I awaken at 11:30 a.m.
get into my chinos and a clean green shirt
open a Miller’s,
and nothing in the mailbox but the
Berkeley Tribe
which I don’t subscribe to,
and on KUSC there is organ music
something by Bach
and I leave the door open
stand on the porch
walk out front
hot damn
that air is good
and the sun like golden butter on my
body. no race track today, nothing but this
beastly and magic
leisure, rolled cigarette dangling
I scratch my belly in the sun
as Paul Hindemith
rides by on a bicycle,
and down the street a lady in a
very red dress
bends down into a laundry basket
rises
hangs a sheet on a line,
bends again, rises, in all that red,
that red like snake skin
clinging moving flashing
hot damn
I keep looking, and
she sees me
pauses bent over basket
clothespin in mouth
she rises with a pair of pink
panties
smiles around the
clothespin
waves to me.
what’s next? rape in the streets?
I wave back,
go in,
sit down at the machine
by the window, and now it’s someone’s
violin concerto in D,
and a pretty black girl in very tight pants
walking a hound,
they stop outside my window,
look in;
she has on dark shades
and her mouth opens a little, then she and the
dog
move on.
someone might have bombed cities for this or
sold apples in the
rain.
but whoever is responsible, today I wish to
thank him
all the
way.
the silver mirror
she pulls a large silver mirror
from her purse
and starts to pencil her eyebrows.
the left eye is bruised where she
fell several nights ago.
the afternoon sun comes through the
blinds behind her.
she talks and talks as she doctors
her face: “god damn it, I’m always
falling over the strangest things…
the radiator at home, my sewing
machine, a wastebasket full of empty
tin cans…”
she lifts her drink
still gazing into the silver
mirror…“you’re a funny guy, you
know that?…you say things that
nobody else would ever think of
saying…it must feel good to be
verbal that way…”
she spins the mirror in its frame
and blows cigarette smoke through it
like through a revolving door.
“I’m glad you don’t like women who
wear pantyhose…it de-cunts a woman…”
the afternoon sun seeps through her
red-brown hair. quickly she crosses
her legs, swings her foot up and
down. she drops the silver mirror
back into her purse, looks up at me—
her eyes very large and the palest
green that I have ever seen, and
down through Georgia and in New Orleans
and up in Maine
the whole world is caught in her glance
and at last
the universe is
magnificent.
hunchback
moments of agony and moments of glory
march across my roof.
the cat walks by
seeming to know everything.
my luck has been better, I think,
than the luck of the cut gladiolus,
although I am not sure.
I have been loved by many women,
and for a hunchback of life,
that’s lucky.
so many fingers pushing through my hair
so many arms holding me close
so many shoes thrown carelessly on my bedroom
rug.
so many searching hearts
now fixed in my memory that
I’ll go to my death,
remembering.
I have been treated better than I should have
been—
not by life in general
nor by the machinery of things
but by women.
but there have been other women
who have left me
standing in the bedroom alone
doubled over—
hands holding the gut—
thinking
why why why why why why?
women go to men who are pigs
women go to men with dead souls
women go to men who fuck badly
women go to shadows of men
women go
go
because they must go
in the order of
things.
the women know better
but often chose out of
disorder and confusion.
they can heal with their touch
they can kill what they touch and
I am dying
but not dead
yet.
me and Capote
when the phone rings it’s usually a man’s
voice and it’s like most other voices because
it usually says the same thing:
“are you Henry Chinaski, the writer?”
“I’m a sometimes writer.”
“listen, I’m surprised you’re listed. well,
I want to come over and talk to you, have a
few beers with you.”
“why?” I ask.
“I just want to talk.”
“you don’t understand,” I say, “there’s nothing
to talk about. talking brings me down.”
“but I like your writing.”
“you can have that.”
“I just want to come over and talk
awhile.”
“I don’t want to talk.”
“then why are you listed?”
“I like to fuck women.”
“is that why you write?”
“I’m like Truman Capote. I write to pay the
rent.”
I hang up.
they phone back.
I hang up.
I don’t see what writing has to do with
conversation.
I also don’t see what writing has to do with my
getting 3 bad books of poetry a week
in the mail.
I’m not a priest.
I’m not a guru.
I probably have more bad moments and self-
doubt than any of those who
phone me.
but when there’s a knock on the door
and a creature of beauty enters
(female)
(after phoning)
hesitant
smiling
with delightful curves and magic movements
I realize
she is more dangerous than
all the armies of all time and
I know I didn’t write my poems for that
and then I’m not sure
and then I don’t know again
and then I forget about knowing
I get her a drink
then go into the bedroom and
take the phone off the
hook.
that’s the best way to get
unlis
ted.
the savior: 1970
he comes by unexpectedly
long black beard and hair and barefeet
or in cheap heavy boots
and he tells me he is going to save
society from—
those bastards putting oil into the ocean
those bastards putting smoke into the sky—
and it’s true
we are in a bad way
and not much is being done
and we could finally be nearing the end,
so I listen,
well, he wants to shut down the sewers.
ah, shit, man, I say, don’t do that. or at least give me
30 days’ notice.
well, he comes back at 2:30 in the morning
rings me out of bed. luckily there is some beer
in the refrig.
he has a better plan
he tells me.
he’s going to blow up all the dams. the people will be
without water.
