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  bottom.

  and he says things like,

  “Shakespeare bores me.”

  Shakespeare!

  imagine that!

  and the only people he cares to see

  now are the Hollywood stars!

  he doesn’t want to see anybody

  else.

  well, I don’t want to see him

  either.

  I remember when he lived

  in rooms the size of a

  closet.

  now that he has had a few books

  published

  he’s too good for the

  rest of us!

  look, I’m tired of talking about

  Chinaski.

  I want you to look at these

  poems here.

  my Collected Works,

  my work of a lifetime.

  I sent them to Chinaski for a

  reading,

  asked for a foreword or

  at least a

  blurb.

  that was two months ago and

  not a word from him

  since.

  not even a sign that

  he’s received the

  stuff.

  and I got him his start!

  I got him in that prestigious anthology!

  and then he asked his publishers not

  to publish me!

  tremor

  at 9:50 the dogs started barking.

  a few minutes later there was an earthquake

  near Palm Springs.

  the television stations break into their

  programs with the news.

  then the radio stations begin belaboring

  the situation and

  the earthquake experts at Caltech are

  asked for their opinion.

  the announcers are in their element.

  phones begin to ring

  in radio stations all

  over the city.

  yes, it was a quake.

  yes, there will be aftershocks.

  yes, we should check for gas leaks

  and run a supply of water into the tub.

  yes, we are all as one now.

  yes, we have something we can all talk about

  and we can talk about it

  together.

  yes, we should all call our friends

  to be sure they’re safe.

  (I can only wonder,

  will some say they were copulating when

  it happened?

  will others have been sitting on the

  toilet?

  so many people may have been copulating

  or sitting on the toilet!)

  the announcer continues:

  what’s that, caller?

  you say you were copulating on the toilet

  when it happened?

  this is no time to be funny!

  now we will switch to our Eye in the

  Sky.

  Henderson?

  Henderson, are you there?

  Henderson?

  very well, ladies and gentlemen, we seem to have

  lost contact with Henderson

  so we’ll go to our roving reporter who is now

  on the scene.

  Barbara, are you there?

  my Mexican buddy

  I liked him

  he was clever and he could make me laugh

  and often when he worked the case next to

  mine we would stick our letters together and

  talk

  even though it was against the

  rules.

  he had become an American citizen

  had found his way into the post office

  and owned a movie theatre in

  Mexico City.

  I usually disliked ambitious fellows

  but this guy was humorous so I forgave

  him his ambition.

  “hey, man,” he asked me one night,

  “how long has it been since you had

  a piece of ass?”

  “god, I don’t know, man, 10 years

  I guess.”

  “10 years? how old are you?”

  “50.”

  “well, listen, I’ve been shacked with this

  crazy woman, you know, and I’ve told her all

  about you and I thought I might send her

  over to your place some night, she could cook

  you dinner or something. how about it?”

  “please do not project your troubles

  upon me,” I told him.

  “I didn’t think it would work,”

  he said with a grin.

  the supervisor walked up behind us and

  stood there.

  “listen, I’ve warned you guys about

  talking!”

  “about talking when?” I asked.

  “listen,” he said, “just keep it up and I’ll

  fry your ass!”

  “you win,” I said.

  the supervisor walked away.

  interesting things like that happened there

  almost every night!

  strangers at the racetrack

  I do not want to meet

  them or

  their wife

  or look at

  photographs of

  their

  children.

  this is

  serious business

  this is

  war

  all

  the

  time.

  I look into

  their

  maledict

  eyes,

  excuse myself

  and walk

  away.

  and as

  Rome burns and as

  the odds

  flash on the

  tote board

  Lady Luck

  smiles,

  crosses

  her

  legs

  and

  applauds

  my

  grit.

  will you tiptoe through the tulips with me?

  the sky is broken like a wet sack of

  offal.

  the air stinks, I walk into a building,

  wait for the elevator, it arrives, I get in and

  join 3 people with new shoes and

  dead eyes.

  we rise toward the tenth floor.

  one of the people is a big woman

  with long brown hair.

  she begins to hum a little song.

  I hate it.

  I press the button and get off the

  elevator 2 floors

  early.

  I wait for the next elevator.

  it arrives.

  it’s empty.

  it’s a beautiful elevator.

  I go up two floors, get out and

  walk down the hall looking for

  room 1002.

  I find it.

  I go in.

  I tell the receptionist that I have a

  2 o’clock appointment.

  she tells me to be seated, that

  they will be with me

  soon.

  I sit down.

  there is only one other person in

  the waiting room.

  it is the big woman who was humming

  the little song on the

  elevator.

  now she is silent.

  she wears a green dress and

  pretends to read a

  magazine.

  I look at her legs.

  not good legs.

  I get up and walk out, walk down

  the hall.

  I find a water fountain,

  bend over, drink some

  water.

  then I walk back to

  1002.

  the woman in the green

 
dress is gone

  but where she was

  sitting on that chair

  there is her green dress,

  nicely folded, her shoes

  and her panty

  hose.

  her purse is gone.

  the receptionist slides

  back the glass partition

  and smiles at me:

  “we’ll be with you

  soon!”

  as she slides the

  partition closed

  I get up and walk out of there,

  fast.

  I take the elevator down.

  soon I am at the first floor and

  then I am outside on the

  street.

  as I walk away from the

  building I look back.

  flames are rising from

  the windows of the tenth

  floor and spreading up.

  nobody on the street seems

  to notice.

