leg
at 3:42 in the
afternoon.
born to lose another
woman—
clothes gone from
closet,
hairpins
lotions
lipstick
rings
left
behind.
born to dance on
one leg.
born to sit around
and watch flies
frogs
and roaches.
born to sever fingers
on the edge of
tuna cans.
born to walk about
with guts
shot out
from front to
back.
born again
and
again and
again.
guess who?
she passed from one important man
to another,
from bed to bed
from man to man
all of them
society’s important men:
politicians, athletes, artists,
lawyers, doctors, entertainers,
producers, financiers,
and they all gave her one thing
or another:
gifts, money, publication,
publicity and/or
the good life.
but when she suddenly died
at 32
the only ones at her funeral
were
an aunt from Virginia
her bookie
her dope dealer
a bartender
an alcoholic neighbor
and several hired hands at the
graveyard.
but she held
2 final aces
and had the last laugh:
she’d never worked an
8 hour day
and they buried her
with all the gold
in her teeth.
I want a mermaid
speaking about going crazy
I have been thinking about
mermaids lately.
but I can’t place them
properly in my
mind.
one problem that bothers
me
is where are their sexual
organs located?
do they use toilet paper?
and can they stand
on their flipper
while frying bacon and
eggs?
I think
I’d like a mermaid
to love.
sometimes in the supermarket
I see crabs and baby
octopi
and I think, well,
I could feed her that.
but how would I pack her
around at the racetrack?
I get my things and then
push my cart to the
checkout stand.
“how are you today?” she
asks.
“o.k.,” I say.
she has on a
market uniform
flat shoes
earrings
a little cap
pantyhose.
she rings up my
purchases. I know
where her sexual organs
are located as
I look out the
plate glass window
and wait.
an unusual place
just thinking about
writing this poem has
already almost made me
sick
but I’ll try it one more
time.
it was in Salt Lake
City
and I had the
flu
and it was cold
and I was in my
shirtsleeves.
I had given my
reading and was
ready to fly
back to L.A.
but I was with
2 girls who wanted
to make the bars
and we went into
this one place
and the girls wanted
to sit near the
front.
there was a
boy on the stage
a Japanese cowboy
and he could
holler.
I had to
make the men’s room
and I ran in
there
and the urinal was
like a large shallow
bathtub
and it was
clogged and
full of urine
gently spilling across
the floor.
the entire floor
was wet
and I almost puked
into that flowing
tide of piss.
I came out and
got the girls
out of there.
that time
I didn’t tip for
table service.
I’m still not
sure
which was worse—
the men’s room
or that Japanese
cowboy.
that’s Mormon
territory and clearly
there’s work to be
done.
in this city now—
wives’ heads are
battered
against kitchen
walls
by unemployed
butchers.
pimps
send out their
dreary and doped
battalions
of tired
girls.
upstairs a man
pukes
his entire stomach
into a
wastebasket.
we all drink
too much
cheap wine
search for
cigarettes
look at our
mates
across
tabletops
and wonder why
they became
ugly
so soon.
we turn our
TV’s on
searching for
baseball games
soaps
and
cop
shows
but it’s only
the sound
we want
some minor
distraction.
nobody cares
about
endings
we know the
end.
some of us
weaken
some of us
become
sniffers of
Christ.
some don’t.
to know anything is
to score
and to score
is
necessary
that’s
baseball
and that’s all
the rest
of it
too.
Captain Goodwine
one goes from being a poet
to being an entertainer.
I read my stuff in Florida once
and the professor there
told me, “you realize you’re
an entertainer now, don’t
you?”
I began to
feel bad about that remark
because when the crowd
comes to be entertained by
you
then you become somehow
suspect.
and so, another time,
starting from Los Angeles
we took to the air and
the flight captain introduced
himself as
“Captain Goodwine,”
and thousands of miles
later I found myself transferred
to a small 2-engine
the stewardess put a drink
in my hand
took my money and then
hollered, “drink up,
we’re landing!”
we landed
took off again and she put
another drink in my hand,
took my money and then
hollered, “drink up,
we’re landing!”
the 3rd time I ordered
2 drinks
although we only landed
once more.
I read twice that night in Arkansas
and ended up in a home with
clean rugs, a serving bar, a fireplace
and professors who spoke about budgets
and Fulbright scholarships, and where
the wives of the professors
sat very quietly without speaking.
they were all waiting for me
the entertainer
who had flown in with Captain
Goodwine to
entertain them to make a move on
someone’s wife to break the windows
to piss on the rug to play the
fool to make them feel superior
to make them feel hip and liberated.
if I would only stick a cigarette
up the cat’s ass!
if I would only take the
willing co-ed
who was doing a term paper on
Chinaski!
but I got up and went to my
poet’s bedroom
closed the door
took off my clothes
went to bed and
went to sleep
thereby
entertaining myself
the best way
I knew
how.
morning love
I awakened about 10:30 a.m.
Sunday morning
and I sat straight up in bed
and I said,
“o, Jesus Christ!”
and she said,
“what’s the matter, Hank?”
and I said, “it’s my car. do you
remember where we parked last night?”
and she said,
“no, I don’t.”
and I said,
“well, I think there’s something strange going on.”
and I got dressed and went out on the street.
