closed the door behind me.

  I sat down and looked at a map of

  the human body hanging from the wall.

  I could see the veins, the heart, the

  intestines, all that.

  it was cold in there and dark, darker

  than in the hall.

  I waited maybe 15 minutes before the door

  opened.

  it was Dr. Manx.

  he was followed by a tired-looking young lady

  in a white gown; she held a clipboard;

  she looked depressed.

  “well, now,” said Dr. Manx, “what is it?”

  “it’s my leg,” I said.

  I saw the lady writing on the clipboard.

  she wrote LEG.

  “what is it about the leg?” asked the Dr.

  “it hurts,” I said.

  PAIN wrote the lady.

  then she saw me looking at the clipboard and

  turned away.

  “did you fill out the form they gave you at

  the desk?” the Dr. asked.

  “they didn’t give me a form,” I said.

  “Florence,” he said, “give him a form.”

  Florence pulled a form out from her

  clipboard, handed it to me.

  “fill that out,” said Dr. Manx, “we’ll be right

  back.”

  then they were gone and I worked at the

  form.

  it was the usual: name, address, phone,

  employer, relatives, etc.

  there was also a long list of questions.

  I marked them all “no.”

  then I sat there.

  20 minutes passed.

  then they were back.

  the doctor began twisting my leg.

  “it’s the right leg,” I said.

  “oh,” he said.

  Florence wrote something on her

  clipboard.

  probably RIGHT LEG.

  he switched to the right leg.

  “does that hurt?”

  “a little.”

  “not real bad?”

  “no.”

  “does this hurt?”

  “a little.”

  “not real bad?”

  “well, the whole leg hurts but when

  you do that, it hurts more.”

  “but not real bad?”

  “what’s real bad?”

  “like you can’t stand on it.”

  “I can stand on it.”

  “hmmm … stand up!”

  “all right.”

  “now, rock on your toes, back and

  forth, back and forth.”

  I did.

  “hurt real bad?” he asked.

  “just medium.”

  “you know what?” Dr. Manx asked.

  “no.”

  “we’ve got a Mystery Leg here!”

  Florence wrote something on the

  clipboard.

  “I have?”

  “yes, I don’t know yet what’s wrong with

  it.

  I want you to come back in 30 days.”

  “30 days?”

  “yes, and stop at the desk on your

  way out, see the girl.”

  then they walked out.

  at the checkout desk there was a long

  row of bottles waiting, white bottles with

  bright orange labels.

  the girl at the desk looked at me.

  “take 4 of those bottles.”

  I did.

  she didn’t offer me a bag so I stuck

  them in my pockets.

  “that’ll be $143,” she said.

  “$143?” I asked.

  “it’s for the pills,” she said.

  I pulled out my credit card.

  “oh, we don’t take credit cards,” she told

  me.

  “but I don’t have that much money on

  me.”

  “how much do you have?”

  I looked in my wallet.

  “23 dollars.”

  “we’ll take that and bill you for the

  rest.”

  I handed her the money.

  “see you in 30 days,” she smiled.

  I walked out and into the waiting room.

  the man who had been waiting an hour-and-

  a-half was still there.

  I walked out into the hall, found the

  elevator.

  then I was on the first floor and out

  into the parking lot.

  my car was still a football field

  away

  and my right leg began to hurt like hell,

  after all that twisting Dr.

  Manx had done to it.

  I moved slowly to my car, got in.

  it started and soon I was out on the

  boulevard again.

  the 4 bottles of pills bulged painfully in my

  pockets as I drove along.

  now I only had one problem left, I had

  to tell my wife

  I had a Mystery Leg.

  I could hear her already:

  “what? you mean he couldn’t tell

  you what was wrong with your

  leg?

  what do you mean, he didn’t

  know?

  and what are those PILLS?

  here, let me see those!”

  as I drove along, I switched on the

  radio in search of some soothing

  music.

  there wasn’t any.

