better or worse or
anything
so I relax around her and
hear various astounding things
about sex
life in general and life in particular;
mostly it’s very
easy
except I became a father when most men
become grandfathers, I am a very late starter
in everything,
and I stretch on the grass and sand
and she rips dandelions up
and places them in my
hair
while I doze in the sea breeze.
I awaken
shake
say, “what the hell?”
and flowers fall over my eyes and over my nose
and over my lips.
I brush them away
and she sits above me
giggling.
daughter,
right or wrong,
I do love you,
it’s only that sometimes I act as if
you weren’t there,
but there have been fights with women
notes left on dressers
factory jobs
flat tires in Compton at 3 a.m.,
all those things that keep
people from
knowing each other and
worse than
that.
thanks for the
flowers.
I can hear the sound of human lives being ripped to pieces
strange warmth, hot and cold females,
I make good love, but love isn’t just
sex, and most females I’ve known are
very ambitious, and I like to lie around
on large pillows on mattresses at 3 o’clock
in the afternoon, I like to watch the sun
through the leaves of a bush outside
while the world out there
holds away from me, I know it so well, all
those dirty pages, and I like to lie around
my belly up to the ceiling after making love
everything flowing in:
nectarines, used boxing gloves, history books of the
Crimean War;
it’s so easy to be easy—if you like it, that’s all
that’s necessary.
but the female is strange, she is very
ambitious—“Shit! I can’t sleep away the day!
Eat! Make love! Sleep! Eat! Make love!”
“My dear,” I tell her, “there are men out there now
picking tomatoes, lettuce, even cotton,
there are men and women dying under the sun,
there are men and women dying in factories
for nothing, a pittance . . .
I can hear the sound of human lives being ripped to
pieces . . .
you don’t know how lucky we
are . . .”
“But you’ve got it made,” she says,
“your poems . . .”
my love gets out of bed.
I hear her in the other room.
the typewriter is working.
I don’t know why people think effort and energy
have anything to do with
creation.
I suppose that in matters like politics, medicine,
history and religion
they have been lied to
also.
I turn on my belly and fall asleep with my
ass to the ceiling.
for those 3
going crazy
sitting around listening to Chopin
waltzes, having slept with 3 different women
in 3 different states
in two weeks, the pace has been
difficult, sitting in airport bars
holding hands with beautiful ladies
who had read Tolstoy, Turgenev and
Bukowski.
amazing how completely a lady can give her
love—when she wants
to.
now the ladies are far away
and I sit here barefooted
unshaven, drinking beer and
listening to these Chopin
waltzes, and
thinking of each of the ladies
and I wonder if they think of me
or am I just a book of poems
lost in with other books of poems?
lost in with Turgenev and Tolstoy.
no matter. they gave enough.
when they touch my book now
they will know the shape of my body
they will know my laughter and my love and
my sadness.
my thanks.
blue moon, oh bleweeww mooooon how I adore you!
I care for you, darling, I love you,
the only reason I fucked L. is because you fucked
Z. and then I fucked R. and you fucked N.
and because you fucked N. I had to fuck
Y. But I think of you constantly, I feel you
here in my belly like a baby, love I’d call it,
no matter what happens I’d call it love, and so
you fucked C. and then before I could move again
you fucked W., so then I had to fuck D. But
I want you to know that I love you, I think of you
constantly, I don’t think I’ve ever loved anybody
like I love you.
bow wow bow wow wow
bow wow bow wow wow.
the first love
at one time
when I was 14
the creators brought me
my only feeling of
chance.
my father disliked
books and
my mother disliked
books (because my father
disliked books)
especially those I brought back
from the library:
D. H. Lawrence
Dostoyevsky
Turgenev
Gorky
A. Huxley
Sinclair Lewis
others.
I had my own bedroom
but at 8 p.m.
we were all supposed to go to sleep:
“Early to bed and early to rise
makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise,”
my father would say.
“LIGHTS OUT!” he would shout.
then I would take the bed lamp
place it under the covers
and with the heat and the hidden light
I would continue to read:
Ibsen
Shakespeare
Chekov
Jeffers
Thurber
Conrad Aiken
others.
they brought me chance and hope and
feeling in a place of no chance
no hope, no feeling.
I worked for it.
it got hot under the covers.
sometimes the lamp would begin to smoke
or the sheets—there would be a
burning;
then I’d switch the lamp off,
hold it outside to
cool off.
without those books
I’m not quite sure
how I would have turned
out:
raving; the
murderer of the father;
idiocy; imbecility;
drab hopelessness.
when my father shouted
“LIGHTS OUT!”
I’m sure he feared
the well-written word
that appeared with gentleness
and reasonableness
in our best and
most interesting
literature.
and it was there
close to me
under the covers
more woman than woman
more man than man.
I had it all
and
I took it.
love
Sally was a sloppy
leaver. she was good with the
notes,
she wrote them with a large
indignant hand, she was
good at that.
and she always took most of her
clothes,
but I’d open the bottle
sit down and look about—
and there’d be a pink slipper
under the bed.
I’d finish the drink
and get down under the bed
to get that pink slipper and
throw it in the trash
and next to the pink slipper
I’d find a pair of shit-stained
panties.
and there were hairpins everywhere:
in the ashtray, on the dresser, in the
bathroom. and her magazines were
everywhere with their exotic covers:
“Man Rapes Girl, Then Throws Her Body from
400 Foot Cliff.”
“9 Year Old Boy Rapes 4 Women in Greyhound
Bus-Stop Restroom, Sets Fire to Repository
Disposal Units.”
