New Poems Book Three Read online

  wrong and only realize that two weeks

  later;

  or how your boyfriend screwed you from

  behind as you raced his motorcycle;

  or how she gave you a blow job at

  midnight as you drove her car

  somewhere through the Arizona desert.

  the personal would be all right if it was

  better told

  but all these little poems

  are just like listening to

  somebody blowing wind your way

  from the next

  barstool.

  which reminds me:

  there was this night when I was sitting

  in a bar and …

  HOW TO GET AWAY?

  things have never been

  good

  and they don’t intend to

  get better,

  and the curious thing

  is

  that the same horrors that

  plagued you in childhood

  continue

  in different ways,

  with different faces

  that speak

  with the same

  voice, the same

  complaints, the same

  hatreds,

  the same cruel

  demands:

  how easily these faces

  grow angry

  over the slightest

  triviality

  and how

  joyless, how

  consistently, grimly,

  joyless these faces

  are, it’s as if your father

  or some implacable enemy

  had come back now

  with another

  face, now more

  vengeful

  than ever.

  must we go to the grave

  having been

  forever followed

  by vengeful

  faces?

  THE DIFFICULTY OF BREATHING

  small

  unnerving occurrences

  keep

  coming up

  one

  after the other:

  haphazard

  dumb

  accidents of

  freakish

  chance—

  the tiring tasks

  that are part

  of our routine

  and the

  sundry other

  ever-recurring

  annoyances—

  all these

  inevitable

  small defeats

  and sorrows

  rub and push

  continually

  up against

  the

  moments

  the days

  the years

  until

  one almost

  wishes

  almost

  begs for

  a larger

  more meaningful

  destiny.

  I can

  almost understand

  why

  people

  leap

  from

  bridges.

  I even

  understand

  in part those

  people who

  arm themselves

  and

  slaughter their

  friends and innocent

  strangers.

  I am

  not exactly

  in sympathy

  with them

  and I decry

  their reckless behavior

  but I can

  understand

  the

  ultimate

  undeniable

  persistent

  force of

  their

  misery.

  the horrific violent

  failure

  of any one

  of us

  to live properly

  says to me that

  we are all equally

  guilty

  for every human

  crime.

  there are

  no

  innocents.

  and if there is

  no

  hell,

  those who coldly

  judge these

  unfortunates

  will

  create

  one for us

  all.

  HELP WANTED AND RECEIVED

  I’m stale sitting here

  at this typewriter, the door open on my

  little balcony when suddenly there is a roar in the sky,

  Bruckner shouts back from

  the radio and then the rain comes down glorious and violent,

  and I realize that

  it’s good that the world can explode this way

  because now

  I am renewed, listening and watching as

  droplets of rain splash on my wristwatch.

  the torrent of rain clears my brain and my

  spirit

  as

  a long line of blue lightning splits

  the night sky.

  I smile inside, remembering that

  someone once said, “I’d rather be lucky than good,” and I quickly

  think, “I’d rather be lucky and good”

  as tonight

  as Bruckner sets the tone

  as the hard rain continues to fall

  as another blue streak of lightning

  explodes in the sky

  I’m grateful that for the moment I’m

  both.

  HEART IN THE CAGE

  frenzy in the marketplace.

  cities burn.

  the world shakes and calls for

  democracy.

  democracy doesn’t work.

  Christianity doesn’t work.

  nor Atheism.

  nothing works but the gun

  and the man on

  top.

  the centuries change and

  Man remains the

  same.

  love buckles and dissolves:

  hatred is the only

  reality

  on continents and in

  rooms of two

  people.

  nothing works but the gun

  and the man on

  top.

  all else is

  meaningless.

  frenzy in the marketplace.

  cities burn

  to be rebuilt to

  burn again.

  democracy doesn’t work.

  Christianity doesn’t work.

  nor Atheism.

  it’s just the gun,

  the gun and the man on

  top.