  BE COOL, FOOL

  you have to accept this

  reality.

  whether you

  sit at a punch press all day or

  whether you

&
nbsp; work in a coal mine or

  whether you come home

  exhausted from a cardboard box factory

  to find

  3 kids bouncing dirty tennis balls

  against the walls of a

  2 room flat as

  your fat wife sleeps while

  the dinner burns

  away.

  you have to accept this

  reality

  which includes enough nations with

  enough nuclear stockpiles to

  blow away the very center of the

  earth

  and to finally liberate

  the Devil

  Himself

  with his

  spewing red fire of liquid

  doom.

  you have to accept this

  reality

  as the madhouse walls

  bulge

  break

  and the terrified insane

  flood our

  ugly streets.

  you have to accept terrible

  reality

  AN UNLITERARY AFTERNOON

  Roger came by with his well-trimmed beard and puffing his

  little pipe.

  he taught in the English Dept. at a prestigious university.

  Roger was literary in the old-fashioned sense: almost every time he opened his mouth you would hear

  “Balzac” or “Hem” or “F. Scott.”

  I was drinking with Gerda who was also on speed.

  Lorraine was passed out in the bedroom but I don’t know

  what she was on.

  Roger sat down with his little smile.

  I gave him a can of beer and he drank that and I gave

  him another and he began talking away:

  “did you know that Céline and Hemingway died on the

  same day?”

  “no, I didn’t know that.”

  “did you know Whitman might have been a fag?”

  “don’t believe everything you read.”

  “hey, who’s that babe in your bed?”

  “her? that’s Lorraine.”

  after a while Roger got up and

  walked into the bedroom and climbed into bed with

  Lorraine, shoes and all.

  Lorraine didn’t seem to notice.

  “hey … baby!”

  Roger reached into her dress and grabbed one of her

  breasts.

  Lorraine leaped out of bed. “hey, you son-of-a-bitch! what

  do you think you’re doing?”

  “oh, I’m sorry …”

  Lorraine ran into the front room.

  “WHO IS THAT SON-OF-A-BITCH? THAT SON-OF-A-BITCH

  MOLESTED ME!”

  Roger came out of the bedroom, “listen, I’m sorry,

  I didn’t mean to offend you!”

  “YOU KEEP YOUR MOTHERFUCKING HANDS TO YOURSELF, YOU

  FUCKING HUNK OF SHIT!”

  “yeah,” said Gerda, throwing an empty can of beer on the

  rug. “go play with yourself!”

  Roger walked to the door, opened it, stood there for a moment,

  closed it behind him and was

  gone.

  “WHO WAS THAT PERVERT?” Lorraine asked.

  “yeah? who?” asked Gerda.

  “that was my friend Roger,” I said.

  “YEAH? WELL, YOU BETTER TELL HIM TO KEEP HIS HANDS TO

  HIMSELF!”

  “I will,” I told Lorraine.

  “I don’t know where you get your fucking friends,”

  Gerda said.

  “neither do I,” I replied.

  POOP

  I remember, he told me, that when I was 6 or

  7 years old my mother was always taking me

  to the doctor and saying, “he hasn’t pooped.”

  she was always asking me, “have you

  pooped?”

  it seemed to be her favorite question.

  and, of course, I couldn’t lie, I had real problems

  pooping.

  I was all knotted up inside.

  my parents did that to me.

  I looked at those huge beings, my father,

  my mother, and they seemed really stupid.

  sometimes I thought they were just pretending

  to be stupid because nobody could really be that

  stupid.

  but they weren’t pretending.

  they had me all knotted up inside like a pretzel.

  I mean, I had to live with them, they told

  me what to do and how to do it and when.

  they fed, housed and clothed me.

  and worst of all, there was no other place for

  me to go, no other choice:

  I had to stay with them.

