New Poems Book Three Read online

  coming

  up the walk.

  then there was only silence

  so I took a hit of my

  drink and typed

  some more.

  suddenly there was a

  crash and

  the breaking of

  glass

  and

  a large rock

  rolled

  across the rug

  and stopped

  just next to

  where I was

  sitting.

  I heard high heels

  running back

  down the walk,

  then

  the sound

  of a car

  starting,

  then

  driving off with

  a

  roar.

  a pane of glass was

  missing

  from the

  front door.

  Sandra phoned

  two nights later.

  “how are you doing?”

  “fine.”

  “why don’t you ask me

  how I’m

  doing?”

  “o.k., all right, how

  are you

  doing?”

  “YOU ROTTEN SON OF

  A BITCH!” she

  screamed and

  hung up.

  however

  this time

  there was somebody

  there with me.

  “who was that?”

  she asked.

  “a voice from the

  past.”

  “oh, well,

  may we continue with

  our

  interview?

  what is the principal

  inspiration for your

  poetry?”

  “fucking.”

  “what?”

  “FUCKING,” I repeated

  loudly,

  then walked over

  and

  refilled her shaking

  drink.

  INTO THE WASTEBASKET

  my father liked to pretend he

  would some day be wealthy,

  he always voted Republican

  and he told me that

  if I worked hard

  every day of my life that

  I would be amply

  rewarded.

  on those occasions

  when my father had a

  job he worked hard, he

  worked so hard that nobody

  could stand him.

  “what’s the matter with that

  man? is he crazy?”

  my father was a sweating

  red-faced

  angry

  man

  and it seemed that the

  harder he tried

  the poorer he

  became.

  his blood pressure

  rose

  and his heartbeat was

  irregular.

  he smoked Camels and

  Pall Malls and

  half-full packs were scattered

  everywhere.

  he was asleep by

  8 p.m. and up at

  5 a.m. and

  he tended to scream at and

  beat his wife and

  child.

  he died early.

  and after his funeral

  I sat in the bedroom of his empty

  house

  smoking his last pack of

  Pall Malls.

  he believed that there was

  only one formula, one way:

  his.

  it wasn’t shameful for him to

  die, it was his unbending attitude

  toward life

  that bothered me

  and I spoke to him

  about it once

  and told him

  that life was just

  rather sad and

  empty

  and all we could hope

  for

  was to enjoy a few moments

  of peace and quiet

  amidst the

  turmoil.

  “you just sit on your

  ass,” he replied, “you and

  your mouth!

  well, I say the answer is

  ‘a good day’s

  work for a good day’s

  pay!’”

  come to think of it,

  if I was unhappy

  it wasn’t completely

  my father’s fault

  and after I smoked the last

  Pall Mall cigarette

  in that last pack

  I threw it away

  and then

  he too was finally

  gone

  for

  good.

  IT’S OVER AND DONE

  sensibly adorned with its iron cross

  the red fokker sails my brain

  and

  as my father opens a door from hell and screams my name

  up from below

  I know that it is time to

  accept what is true:

  while there can be no reconciliation

  between us

  to carp about old wounds is a stupid waste of the heart.

  sensibly adorned with its iron cross

  the red fokker flies away

  and disappears over Brazil

  and I close my eyes

  as

  the light fails in the eye of the falcon,

  and the useless anger of the living

  for the dead

  is

  lost

  forever.

  NICE GUY

  I broke his bank, totaled his car and slept with

  his wife.

  of course, everybody was sleeping with his

  wife but a nicer guy you never

  met.

  T.K. Kemper played a couple of years with

  the Green Bay Packers

  then a bad knee got him.

  he went into automotive repair,

  did very good work.

  he was a

  lousy card player though; we’d get him

  drunk and take it all from

  him,

  his wife lurking in the background, her tits

  hanging out.