  PLACES TO DIE AND PLACES TO HIDE

  not a chance.

  nothing.

  put your shoes on,

  take them off.

  ride a bicycle through a park in Paris.

  read the great works of our time.

  nothing.

  watch the trapeze artist fall to his death.

  no chance.

  blink your eyes, scratch your nose.

  nothing.

  sit in the dentist’s chair and stare into the face of God.

  nothing.

  watch the 6 horse break from the gate like a cannonball.

  no chance,

  the 8 horse has its number.

  no chance in Vegas.

  no chance in Monte Carlo.

  no chance here in Southern California.

  no hope at the North Pole.

  put your shoes on,

  take them off.

  nothing.

  the windows shine in the black morning

  a Chinese Jew shivers in the frost.

  I bury my father in a green cloak.

  no chance.

  I can’t endure the odds but I must.

  it’s inbred,

  I’m stuck.

  there are my shoes under the bed.

  look at them.

  cold, dead with laces.

 
no chance.

  the sadness roars, leaps at the walls.

  one of my cats stares at something unseen.

  I smile, nod.

  nothing.

  nothing new.

  I rip the cellophane off my cigar.

  nothing happens.

  all of civilization collapses like a mighty wave.

  a moth tentatively enters the room.

  the music stops.

  POEM FOR THE YOUNG AND TOUGH

  yes, it’s true—I’m mellowing.

  in the old days

  to cross my room you’d have to

  step around and between

  discarded trash and empty

  bottles but

  now the trash is

  packed neatly into

  sturdy garbage cans;

  also I’m a good citizen, I save

  my bottles for the city of Los

  Angeles to

  recycle

  and I haven’t been in a drunk

  tank for a good ten

  years.

  boring, isn’t it?

  but not for me as I now

  stay in at night,

  listen to

  Mahler and watch the walls

  dance;

  as a newly mellow recluse that’s good enough

  for me.

  so I’m turning the streets back over

  to you,

  tough guy.

  OW

  whenever I see a photo of myself

  I think,

  Jesus Christ, look at that ugly

  bloated

  whale of a fish!

  no wonder I had such a problem

  getting them

  from the couch to the

  bedroom

  and had to get

  myself

  drunk

  before attempting

  it.

  MY DOOM SMILES AT ME—

  there’s no other way:

  8 or ten poems a

  night.

  in the sink

  behind me are dishes

  that haven’t been

  washed in 2

  weeks.

  the sheets need

  changing

  and the bed is

  unmade.

  half the lights are

  burned-out here.

  it gets darker

  and darker

  (I have replacement

  bulbs but can’t get them

  out of their cardboard

  wrapper.) Despite my

  dirty shorts in the

  bathtub

  and the rest of my dirty

  laundry on the

  bedroom floor,

  they haven’t

  come for me yet

  with their badges and

  their rules and their

  numb ears. oh, them

  and their caprice!

  like the fox

  I run with the hunted and

  if I’m not the happiest

  man on earth I’m surely the

  luckiest man

  alive.

  HEY, KAFKA!

  tonight,

  in this very dark

  night,

  looking out the window

  at the lights in the

  harbor,

  there’s very little to

  think about or

  do.

  I smile, looking at

  my hands—

  I always had small

  hands.

  now

  day by day

  they seem to be

  growing

  larger.

  is it some type of terrible

  disease?

  alone in the room

  I laugh

  loudly

  at the thought of

  my hands

  growing so

  LARGE

  that they can’t

  fit all of me

  into my

  casket.

  what a delightful frightening

  thought!

  “what’s wrong with this

  son of a bitch? his

  hands are the size of

  his body!”

  then

  I forget all that and

  look out at the lights

  again.

  A STRANGE VISIT

  20 years ago when

  I was a starving writer

  a lady in a gold Cadillac

  pulled up outside my humble place

  got out and

  knocked on the door.

  she was well dressed,

  smiling,

  really beautiful.

  she sat on my couch

  and I poured her a drink

  as she said,

  “I am the Queen of

  Rats in a woman’s

  body.”

  “you look great,”

  I said

  “I have come to invite you to live

  with us

  in Rat Kingdom.

  the world is going to end

  with a bang

  soon and all that will be left

  will be Rats and a few

  roaches.

  we admire you and I have come

  to invite you to join us

  before it’s too late.”

