like I have it
now.
the trash men
here they come
these guys
grey truck
radio playing
they are in a hurry
it’s quite exciting:
shirt open
bellies hanging out
they run out the trash bins
roll them out to the fork lift
and then the truck grinds it upward
with far too much sound…
they had to fill out application forms
to get these jobs
they are paying for homes and
drive late model cars
they get drunk on Saturday night
now in the Los Angeles sunshine
they run back and forth with their trash bins
all that trash goes somewhere
and they shout to each other
then they are all up in the truck
driving west toward the sea
none of them know
that I am alive
REX DISPOSAL CO.
zoo
the elephants are caked with mud and tired
and the rhinos don’t move
the zebras are stupid dead stems
and the lions don’t roar
the lions don’t care
the vultures are overfed
the crocodiles don’t move
and there was a strange type of monkey,
I forget the name,
he was on a shelf up there, this male,
he topped the female and worked one off,
finished,
fell on his back and grinned,
and I said to my girlfriend,
let’s go, at last something’s happened.
back at my place we talked about it.
the zoo is a very sad place, I said,
taking my clothes off.
only those 2 monkeys seemed happy, she said,
getting out of her
clothes.
did you see that look on the male monkey’s face?
I asked.
you look just like that afterwards, she
said.
later in the mirror I saw
a strange type of monkey. and
wondered about the giraffes and the
rhinos, and the elephants, especially the
elephants.
we’ll have to go to the zoo
again.
tv
I went to this place to see a movie
on tv
Alexander the Great,
and here come the armies
ta ta ta
horses, spears, knives, swords, shields,
men falling…
then turn to a roller derby—
here’s a girl strangling another,
then back to Alexander—
a guy jumps out and assassinates Alex’s father,
Alex kills the guy, Alex is king,
back to the roller derby—
a man is down across the track and another man rams his head
with his skates—
and here come the armies
they appear to be fighting in a cave, there’s smoke and
flame, swords,
men falling—
the Thunderbirds are behind,
one girl dives under another girl’s ass,
throws her into the rail—
Alexander stands there listening to a guy who is holding
a glass of wine in his hand, and this boy is really telling
Alex wherehow, you know, and he turns his back to walk away
and Alex spears him—
the Thunderbirds are behind, they send out
Big John—
ta ta ta, here come the armies
they are splashing through water
through forests, they are going to get it
all
ta ta ta—
Big John didn’t make it,
the girls are out again now—
Alexander is dying
Alexander the Great is dying
and they pass by his pallet in the open
he is dressed in fancy black garb and looks like
Richard Burton
the boys have their helmets off as they pass
and there’s Alex’s love by the pallet, and then
Alex begins to go, some men rush up,
one asks, Alex, who do you turn the rule over to?
who will rule now?
they wait.
he says, the strongest, and he dies
we are shown the clouds, the heavens,
way up there, and—
the Thunderbirds pull it out
in the last 12 seconds, they win it
112 to 110,
the crowd is consumed with Joy,
mercury bleeds into the light,
good night, sweet prince,
hail Mary,
Jesus Christ, what a
night.
lost
no
we can’t we can’t win it
I’ve decided we can’t win it
just for a while we thought we could
but that was just for a while
now we know we can’t win it
we can’t stand still and win it
or run and win it
or do right and win it
or do wrong and win it
somebody else is going to win it
that’s why somebody else is there and
we are here
it is terrible to be defeated
in what seems to count
it will happen
to accept it is impossible
to know it is more important
than doves or switchbrakes or
love.
hot
she was hot, she was so hot
I didn’t want anybody else to have her,
and if I didn’t get home on time
she’d be gone, and I couldn’t bear that—
I’d go mad…
it was foolish I know, childish,
but I was caught in it, I was caught.
I delivered all the mail
and then Henderson put me on the night pickup run
in an old army truck,
the damn thing began to heat halfway through the run
and the night went on
me thinking about my hot Miriam
and jumping in and out of the truck
filling mailsacks
the engine continuing to heat up
the temperature needle was at the top
HOT HOT
like Miriam.
I leaped in and out
3 more pickups and into the station
I’d be, my car
waiting to get me to Miriam who sat on my blue couch
with scotch on the rocks
crossing her legs and swinging her ankles
like she did,
2 more stops…
the truck stalled at a traffic light, it was hell
kicking it over
again…
I had to be home by 8, 8 was the deadline for Miriam.