The Man will be forced to do
something.
he will write The Man a letter
full of his demands,
or the next dam will go,
the next city.
look, baby, don’t do that.
there must be a better way of solving things,
I tell
him.
one of the brothers has deserted us, he tells
me. (the brother is suddenly more interested in
raising a child than in
saving the world).
us? he’s including me?
I’m not writing another poem until
the U.S. gets out of
Vietnam, he
says.
well, to my way of looking at it, he hasn’t
written a poem yet.
then I catch his eyes as I put down my beer.
I am looking at a madman.
care for another beer? I
ask.
sure, he
says.
now I haven’t studied all of the dams, he says, taking a
drink of beer;
it may not be feasible in certain areas. might drown some
people. we don’t want to hurt the
people.
oh, hell
no.
he hands me a mimeo pamphlet—
The American Revolution, Part II,
5 cents.
(since all this is discussed in there
I don’t feel as if I were betraying a
confidence,
and I’m for saving the world
too).
we drink more beer
and I try to tell him why blowing up the dams
isn’t going to
work. at least I finally get him not to shut off our
shit. but he still wants the
dams.
you can’t ignore the madmen. it has been tried too
often.
have another beer,
kid.
the sun is coming up when he leaves.
he still wants the dams. he drives off in
his truck.
I open the phone book. there it is:
Sparkletts Water Co.
at 8 o’clock I am going to phone them
for a bottle to keep in the
closet.
forget my brother.
I am my own
keeper.
la femme finie
once a fine poetess
we see her photo now
and know
now
why she hasn’t
written
lately.
beast
my beast comes in the afternoon
he gnaws at my gut
he paws my head
he growls
spits out part of me
my beast comes in the afternoon
while other people are taking pictures
while other people are at picnics
my beast comes in the afternoon
across a dirty kitchen floor
leering at me
while other people are employed at jobs
that stop their thinking
my beast allows me to think
about him,
about graveyards and dementia and fear
and stale flowers and decay
and the stink of ruined thunder.
my beast will not let me be
he comes to me in the afternoons
and gnaws and claws
and I tell him
as I double over, hands gripping my gut,
jesus, how will I ever explain you to
them? they think I am a coward
but they are the cowards because they refuse to
feel, their bravery is the bravery of
snails.
my beast is not interested in my unhappy
theory—he rips, chews, spits out
another piece of
me.
I walk out the door and he follows me
down the street.
we pass the lovely laughing schoolgirls
the bakery trucks
and the sun opens and closes like an oyster
swallowing my beast for a moment
as I cross at a green light
pretending that I have escaped,
pretending that I need a loaf of bread or
a newspaper,
pretending that the beast is gone forever
and that the torn parts of me are
still there
under a blue shirt and green pants
as all the faces become walls
and all the walls become impossible.
artistic selfishness
what’s genius?
I don’t know
but I do know that
the difference between a madman and a
professional is
that
a pro does as well as he can within what
he has set out to do
and a madman
does exceptionally well at what
he can’t help
doing.
now I am looking
into this unshaded lightbulb
at 11:37 p.m. on a Monday night
thinking
tiny names
like
Van Gogh
Chatterton
Plath
Crane
Artaud
Chinaski.
my literary fly
115 degrees
not even a turkey could be happy in this heat
but it beats burning at the stake,
and like my uncle once said
(when I asked him how things were going)
he said, well, I had breakfast, I had lunch and
I think I’m going to have
dinner;
well, that’s us Chinaskis,
we don’t ask for much and
we don’t get much,
except I have an awful good-looking girlfriend
who seems to accept my madness,
but still, it’s
115 degrees.
I’ve got an air-cooler
a foot from my head
blowing hard
but I’m not delivering the
goods, as they say, but most people
don’t like my poetry anyway.
but that’s all right, because
it’s 115 degrees and my girlfriend’s boys
are playing outside
on their bicycles
and diving into the wading pool
while waiting to grow up.
for me,
it’s too hot to fuck
too hot to paint
too hot to complain,
those horses across the road don’t even
brush off the flies,
the flies are too tired and too hot to bite,
115 degrees,
and if I’m going to conquer the literary world
maybe we can get it down to
85 degrees first?
right now I can’t write poetry,
I’m panting and lazy and ineffectual,
there’s a fly on the roller of my typer
and he rides back and forth, back and forth,
my literary fly,
you son-of-a-bitch, get busy,
seek ye out another poet and bite him
on his ass.
I can’t understand anything
except that it’s hot, that’s what it is,
hot, it’s hot today, that’s what it is, it’s hot, and
that guy from Canada I drank with 3 weeks ago,
he’s probably rolling in the snow right now
with Eskimo women and writing all kinds of
immortal stuff, but it’s just too hot for me.
let him.
memory
I’ve memorized all the fish in the sea
I’ve memorized each opportunity strangled
and
I remember awakening one morning
and finding everything smeared with the color of
forgotten love
and I’ve memorized
that too.
I’ve memorized green rooms in
St. Louis and New Orleans
where I wept because I knew that by myself I
could not overcome
the terror of them and it.
I’ve memorized all the unfaithful years
(and the faithful ones too)
I’ve memorized each cigarette that I’ve rolled.
I’ve memorized Beethoven and New York City
I’ve memorized
riding up escalators, I’ve memorized
Chicago and cottage cheese, and the mouths of
some of the ladies and the legs of
some of the ladies
I’ve known
and the way the rain came down hard.
I’ve memorized the face of my father in his coffin,
What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire Page 12