  T.K. Kemper.

  big, big guy.

  hands like hams.

  honest blue eyes.

  give you the shirt off his back.

  give you his back if he could.

  one night after work he saw two punks

  snatch a purse from an old

  lady.

  he ran after them trying to get that purse

  back.

  he was gaining on them when

  one of the punks turned, had a gun, fired

  5 shots.

  he was a big, big guy.

  he caught all 5 shots, hit the pavement

  hard, didn’t move.

  there was a good crowd at the funeral.

  his wife cried.

  my friend Eddie consoled her,

  then took her home and fucked

  her.

  T.K. Kemper.

  bad knee.

  good heart.

  he was not meant for this indifferent world.

  only with supreme luck did he last

  29 years.

  FEET TO THE FIRE

  June, late night, common pain like a rat trapped in

  the gut, how brave we are to continue walking through this terrible

  flame

  as

  the sun stuns us

  as a dark flood envelops us as

  we go on our way—

  filling the gas tank, flushing toilets, paying bills—as we

  float in our pain

  kick our feet

  wiggle our toes

  while listening to inept melodies

  that float in the air

  as the agony now eats the soul.

  yes, I think we’re admirable and brave but we should ha
ve

  quit

  long ago, don’tcha

  think?

  yet

  here we sit

  uncorking a new

  bottle and listening to

  Shostakovitch.

  we’ve died so many times now that we can only wonder why we still

  care.

  so

  I pour this drink for

  all of us

  and

  pour another

  for

  myself.

  THE POETRY GAME

  the boys

  are playing the poetry game

  again

  putting down

  meaningless lines

  and

  passing them off as art

  again.

  the boys

  are on the telephone

  again

  writing letters

  again

  to the publishers and

  editors

  telling them

  who to edit and who to

  publish.

  the boys

  know that either you

  belong or you

  don’t.

  there’s a way to do it

  you see

  and

  only a few know how to

  do it

  the right way.

  all the others

  are out

  and

  if you don’t know

  who’s out

  or

  who’s in

  well

  the boys

  will tell you

  again.

  the boys

  have been around a

  long time:

  for a couple of

  centuries

  at least.

  and before some of

  the old boys

  die

  they pass their wisdom on

  to the younger

  boys

  so they can put down

  meaningless lines

  and

  pass them off as art

  again.

  THE FIX IS IN

  children in the school yard, the horrors they must

  endure as they are first shaped for life to come and then

  handed a hopeless future consisting of:

  false hope

  cheap patriotism

  minimum-wage jobs

  (or no

  job at all)

  mortgages and car payments

  an indifferent government—

  the days, nights, years all finally pointing to the

  dissolution of any possible

  chance.

  as I wait in the car wash for my automobile

  I watch the children in the school yard to the west

  playing at recess.

  then a little old man waves a

  rag and whistles.

  my car is

  ready.

  I walk to my car, tip the old

  fellow: “how’s it

  going?”

  “o.k.,” he answers, “I’m hoping for it to

  rain.”

  just then the school bell rings and the children stop

  playing and troop into the large brick

  building.

  “I hope it rains too,”

  I say as I climb in and drive

  away.

  PHOTOS

  I have a photo of Baron Manfred Von Richthofen

  standing with his buddies

  and there’s his fighter plane in the background

  and further down on the wall

  there’s a photo of a red

  three-winged fokker in

  flight.

  the few people who come into this

  room (where I

  work at night)

  have seen these things

  but don’t say

  anything.

  that’s o.k.

  but between you and me

  things like that

  got me through a childhood

  that was less than

  pleasant.

  after that, it was then up to

  me.

  but I still don’t mind having old

  friends

  like this

  still hanging around.

  TONIGHT

  so many of my brain cells eaten away by

  alcohol

  I sit here drinking now

  all of my drinking partners dead,

  I scratch my belly and dream of the

  albatross.

  I drink alone now.

  I drink with myself and to myself.

  I drink to my life and to my death.

  my thirst is still not satisfied.

  I light another cigarette, turn the

  bottle slowly, admire

  it.

  a fine companion.

  years like this.

  what else could I have done

  and done so well?

  I have drunk more than the first

  one hundred men you will pass

  on the street

  or see in the madhouse.

  I scratch my belly and dream of the

  albatross.

  I have joined the great drunks of

  the centuries.