  “come on,” I said, “let’s go

  into the bedroom and talk it

  over.”

  “you’re being frivolous,” she

  said. “I’m asking you seriously if you will

  join our Kingdom of

  Rats.

  will you?”

  “have another drink,” I

  replied, “and I’ll think it

  over.”

  she got up then, walked to the

  door, opened it, walked out.

  I stood at the window,

  watched her get into her

  gold Cadillac and drive

  off.

  20 years ago

  I thought it was someone’s

  idea of a feeble

  joke.

  now, I am no longer so

  sure.

  sometimes I think I should have

  left with her.

  other times

  I am sure that I

  did.

  1970 BLUES

  what I need, what I really need is

  a blue dog with green eyes or

  a fish that smiles like the Mona Lisa.

  what I need, what I really need is

  to never ever hear the Blue Danube Waltz

  again

  or to have to watch a baseball game on tv

  like a slow chess match moving toward death.

  what I need, what I really need is

  to dream the decent dream

  and I don’t mean the church or god

  I mean just looking up some day

  and seeing one human face midst

  the billions of strangled dying sun

  flowers.

  what I really need, what I really need is

  to laugh the way I used to laugh

  because in this cage

  there is nothing to do

  nowhere to go.

  what I need, what I really need is

  to confront the walls

  and to get ready for that motherfucker

  Death

  almost with a sense of

  glee.

  why?: because I would be

  getting away from

  you.

  who?

  you: rat with eyes like a

  woman.

  SNOW WHITE

  now continues

  the slow retreat, still tabulating the wounds, the

  escapes, the mutilated years.

  there was always something in the way, something wrong,

  there was never

  enough.

  now continues

  the slow retreat,

  pa
cking age as an extra, no peace, even now.

  you pluck a hair and find it to be white as

  snow.

  the slow retreat, no trumpets here, backing into it,

  you can only wonder, did you put up a good fight?

  or was it all just

  a stupid joke?

  we can only hope not.

  now continues

  the slow retreat, backing into it, going back until

  finally

  you reach the beginning

  and can no longer be

  found.

  SOUR GRAPES

  it’s over for me, he said, I’ve lost it.

  maybe you never had it, I said.

  oh, I had it, he said.

  how did you know you had it?

  one knows, he said, that’s all.

  well I never had it, I told him.

  that’s too fucking bad, he said.

  what is? I asked.

  too fucking bad you never had

  it, he answered.

  I don’t feel bad that I never had

  it, I said.

  I understand, he said, now go

  away and leave me alone.

  suit yourself, I said, and slid one

  barstool down.

  he just sat there staring into his

  drink.

  I don’t know what he had lost but if

  I never had it and he had lost it,

  then it seemed we were in the same

  boat.

  I decided

  some people make too damned

  much of everything and

  I finished my drink and walked

  out of there.

  FENCING WITH THE SHADOWS

  really feeling old sometimes,

  pushing to get off of the couch,

  puffing as I tie my shoes.

  no, not me,

  Jesus, please not me!

  don’t

  put me in a fucking walker next,

  plodding along.

  somehow, I couldn’t abide

  that.

  I light a cigar,

  feel better.

  at least I can still make it to the track

  every day they’re running, slam

  my bets in.

  keeps the heart warm and the

  brain hustling.

  I still drive the side streets

  in the meanest parts of

  town,

  gliding down back alleys, peering

  around,

  always curious.

  I’m still crazy,

  I’m all right,

  and I’m in and out of the doctor’s

  office, for this, for that, joking with

  the nurses.

  give me a few pills and I’m all

  right.

  got a refrigerator up here

  in my writing room

  stocked with cold ones.

  the fight is still on.

  I may be backed into a corner but I’m

  snarling in the dark.

  what’s left?

  the redemption and the glory.

  the last march of summer.

  try to put me in a walker now and I’ll

  kick your ass!

  meanwhile, here’s another cold one,

  and another.

  it will be a while before I

  see you at the finish line,