The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966 Read online

  He was very bitter.

  It is best to go for the eye,

  smash the cornea,

  blind him,

  then strangle him with rope.

  My mother suggested an old bathing cap

  down the throat.

  Not so. Not so.

  Be safe. Be wise.

  Tell him to seek the stars

  and he will kill himself with climbing.

  Tell him about Chatterton. Villon.

  Make suggestions.

  Take your time.

  He will do it himself.

  There is no hurry. Time means nothing

  to you.

  Goldfish

  my goldfish stares with watery eyes

  into the hemisphere of my sorrow;

  upon the thinnest of threads

  we hang together,

  hang hang hang

  in the hangman’s noose;

  I stare into his place and

  he into mine…

  he must have thoughts,

  can you deny this?

  he has eyes and hunger

  and his love too

  died in January; but he is

  gold, really gold, and I am grey

  and it is indecent to search him out,

  indecent like the burning of peaches

  or the rape of children,

  and I turn and look elsewhere,

  but I know that he is there behind me,

  one gold goblet of blood,

  one thing alone

  hung between the reddest cloud

  of purgatory

  and apt. no. 303.

  god, can it be

  that we are the same?

  Sleep

  she was a short one

  getting fat and she had once been

  beautiful and

  she drank the wine

  she drank the wine in bed and

  talked and screamed and cursed at

  me

  and i told her

  please, I need some

  sleep.

  —sleep? sleep? you son of a

  bitch, you never sleep, you

  don’t need any

  sleep!

  I buried her one morning early

  I carried her down the sides of the Hollywood Hills

  brambles and rabbits and rocks

  running in front of me

  and by the time I’d dug the ditch

  and stuck her in

  belly down

  and put the dirt back on

  the sun was up and it was warm

  and the flies were lazy and

  I could hardly see anything out of my eyes

  everything was so

  warm and yellow.

  I managed to drive home and I got into bed and I

  slept for 5 days and 4

  nights.

  Hello, Willie Shoemaker

  the Chinaman said don’t take the hardware

  and gave me a steak I couldn’t cut (except the fat)

  and there was an ant circling the coffee cup;

  I left a dime tip and broke out a stick of cancer,

  and outside I gave an old bum who looked about

  the way I felt, I gave him a quarter,

  and then I went up to see the old man

  strong as steel girders, fit for bombers and blondes,

  up the green rotten steps that housed rats

  and past the secretaries showing leg and doing nothing

  and the old man sat there looking at me

  through two pairs of glasses and a vacation in Paris,

  and he said, Kid, I hear you been takin’ Marylou out,

  and I said, just to dinner, boss,

  and he said, just to dinner, eh? you couldn’t hold

  that broad’s pants on with all the rivets on 5th street,

  and please remember you are a shipping clerk,

  I am the boss here and I pay these broads and I pay you.

  yes, sir, I said, and I felt he was going to skip it

  but he slid my last check across the desk

  and I took it and walked out

  past

  all the lovely legs, the skirts pulled up to the ass,

  Marylou’s ass, Ann’s ass, Vicki’s ass, all of them,

  and I went down to the bar

  and George said whatya gonna do now,

  and I said go to Russia or Hollywood Park,

  and I looked up in time to see Marylou come in,

  the long thin nose, the delicate face, the lips, the legs,

  the breasts, the music, the talk the love the laughing

  and she said

  I quit when I found out

  and the bastard got down on his knees and cried

  and kissed the hem of my skirt and offered me money

  and I

  walked out

  and he blubbered like a baby.

  George, I said, another drink, and I put a quarter in

  the juke

  and the sun came out

  and I looked outside in time to see the old bum

  with my quarter

  and a little more luck

  that had turned into a happy wine-bottle,

  and a bird even flew by cheep cheep,

  right there on Eastside downtown, no kidding,

  and the Chinaman came in for a quickie

  claiming somebody had stolen a spoon and a coffee cup

  and I leaned over and bit Marylou on the ear

  and the whole joint rocked with music and freedom

  and I decided that Russia was too far away

  and Hollywood Park just close enough.