  I have been selected.

  I stop now, lift the bottle, swallow a

  mighty mouthful.

  impossible for me to think that

  some have actually stopped and

  become sober

  citizens.

  it saddens me.

  they are dry, dull, safe.

  I scratch my belly and dream of the

  albatross.

  this room is full of me and I am

  full.

  I drink this one to all of you

  and to me.

  it is past midnight now and a lone

  dog howls in the

  night.

  and I am as young as the fire that still

  burns

  now.

  A VISITOR COMPLAINS

  I

  “hey, man,” he said, “I liked your poems better when you were

  puking and living with whores and hitting the bars and ending

  up in the drunk tank and getting into alley fights.”

  then

  he went on to talk about and read his own down-to-earth

  poems.

  II

  what some poets and pundits don’t realize is how ridiculous it is

  to cling forever to the same subject

  matter.

  in time the whores wear thin: their hard

  vision, their curses, their tiny endearments become more than

  deadly.

  and as for puking you can soon get too much of

  that

  especially when it leads to a stinking bed in the

  charity ward.

  and as for alley fights I was never too good a

  warrior, I was only seeing if I had a touch of courage—

  I found some, and finding that, there was no further need to

  explore.

  I mean, you can describe a harsh lifestyle in your poems but sooner

  or later you will find it’s time to move on. if you hang on

  too long the subject matter gets thin and tiresome and, yes,

  I still love my booze but

  I can pass on the whores, the bars and the drunk tanks without feeling that

  I have sold my god-damned soul down the bloody dung-filled

  river.

  some pundits would be delighted if my poems again found me

  in some skid row alley with

  face bashed in and the flies swarming the emptiness of me.

  some pundits

  need Van Gogh madness and Mozart suffering to feed on

  or

  Dostoevsky with his back to the firing wall.

  some pundits consider misfortune t
o be the

  only viable art –

  form.

  as for Van Gogh, Mozart, Dostoevsky, etc.

  I say that they did neither choose nor welcome their

  pain and suffering.

  III

  of course, I didn’t tell this to my poet-visitor

  he was too busy

  belching and farting and woofing and poofing

  gurgling the libations I offered him

  as he read me his own exploits in the almighty

  gutter

  which were hardly believable

  and bordered on farce.

  that loud voice

  those hairy eyebrows

  that delight in personal misfortune—

  as if living badly was a triumph and

  a very proud

  accomplishment.

  his feet planted flat upon my floor

  he gave me the gut-pain he claimed was so very

  necessary and

  grand.

  BESIEGED

  you see, this wall is green and that wall is

  blue and the 3rd wall has eyes and

  the last wall is crawling with angry famished

  spiders.

  no, that wall is a sheet of frozen water

  and the other is one of melting wax

  and the 3rd frames my grandmother’s face

  and from the 4th spills the bones of my father.

  outside is the city, the city outside, a thing that

  creeps to the call of bells and lights,

  the city is an open grave,

  so I never dare to venture forth but

  rather remain and hide within

  disconnect the phone

  lower the shades and

  cut the

  lights.

  the city is more cruel than the walls

  and finally the walls are all we have

  and

  almost nothing is

  far better than

  nothing at

  all.

  THE NOVICE

  early one morning, during the Depression,

  in the railroad yard, when I was 20 years old,

  I walked alone along the Union Pacific tracks.

  I was apprehensive as

  on the first day on that job

  I walked to where we all checked in.

  3 dark figures stood in the way

  expressionless faces

  legs spread a bit;

  as I got closer one of them grabbed his crotch

  the other 2 leered;

  I walked quickly up to them and

  at the last moment they parted.

  I walked past them

  stopped and

  turned: “I’ll take on any one of you

  one at a time.

  anybody

  want to try it now?”

  nobody moved

  nobody spoke

  I walked over

  found my timecard in the rack and

  punched in.

  the foreman came over

  his face even uglier than mine.

  he said: “listen, we do our work around here

  we don’t want any trouble-makers.”

  I went to work.

  later while I was scrubbing down a boxcar

  with water and an oakite brush