  I decide to have lunch.

  I look for a place to eat.

  I walk along humming the

  same little song that the big

  woman hummed.

  it’s now about 95 degrees on a hot

  Wednesday afternoon in

  August

  exactly one

  year from

  yesterday.

  the novel life

  one night I started

  shivering, I got ice cold, I shivered and

  shook for 2 and one half hours, the whole

  bed jumped, it was like an

  earthquake.

  “you’re panicking,” said my girl. “breathe deeply

  and try to relax.”

  “I’m not panicking,” I said. “death doesn’t

  mean shit to me. this is coming from some

  place that I don’t understand.”

  all during the freezing and shaking,

  my only thought was, well, I’ve written my 5th

  novel but I haven’t made the final revisions yet.

  it’s not fair that I die

  now.

  then I got well and revised my 5th novel and

  it’s supposed to be out next spring, so you

  know I won’t die, be killed, or catch a fatal

  disease until then.

  even in midlife I never

  dreamed I’d write a novel

  and here I’ve written 5, it’s a bloody

  miracle, a shout from the heart,

  far from the school yards of hell

  which started the luck

  and far from

  the world of hell that followed and

  which kept it

  going.

  thanks for your help

  here

  there’s less and less reason to write as they all close in.

  I’ve barricaded the doors and windows, have bottled water, canned

  food, candles, tools, rope, bandages, toothpicks, catnip,

  mousetraps, reading material, toilet paper, blankets, firearms,

  mirrors, knives

  —cigarettes, cigars, candy—

  memories, regrets, my birth certificate,

  photographs of

  picnics

  parades

  invasions;

  I have roach spray, fine French wine, paper clips and last year’s

  calendar because

  THIS COULD BE MY LAST POEM.

  it could happen and, of course, I’ve considered and

  reconsidered

  death

  but I haven’t yet come up with how, which makes me feel

  rather foolish about everything,

  especially now.

  —just waiting is the worst.

  nothing worse than waiting

  just waiting. always hated to

  wait. what’s there about waiting that’s so

  intolerable?

  —like you’re waiting for me to finish this

  poem and

  I don’t know exactly

  how

  so I won’t.

  —so, if you happen to read this

  in a magazine or a book

  just

  rip the page out

  tear it up

  and that’s the graceful way

  to end this poem

  once and for

  all.

  I have continued regardless

  almost ever since I began writing

  decades ago

  I have been dogged by

  whisperers and gossips

  who have proclaimed

  daily

  weekly

  yearly

  that

  I can’t write anymore

  that now

  I slip

  and fall.

  when I first began

  there was much complaining about

  the content of my

  poems and stories.

  “who cares about the low life of a

  drunken bum?

  is that all he can write about,

  whores and puking?”

  and now

  their complaint is:

  “who cares about the life of a

  rich

  bum?

  why doesn’t he write about whores

  and puking

  anymore?”

  the Academics consider me

  too raw

  and I haven’t consorted with most of the

  others.

  the few people I know well have nothing to do

  with poetry.

  there has also been envy-hatred

  on the part of

  some fellow writers

  but I consider this

  one of my finest

  accomplishments.

  when I first began this dangerous

  game

  I predicted that these

  very things would

  occur.

  let them all rail:

  if it wasn’t me,

  it would just be someone

  else.

  these

  gossips and complainers,

  what have they accomplished

  anyway?

  never having risen

  they

  can neither

  slip nor

  fall.

  balloons

  I saw too many faces today

  faces like balloons.

  at times I felt like

  lifting the skin

  and asking,

  “anybody under there?”

  there are medical terms for

  fear of height

  for

  fear of

  enclosed spaces.

  there are medical terms for

  any number of

  maladies

  so

  there must be a medical term

  for:

  “too many people.”

  I’ve been stricken with

  this malady

  all my life:

  there has always been

  “too many people.”

  I saw too many faces

  today, hundreds of

  them

  with eyes, ears, lips,

  mouths, chins and so

  forth

  and

  I’ve been alone

  for several hours

  now

  and

  I feel that I am

  recovering.

  which is the good part

  but the problem

  remains

  that I know I’m going to

  have to go out there

  among them

  again.

  moving toward the dark

  if we can’t find the courage to go on,

  what will we do?

  what should we do?
<
br />   what would you do?

  if we can’t find the courage to go on,

  then

  what day

  what minute

  in what year

  did we go

  wrong?

  or was it an accumulation of all the

  years?

  I have some answers.

  to die, yes.

  to go mad, maybe.

  or perhaps to

  gamble everything away?

  if we can’t find the courage to go on,

  what should we do?

  what did all the others

  do?

  they went on

  living their lives,

  badly.

  we’ll do the same,

  probably.

  living too long

  takes more than

  time.

  the real thing

  yes, I know that you think

  I am wrong

  but

  I know what is right for me

  and what

  is not.

  may I tell you my

  dream?

  I am surrounded by

  thick cement walls,

  I am dressed in a red

  robe

  and I am sitting at an

  organ.

  there is

  not a

  sound.

  I begin to play the

  organ.

  the hiss of the notes

  is sharp and soft

  at the same

  time.

  it is a slightly bitter

  music

  but among the dark notes

  there are flashes of light and

  laughter.

  as I play,

  the incomprehensible mystery

  of the past

  and of the present

  becomes

  comprehensible.

  and best of all,

  as I play,

  nobody hears the music

  but me.

  the music is only for

  me.

  that is my