  I mean, I didn’t know much at that age

  but I could sense that they were lumps

  of flesh and little else.

  dinnertime was the worst, a nightmare

  of slurps, spittle and idiotic conversation.

  I looked straight down at my plate and tried

  to swallow my food but

  it all turned to glue inside.

  I couldn’t digest my parents or the food.

  that must have been it, for it was hell for me

  to poop.

  “have you pooped?”

  and there I’d be in the doctor’s office once again.

  he had a little more sense than my parents but

  not much.

  “well, well, my little man, so you haven’t pooped?”

  he was fat with bad breath and body odor and

  had a pocket watch with a large gold chain

  that dangled across his gut.

  I thought, I bet he poops a load.

  and I looked at my mother.

  she had large buttocks,

  I could picture her on the toilet,

  sitting there a little cross-eyed, pooping.

  she was so placid, so

  like a pigeon.

  poopers both, I knew it in my heart.

  disgusting people.

  “well, little man, you just can’t poop,

  huh?”

  he made a little joke of it: he could,

  she could, the world could.

  I couldn’t.

  “well, now, we’re going to give you

  these pills.

  and if they don’t work, then guess

  what?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “come on, little man, tell me.”

  all right, I decided to say it.

  I wanted to get out of there:

  “an enema.”

  “an enema,” he smiled.

  then he turned to my mother.

  “and are you all right, dear?”

  “oh, I’m fine, doctor!”

  sure she was.

  she pooped whenever she wanted.

  then we would leave the office.

  “isn’t the doctor a nice man?”

  no answer from me.

  “isn’t he?”

  “yes.”

  but in my mind I changed it to, yes,

  he can poop.

  he looked like a poop.

  the whole world pooped while I

  was knotted up inside like a pretzel.

  then we would walk out on the street

  and I would look at the people passing

  and all the people had behinds.

  “that’s all I ever noticed,” he told me,

  “it was horrible.”

  “we must have had similar

  childhoods,” I said.

  “somehow, that doesn’t help at all,”

  he said.

  “we’ve both got to get over this

  thing,” I said.

  “I’m trying,” he

  answered.

  THE END OF AN ERA

  parties at my place were

  always marred by

  violence:

  mine.
/>   it was what

  attracted

  them: the

  would-be

  writers

  and the

  would-be

  women.

  the writers?

  the

  women? I could always hear

  them

  buzzing in the far

  corners:

  “when’s he going to

  get mean?

  he always

  does!”

  at all those parties

  I enjoyed

  the beginnings the

  middles

  but as each night

  unfolded toward

  morning

  something

  somebody

  would truly enrage

  me

  and I’d find myself

  picking up some

  guy

  and

  hurling him off the

  front porch:

  that was

  the quickest way to

  get rid of

  them.

  well,

  one particular

  night

  I made up my

  mind

  to see it

  through

  to the end

  without

  untoward

  incident

  and I was

  walking into the

  kitchen

  for another

  drink

  when

  I was

  pounced upon

  from

  behind

  by

  Peter the

  bookstore

  owner.

  this bookstore

  owner had more

  mental problems than

  most of

  them

  and

  as he held me

  in this excellent

  choke-hold from the

  rear

  his madness gave

  him superb

  strength

  and as the milk-brains

  in the other room

  babbled on about how to

  save the

  world

  I was being

  murdered.

  I thought I was

  finished.

  I saw

  bright flashes of

  light.

  I could no longer

  breathe

  I felt my heart

  beating and my

  temples

  throb.

  like a trapped

  animal

  I gave it one last

  effort

  grabbed him

  behind the

  neck

  bent my back

  and carried him

  like that.

  rushed into the

  kitchen

  ducked my head

  low

  at the last

  moment

  and

  smashed his skull

  against the kitchen

  wall.

  I steadied myself

  a moment

  then picked him

  up and carried him

  into the other

  room

  and dumped him into

  the lap

  of his

  girlfriend

  where from the

  safety of her