Play the Piano
Page 5
magazines come
more and more often
to interview me—
their hair is long
they are thin
have tape recorders and
arrive with
much beer.
most
of them
manage to stay some hours and
get intoxicated.
if one of my girlfriends is around
I get her to do the
talking.
go ahead, I say, tell them the
truth about me.
then they tell what they think is
the truth.
they paint me to resemble the
idiot
which is true.
then I’m questioned:
why did you stop writing for ten
years?
I don’t know.
how come you didn’t get into the
army?
crazy.
can you speak German?
no.
who are your favorite modern
writers?
I don’t know.
I seldom see the
interviews, although once one of
the young men wrote back that
my girlfriend had
kissed him
when I was in the bathroom.
you got off easy, I wrote back
and by the way
forget that shit I told you about
Dos Passos. or was it
Mailer? it’s hot tonight
and half the neighborhood is
drunk. the other half is
dead.
if I have any advice about writing
poetry, it’s—
don’t. I’m going to send out for
some fried chicken.
buk
face of a political candidate on a street billboard
there he is:
not too many hangovers
not too many fights with women
not too many flat tires
never a thought of suicide
not more than three toothaches
never missed a meal
never in jail
never in love
7 pairs of shoes
a son in college
a car one year old
insurance policies
a very green lawn
garbage cans with tight lids
he’ll be elected.
Yankee Doodle
I was young
no stomach
arms of wire
but strong
I arrived drunk at the factory
every morning
and out-worked the whole pack of them
without strain
the old guy
his name was Sully
good old Irish Sully
he fumbled with screws
and whistled the same song all day
long:
Yankee Doodle came to town
Ridin’ on a pony
He stuck a feather in his hat
And called it macaroni…
they say he had been whistling that song
for years
I began whistling right along
with him
we whistled together for hours
him counting screws
me packing 8 foot long light fixtures into
coffin boxes
as the days went on
he began to pale and tremble
he’d miss a note now and then
I whistled on
he began to miss days
then he missed a week
next I knew
the word got out
Sully was in a hospital for an
operation
2 weeks later he came in with a cane
and his wife
he shook hands with everybody
a 40 year man
when they had the retirement party for him
I missed it
because of a terrible
hangover
after he was gone
oddly
I kept looking for him,
and I realized that he had
never hated me, that I
had only hated
him
I began drinking more
missing more days
then they let me go
too
I’ve never minded getting
fired but that was the one time
I felt it.
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
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.
nothing is as effective as defeat
always carry a notebook with you
wherever you go, he said,
and don’t drink too much, drinking dulls
the sensibilities,
attend readings, note breath pauses,
and when you read
always understate
underplay, the crowd is smarter than you
might think,
and when you write something
don’t send it out right away,
put it in a drawer for two weeks,
then take it out and look
at it, and revise, revise,
REVISE again and again,
tighten lines like bolts holding the span
of a 5 mile bridge,
and keep a notebook by your bed,
you will get thoughts during the night
and these thoughts will vanish and be wasted
unless you notate them.
and don’t drink, any fool can
drink, we are men of
letters.
for a guy who couldn’t write at all
he was about like the rest
of them: he could sure
talk about
it.
success
I had a most difficult job
starting my 14 year old car today
in 100 degree heat
I had to take the carburetor off
leap back and forth
adjusting the set-screw,
a 2 by 4 jammed against the gas pedal
to hold it down.
I got it going—after 45 minutes—
I mailed 4 letters
purchased something cool
came back
got into my place
and listened to Ives
had dreams of empire
my great white belly against
the fan.