  The Literary Life

  There is this long still knife somehow like a

  cossack’s sword…

  and C. writes that Ferlinghetti has written

  a poem about Castro. well, all the boys

  are doing poems on Castro now, only

  Castro’s not that good

  or that bad—just a small horse

  in a big race.

  I see this knife on the stove and I move it to

  the breadboard…

  after a while it is time to look around and

  listen to the engines and wonder if it’s

  raining; after a while writing won’t help

  anymore, and drinking won’t help anymore, or

  even a good piece of ass won’t.

  I see this knife on the breadboard and I move it

  to the sink…

  this wallpaper here: how many years was it here

  before I arrived?…this cigarette in my hand

  it is like a thing itself, like a donkey walking

  uphill…somebody took my candle and candle-

  holder: a lady with red hair and a white face

  standing near the closet, saying, “Can I have

  this? can I really have this?”

  The edge of the knife is not as sharp as it should

  be…but the point, the point fascinates, the way

  they grind it down like that—symmetry, real Art,

  and I pick up this breadknife and walk into the

  dining room…

  Larsen says we mustn’t take ourselves so

  seriously. Hell, I’ve been telling him that

  for 8 years!

  There is this full length mirror in the hall. I

  can see myself in it and I look, at last.

  It hasn’t rained in 175 days and it

  is as quiet as a sleeping peacock. a

  friend of mine shoots pool in a hall across from

  the university where he teaches English, and when

  he gets tired of that, he drags out a .357 magnum

  and splits the rocks in half BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

  while figuring just where the word will fit real

  good. In front of the mirror I cut swift circles in the

  air, dividing sides of light. I am hypnotized,

  uns
ettled, embarrassed. my nose is pink, my

  cheeks are pink, my throat is white, the phone

  rings like a wall sliding down and I answer

  “Nothing, no, I’m not doing anything…”

  it is a dull conversation but it is soon over. I

  walk to the window and open it. the cars go by

  and a bird turns on the wire and looks at me. I

  think 3 centuries ahead, of myself dead that long

  and life seems very odd…like a crack of

  light in a buried tomb.

  the bird flies away and I walk to the machine and

  sit down:

  Dear Willie:

  I got your letter, everything fine

  here…

  Countryside

  I drive my car

  through a valley

  where

  (very oddly)

  young girls sit on fencerails

  showing impartial leg and

  haunch

  in butterglory sun,

  young girls painting

  cows and

  trees in heat

  painting

  old farms that sit like

  pools of impossibility

  on unplanted ground,

  ground as still and insane

  as the weathervanes

  stuck northwest

  in the degenerate air;

  I drive on

  with the girls and their brushes and

  their taffy bodies stuck inside my

  head like

  toothache,

  and I get out

  much farther down the road

  walk into a peeling white cafe

  and am handed water in a glass as

  thick as a

  lip, and

  4 people sit

  eating,

  eyes obsessed with molecules of no

  urgency;

  I order a veal cutlet and the

  waitress walks away

  trussed in white flat linen

  and I sit and watch and wait

  so disattached I wish I could

  cry or curse or break the water glass;

  instead I pour cream into the

  coffee

  I think of the girls and the cows,

  stir the cream with a damaged and

  apologetic

  tinkle

  then decide

  not to think or feel anymore

  that day.