Sally was a sloppy leaver.
in the top drawer next to the Kleenex
I’d find all the notes I’d ever written her,
neatly bound with 3 or 4 sets of rubber
bands.
and she was sloppy with
photos:
I’d find one of both of us
crouched on the hood of our
’58 Plymouth—
Sally showing a lot of leg
and grinning like a Kansas City gun-moll
from out of the
twenties,
and me
showing the bottoms of my shoes
with the circular waving holes
in them.
and, there were photos of dogs,
all of them ours,
and, photos of children,
most of them
hers.
every hour and twenty minutes
the phone would ring
and it would be
Sally
and a song from the juke
box, some song I
hated, and she’d keep talking
and I’d hear men’s
voices:
“Sally, Sally, forget the fuckin’ phone,
come on and sit down back,
baby!”
“you see,” she’d say, “there are other men in the
world besides you.”
“your opinion only,” I’d answer.
“I could have loved you forever, Bandini,” she’d say.
“get fucked,” I’d say and hang
up.
Bandini is manure all right
but it was also the name I had given myself
after a rather emotional and rather childish character
in a novel written by some
Italian in the 1930s.
I’d pour another drink
and while looking for a scissors in the bathroom
to trim the hair around my ears
I’d find a brassiere in one of the drawers
and hold it up to the light.
the brassiere looked all right from the outside
but inside—there was this stain of
sweat and dirt, and the stain was darkened,
molded in there
as if no washing would ever
take it
out.
I’d drink my drink
then begin to trim the hair around my ears
deciding that I was quite a handsome man.
but I’d lift the weights
go on a diet
get a tan,
anyhow.
then the phone would ring again
and I’d lift the receiver
hang up
lift the receiver again
and let it
dangle
by the cord.
I’d trim my ear hairs, my nose, my
eyebrows,
drink another hour or two,
then go to
sleep.
I’d be awakened by a sound I had never quite
heard before—
it felt and sounded like a warning of
atomic attack.
I’d get up and look for the sound.
it would be the telephone
still off the hook
but the sound that came from it
was much like a thousand wasps
burning to death. I’d
pick up the
phone.
“sir, this is the desk clerk. your phone is
off the hook.”
“all right sorry. I’ll
hang up.”
“don’t hang up, sir. your wife is on the
elevator.”
“my wife?”
“she says she’s Mrs. Budinski . . .”
“all right, it’s
possible . . .”
“sir, can you get her off the
elevator? she doesn’t understand the
controls . . . her language is abusive toward us
but she says that you’ll
help her . . . and, sir . . .”
“yes? . . .”
“we didn’t want to call the
police . . .”
“good . . .”
“she’s lying down on the floor on the
elevator, sir, and, and . . . she has . . .
urinated upon
herself . . .”
“o.k.,” I’d say and
hang up.
I’d walk out in my shorts
drink in hand
cigar in mouth
and press the elevator
button.
up it would come:
one, two, three, four . . .
the doors would open
and there would be
Sally . . . and little delicate
trickles and ripples of water lines
drifting about the elevator
floor, and some blotchy
pools.
I’d finish the drink
pick her up and
carry her out of the
elevator.
I’d get her to the apartment
throw her on the bed
and pull off her wet
panties, skirt and stockings.
then I’d put a drink on the coffee table
near her
sit down on the couch
and have another for
myself.
suddenly she’d sit straight up and
look around the
room.
“Bandini?” she’d ask.
“over here,” I’d
wave my hand.
“o, thank god . . .”
then she’d see the drink and
drink it right
down. I’d get up,
refill it, put cigarettes, ashtray and
matches
nearby.
then she’d sit up again:
“who took my panties
off?”
“me.”
“me, who?”
“Bandini . . .”
“Bandini? you can’t
fuck me . . .”
“you pissed
yourself . . .”
“who?”
“you . . .”
she’d sit straight
upright:
“Bandini, you dance like a
queer, you dance like a
woman!”
“I’ll break your god damned
nose!”
“you broke my arm, Bandini, don’t you go
breaking my nose . . .”
then she’d put her head back on the
pillow: “I love you, Bandini, I really
do . . .”
then she’d start snoring. I’d d
rink another
hour or two then
I’d get into bed with
her. I wouldn’t want to touch her
at first. she needed a bath, at
least. I’d get one leg up against hers;
it didn’t seem too
bad. I’d try the
other.
I’d start to remember all the good days and the
good nights . . .
slip one arm under her neck,
then I’d have the other around her
belly and my drunken penis
gently up against her
crotch.
her hair would come back
and climb into my nostrils.
I’d feel her inhale heavily, then
exhale. we’d sleep like that
most of the night and into the
next afternoon. then I’d get up and
go to the bathroom and vomit
and then she’d
have her turn.
raw with love (for N.W.)
little dark girl of
kindness
when it comes time to
put the knife
I won’t blame
you.
and when I drive down the shore
and the palms wave,
the ugly heavy palms
and the living do not arrive
and the dead do not leave,
I won’t blame you.
I will remember the hours of kisses
our lips raw with love
and how you offered me
your cunt your soul your insides
and how I answered
offering you whatever was left of
me,
and I will remember the shape of your room
the shape of you
your records
your walls
your coffee cups
your mornings and your noons and your nights
and your toilet and your
bathtub.
our bodies spilled together
sleeping
these tiny flowing currents
immediate and forever
crossing
criss-crossing
again and again.
your leg my leg
your arm my arm
On Love Page 4