I was worried.
I had no idea where the car was
and I walked up my street and down the next
street and I didn’t see it.
I have love affairs with my cars
and the older they are and/or the longer I have them
the more I care.
this one was an ancient love.
—then three blocks to the west I saw it:
parked dead center in the middle of a very narrow
street. nobody could enter the street or leave it.
my car sat there calmly like a forgotten drunk.
I walked over, got in, put the key in, and it
started.
there was no ticket.
I felt good.
I drove it to my street and parked it
carefully.
I walked back up the stairway and opened the
door.
“well, is your car all right?” she asked.
“yeah, I found it,” I said, “guess where it…”
“you worry too much about that god-damned car!”
she snapped. “did you bring back any 7-Up, any beer?
I need something now!”
I undressed and got back into bed and
pushed my fat ass up against her fat
belly and never said another
word.
an old jockey
when you no longer see their name on the program
at Hollywood Park or Santa Anita
you figure they have retired
but it’s not always the case.
sometimes women or bad investments
or drink or drugs
don’t let them quit.
then you see them down at Caliente
on bad mounts
vying against the flashy Mexican boys
or you see them at the county fair
dashing for that first hairpin
turn.
it’s like once-famous fighters
being fed to the rising small-town hero.
I was in Phoenix one afternoon
and the people were talking and chattering and talking
so I borrowed my lady’s car
and got out of there
and drove to the track.
I had a fair day.
then in the last race
the jock brought in a longshot:
$48.40 and I looked at the program:
R.Y.
so that’s what happened to him?
and when he pulled his mount up inside the winner’s
circle he shook his whip in the air
just like he used to do at Hollywood Park.
it was like seeing the dead
newly risen:
good old R.Y.
5 pounds overweight
a bit older
and still able to
create the magic.
I hadn’t noticed his name
on that $3,500 claiming race
or I would have put a small
sentimental bet on him
on his only mount of the day.
you can have your New Year’s parties
your birthdays
your Christmas
your 4th of July
I’ll take my kind of magic.
driving back in
I felt very good for R.Y.
when I got back they were still
chatting and talking and chatting
and my lady looked up and said,
“well, how did you do?”
and I said, “I had a lucky day.”
and she said, “it’s about time.”
and she was right.
hard times on Carlton Way
somebody else was killed last night
as I sit looking at 12 red dying roses.
I do believe that this neighborhood must
be tougher than Spanish Harlem in N.Y.
I must get out.
I’ve lived here 4 years without a scratch
and in a sense my neighbors accept me.
I’m just the old guy in a white t-shirt.
but that won’t help me one day.
I’m no longer broke.
I could get out of here.
I could better my living conditions.
but I have an idea
I’ll never get out of here.
I like the nearby taco stand too much.
I like the cheap bars and pawn shops and
the roving insane
who sleep on our bus stop benches
or in the bushes
and raid the Goodwill container
for clothing.
I feel a bond with these
people.
I was once like them even though I
now am a published writer with some
minor success.
somebody else was killed last night
in this neighborhood
almost under my window.
I’m sentimental:
even though the roses are
almost dead
somebody brought them to me
and must I finally throw them
away?
another death last night
another death
the poor kill the poor.
I’ve got to get out of this
neighborhood
not for the good of my poetry
but for a reasonable chance at
old age.
as I write this
the giant who lives in the back
who wea
rs a striped black-and-yellow
t-shirt as big as a tent
(he looks like a huge bumblebee at
six-foot-four and 290 pounds)
walks past my window and claws
the screen.
“mercy, my friend,” I ask.
“there’ll be no mercy,” he says, turning back
to his tiny flat.
the 12 dead roses look at me.
we needed him
so big, with a cigar sticking out of his mouth
he listened patiently to the people
to the old women in the neighborhood who told him
about their arthritis and their constipation
or about the peeping toms who looked in at their
wrinkled bodies at night
breathing heavily outside the blinds.
he had patience with people
he knew something as he sat at the taco stand and
listened to the cokeheads and the meth-heads
and the ugly whores
who then listened carefully to him
he was the neighborhood
he was Hollywood and Western
even the pimps with their switchblades stood aside
when he walked by.
then it happened without warning: he began to get
thin. he came to my door and asked if I had some
oranges. he sat in my chair looking weak and sad,
he seemed about to cry. “I don’t know what’s wrong.
I can’t eat. I puke it all up.” I told him to go
to the doctors. he went to the Vet’s Hospital, he went
to Queen of Angels, he went to Hollywood
Presbyterian. he went to other stranger places.
I went to see him the other day. he had moved out of
the neighborhood. he sat in a chair. discarded
milk cartons were on the floor, empty beef stew
cans, empty Kentucky Colonel boxes, bags of
uneaten french fries and the stale stink.
“you need a good diagnostician,” I said.”
“it’s no use,” he said.
“keep trying…”
“I’ve found,” he said, “that I can drink buttermilk
What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire Page 9