  Death Wants More Death

  death wants more death, and its webs are full:

  I remember my father’s garage, how child-like

  I would brush the corpses of flies

  from the windows they had thought were escape—

  their sticky, ugly, vibrant bodies

  shouting like dumb crazy dogs against the glass

  only to spin and flit

  in that second larger than hell or heaven

  onto the edge of the ledge,

  and then the spider from his dank hole

  nervous and exposed

  the puff of body swelling

  hanging there

  not really quite knowing,

  and then knowing—

  something sending it down its string,

  the wet web,

  toward the weak shield of buzzing,

  the pulsing;

  a last desperate moving hair-leg

  there against the glass

  there alive in the sun,

  spun in white;

  and almost like love:

  the closing over,

  the first hushed spider-sucking:

  filling its sack

  upon this thing that lived;

  crouching there upon its back

  drawing its certain blood

  as the world goes by outside

  and my temples scream

  and I hurl the broom against them:

  the spider dull with spider-anger

  still thinking of its prey

  and waving an amazed broken leg;

  the fly very still,

  a dirty speck stranded to straw;

  I shake the killer loose

  and he walks lame and peeved

  towards some dark corner

  but I intercept his dawdling

  his crawling like some broken hero,

  and the straws smash his legs

  now waving

  above his head

  and looking

  looking for the enemy

  and somehow valiant,

  dying without apparent pain

  simply crawling backward

  piece by piece

  leaving nothing there

  until at last the red gut-sack splashes

  its secrets,

  and I run child-like

  with God’s anger a step behind,

  back to simple sunlight,

  wondering

  as the world goes by

  with curled smile

  if anyone else

  saw or sensed my crime.

  Eat

  talking of death

  is like talking of

  money—

  we neither know the

  price or the

  worth,

  yet looking down at my hands

  I can guess

  a little.

  man’s made for guessing and for

  failure

  and woman

  for the rest.

  when the time comes

  I hope I can remember

  eating a pear.

  we are sick now

  with so many dead

  dogs

  skulls

  armies

  flowers

  continents.

  there is a fight—

  this is it:

  against the mechanics

  of the thing.

  eat a good pear today

  so tomorrow

  you can

  remember

  it.

  10 Lions and the End of the World

  in a national magazine of repute

  (yes, I was reading it)

  I saw a photograph of lions

  crossing a street

  in some village

  and taking their time;

  that’s the way

  it should be

  and some day when

  they turn out the lights

  and the whole thing’s over,

  I’ll be sitting here

  in the chalky smoke

  thinking of those 10 damned

  (yes, I counted them)

  lions

  blocking traffic

  while the roses bloomed.

  we all ought to

  do that

  now

  while there’s

  t

  i

  m

  e.

  The Blackbirds Are Rough Today

  lonely as a dry and used orchard

  spread over the earth

  for use and surrender.

  shot down like an ex-pug selling

  dailies on the corner.

  taken by tears like

  an aging chorus girl

  who has gotten her last check.

  a hanky is in order your lord your

  worship.

  the blackbirds are rough today

  like

  ingrown toenails

  in an overnight

  jail—

  wine wine whine,

  the blackbirds run around and

  fly around

  harping about

  Spanish melodies and bones.

  and everywhere is

  nowhere—

  the dream is as bad as

  flapjacks and flat tires:

  why do we go on

  with our minds and

  pockets full of

  dust

  like a bad boy just out of

  school—

  you tell
<
br />   me,

  you who were a hero in some

  revolution

  you who teach children

  you who drink with calmness

  you who own large homes

  and walk in gardens

  you who have killed a man and own a

  beautiful wife

  you tell me

  why I am on fire like old dry

  garbage.

  we might surely have some interesting

  correspondence.

  it will keep the mailman busy.

  and the butterflies and ants and bridges and

  cemeteries

  the rocket-makers and dogs and garage mechanics

  will still go on a

  while

  until we run out of stamps

  and/or

  ideas.

  don’t be ashamed of

  anything; I guess God meant it all

  like

  locks on

  doors.

  A Word on the Quick and Modern Poem-Makers

  it is quite easy to appear modern

  while in reality being the biggest damnfool

  ever born;

  I know: I have gotten away with some awful stuff

  but not nearly such awful pot as I read in the journals;

  I have an honesty self-born of whores and hospitals

  that will not allow me to pretend to be

  something which I am not—

  which is a double failure: the failure of people

  in poetry

  and the failure of people

  in life.

  and when you fail in poetry

  you fail life,