I made the last pickup and the truck stalled at a signal
1/2 block from the station…
it wouldn’t start, it couldn’t start…
I locked the doors, pulled the key and ran down to the
station…
I threw the keys down…. signed out…
your god damned truck is stalled at the signal,
I shouted,
Pico and Western…
…I ran down the hall, put the key into the door,
opened it…. her drinking glass was there, and a note:
sun of a bitch:
I wated until 5 after ate
you don’t love me
you sun of a bitch
somebody will love me
I been wateing all day
; Miriam
I poured a drink and let the water run into the tub
there were 5,000 bars in town
and I’d make 25 of them
looking for Miriam
her purple teddy bear held the note
as he leaned against a pillow
I gave the bear a drink, myself a drink
and got into the hot
water.
love
love, he said, gas
kiss me off
kiss my lips
kiss my hair
my fingers
my eyes my brain
make me forget
love, he said, gas
he had a room on the 3rd floor,
rejected by a dozen women
35 editors
and half a dozen hiring agencies,
now I’m not saying he was any
good
he turned on all the jets
without lighting them
and went to bed
some hours later a guy on his
way to room 309
lit a cigar in the
hall
and a sofa flew out the window
one wall shivered down like wet sand
a purple flame waved 40 feet high in the air
the guy in bed
didn’t know or care
but I’d have to say
he was pretty good
that day.
burn and burn and burn
I used to know a dutchman in a Philly bar
he’d take 3 raw eggs in his beer,
71, still
working,
strong,
and there I sat down from him
4 or 5 barstools away
in my 20’s
frightened
suicidal
unloved.
well, you know, sorrows beget
sorrows
burn and burn and burn and burn,
then something else takes
place.
I’m not saying it’s as good
but it’s certainly
more comfortable,
and often nights now
I think of that old dutchman—
I can look back on almost
a lifetime—
yet still remember him there
my master, then and
now.
the way
murdered in the alleys of the land
frost-bitten against flagpoles
pawned by females
educated in the dark for the dark
vomiting into plugged toilets
in rented rooms full of roaches and mice
no wonder we seldom sing
day or noon or night
the useless wars
the useless years
the useless loves
and they ask us,
why do you drink so much?
well, I suppose the days were made
to be wasted
the years and the loves were made
to be wasted.
we can’t cry, and it helps to laugh—
it’s like letting out
dreams, ideals,
poisons
don’t ask us to sing,
laughing is singing to us,
you see, it was a terrible joke
Christ should have laughed on the cross,
it would have petrified his killers
now there are more killers than ever
and I write poems for them.
out of the arms…
out of the arms of one love
and into the arms of another
I have been saved from dying on the cross
by a lady who smokes pot
writes songs and stories,
and is much kinder than the last,
much much kinder,
and the sex is just as good or better.
it isn’t pleasant to be put on the cross and left there,
it is much more pleasant to forget a love which didn’t
work
as all love
finally
doesn’t work…
it is much more pleasant to make love
along the shore in Del Mar
in room 42, and afterwards
sitting up in bed
drinking good wine, talking and touching
smoking
listening to the waves…
I have died too many times
believing and waiting, waiting
in a room
staring at a cracked ceiling
waiting for the phone, a letter, a knock, a sound…
going wild inside
while she danced with strangers in nightclubs…
out of the arms of one love
and into the arms of another
it’s not pleasant to die on the cross,
it’s much more pleasant to hear your name whispered in
the dark.
death of an idiot
he spoke to mice and sparrows
and his hair was white at the age of 16.
his father beat him every day and his mother
lit candles in the church.
his grandmother came while the boy slept
and prayed for the devil to let loose his hold upon
him
while his mother listened and cried over the
bible.
he didn’t seem to notice young girls
he didn’t seem to notice the games boys played
there wasn’t much he seemed to notice
he just didn’t seem interested.
he had a very lárge, ugly mouth and the teeth
stuck out
and his eyes were small and lusterless.
his shoulders were slumped and his back was bent
like an old man’s.
he lived in our neighborhood.
we talked about him when we got bored and then
went on to more interesting things.
he seldom left his house. we would have liked to
torture him
but his father
who was a huge and terrible man
tortured him for
us.
one day the boy died. at 17 he was still a
boy. a death in a small neighborhood is noted with
alacrity, and then forgotten 3 or 4 days
later.
but the death of this boy seemed to stay with us
all. we kept talking about it
in our boy-men’s voices
at 6 p.m. just before dark
just before dinner.
and whenever I drive through that neighborhood now
decades later
I still think of his death
while having forgotten all the other deaths
and everything else that happened
then.
tonalities
the soldiers march without guns
the graves are empty
peacocks glide in the rain
down stairways march great men smiling
there is food enough and rent enough and
time enough
our women will not grow old
I will not grow old
bums wear diamonds on their fingers
Hitler shakes hands with a Jew
the sky smells of roasted flesh
I am a burning curtain
I am steaming water
I am a snake I am an edge of glass that cuts
I am blood
I am this fiery snail
crawling home.
hey, dolly
she left me 5 weeks ago and went to Utah.
that is, I think she left.
the other day I went out to mail her a letter
and I saw her sitting on the bus stop bench,
it was her hair there
from behind
and all the pounding started in me again
I walked
up quickly and looked at the face—
it was somebody else. freckles, pugnose, greeneyes,
nothing, nothing.
then I was on Western Avenue going from bar to bar
Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame Page 10