Africa, Paris, Greece
there are these 2 women
I know who are
quite similar
almost the same
age
well-read
literary
I once slept with both of
them
but that’s all
over
we’re friends
they’ve been to Africa
Paris
Greece
here and there
fucked some famous men
one is now living with a
millionaire
some few miles
from here
goes to breakfast and
dinner with him
feeds his fish his cat
s and
his dog
when she gets drunk she phones
me
the other is having it
more difficult living
alone in a small apartment in
Venice (Calif.)
listening to the bongo
drums
famous men seem to want
young women
a young woman is easier
to get rid
of: they have more
places to
go
it is difficult for women who
were once beautiful
to get
old
they have to become more
intelligent (if they want to
hold their men) and do
more things
in bed and out of
bed
these 2 women I know
they’re good both
in and out of
bed
and they’re intelligent
intelligent enough to know
they can’t come see me
and stay
more than an
hour or two
they are quite
similar
and I know
if they read this poem
they’ll understand
it
just as well as they
understand
Rimbaud or Rilke
or Keats
meanwhile I have met a
young blonde from the
Fairfax district
as she looks at my paintings
on the walls
I rub the bottoms of
her feet.
the drunk tank judge
the drunk tank judge is
late like any other
judge and he is
young
well-fed
educated
spoiled and
from a good
family.
we drunks put out our cigarettes and await his
mercy.
those who couldn’t make bail are
first. “guilty,” they say, they all say,
“guilty.”
“7 days.” “14 days.” “14 days and then you will be
released to the Honor Farm.” “4 days.” “7 days.”
“14 days.”
“judge, these guys beat hell out of a man
in there.”
“next.”
“judge, they really beat hell out of me.”
“next case, please.”
“7 days.” “14 days and then you will be released to the
Honor Farm.”
the drunk tank judge is
young and
overfed, he has
eaten too many meals. he is
fat.
the bail-out drunks are
next. they put us in long lines and
he takes us
quickly. “2 days or 40 dollars.” “2 days or 40
dollars.” “2 days or 40 dollars.” “2 days or
40 dollars.”
there are 35 or
40 of us.
the courthouse is on San Fernando Road among the
junkyards.
when we go to the bailiff he
tells us,
“your bail will apply.”
“what?”
“your bail will apply.”
the bail is $50. the court keeps the
ten.
we walk outside and get into our
old automobiles.
most of our automobiles look worse than
the ones in the
junkyards. some of us
don’t have any
automobiles, most of us are
Mexicans and poor whites.
the trainyards are across the
street. the sun is up
good.
the judge has very
smooth
delicate
skin, the judge has
fat
jowls.
we walk and we drive away from the
courthouse.
justice.
claws of paradise
wooden butterfly
baking soda smile
sawdust fly—
I love my belly
and the liquor store man
calls me,
“Mr. Schlitz.”
the cashiers at the race track
scream,
“THE POET KNOWS!”
when I cash my tickets.
the ladies
in and out of bed
say they love me
as I walk by with wet
white feet.
albatross with drunken eyes
Popeye’s dirt-stained shorts
bedbugs of Paris,
I have cleared the barricades
have mastered the
automobile
the hangover
the tears
but I know
the final doom
like any schoolboy viewing
the cat being crushed
by passing traffic.
my skull has an inch and a
half crack right at the
dome.
most of my teeth are
in front. I get
dizzy spells in supermarkets
spit blood when I drink
whiskey
and become saddened to
the point of
grief
when I think of all the
good women I have known
who have
dissolved
vanished
over trivialities:
trips to Pasadena,
children’s picnics,
toothpaste caps down
the drain.
there is nothing to do
but drink
play the horse
bet on the poem
as the young girls
become women
and the machineguns
point toward me
crouched
behind walls thinner
than eyelids.
there’s no defense
except all the errors
made.
meanwhile
I take showers
answer the phone
boil eggs
study motion and waste
and feel as good
as the next while
walking in the sun.
the loner
16 and one-half inch
neck
68 years old
lifts weights
body like a young
boy (almost)
kept his head
shaved
and drank port wine
from half-gallon jugs
kept the chain on the
door
windows boarded
you had to give
a special knock
to get in
he had brass knucks
knives
clubs
guns
he had a chest like a
wrestler
never lost his
glasses
never swore
never looked for
trouble
never married after the death
of his only
wife
hated
cats
roaches
mice
humans
worked crossword
puzzles
kept up with the
news
that 16 and one-half inch
neck
for 68 he was
something
all those boards
across the windows
washed his own underwear
and socks
my friend Red took me up
to meet him
one night
/>
we talked a while
together
then we left
Red asked, “what do you