What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire
Page 13
I’ve memorized all the cars I have driven
and each of their sad deaths,
I’ve memorized each jail cell,
the face of each new president
and the faces of some of the assassins;
I’ve even memorized the arguments I’ve had with
some of the women
I’ve loved.
best of all
I’ve memorized tonight and now and the way the
light falls across my fingers,
specks and smears on the wall,
shades down behind orange curtains;
I light a rolled cigarette and then laugh a little,
yes, I’ve memorized it all.
the courage of my memory.
Carlton Way off Western Ave.
while the rents go up elsewhere
this is where the poor people
come to live
the people on AFDC and relief
the large families with bad jobs
the strange lonely men
on old age pensions
waiting to die.
here among the massage parlors
the pawn shops
the liquor stores
caught in the smog and the squalor
even the dogs look
inept
don’t bark or
chase cats,
and the cats walk up and down the
streets
and never catch a bird
but the birds are there
but you can’t see them
you only hear them
sometimes in the night
at 3:30 a.m.
after the last streetwalker has made her
last score.
the rents go up here too
but compared to most others
we are living for free
because nobody wants to live with the
likes of us.
none of us have new cars
most of us walk
and we don’t care who wins the
election.
but we have wife-beaters
here too
just like the others
and child-beaters
just like the others
and sex freaks
and TV sets
just like the others
and we’ll die
just like the others
only a little earlier and we’ll eat
just like the others
only cheaper stuff
and lie
just like the others
only with a little less
imagination.
and even though our streetwalkers don’t
look as good as your wives
I think our cats and our birds and dogs
are better
and don’t forget the low
rents.
at the zoo
here’s a male giraffe
he wants it
but the female’s not ready
and male leans against her
he wants it
he pushes against her
follows her around
those tiny heads up in the sky
their eyes are pools of brown
the necks rock
they bump
walk about
2 ungainly forms
stretching up in the air
those stupid legs
those stupid necks
he wants it
she doesn’t care
this is the way the gods have arranged it
for the moment:
one caring
one not caring
and the people watch
and throw peanuts and candy wrappers
and chunks of green and blue popsicles
they don’t care either.
that’s the way the gods have
arranged it
for now.
coke blues
if you think some women want only your love
try giving them some coke
they won’t remember the
color of your eyes
or what you whispered in their
ear.
but lay out some lines
and give them a matchstick
(to prove they are professional)
and
unlike a woman in love
they will return
faithfully.
and one must admit
that faith in any
form
is
probably
better than the
indifference of deserted
sidewalks.
and then one
wonders
again.
nobody home
I live in this nice
place
but I’m seldom there
day or night,
all the shades down
I’m not in
there.
sometimes I think I’d like
to bake a cake
but I’m never there long enough for
the oven to get
warm.
I’m not there to answer the
phone.
I get the mail and
leave.
290 bucks rent plus
utilities.
I used to be a hermit.
a hot woman can pull a man
right out of his
shell. right out of his skin
if she wants
to.
if I ever get that cake baked
you’re going to see some
fine
work.
you can see the mountains from my window
it’s a block from Sunset Boulevard.
most interesting cracks in the ceiling from
the last earthquake.
and when you knock
the broken screen will sometimes fall
and dogs will run by like the Hollywood wind.
the note you leave will be read, then
forgotten.
when a hot woman meets a hermit
one of them is going to
change.
woman in the supermarket
you don’t think you’ll find anybody in there
at 9:30 a.m.
I was rolling my cart along and
she blocked me off with her cart between the
cheese section, the homemade pickles and the clerk
who was stamping jars of newly-arrived green
olives. I put it in reverse and
ran through the produce section, found a
good buy on navel oranges, 60 cents a pound,
picked up some cabbage and green onions, rolled
out and to the east, she was standing in front of the
Bran Flakes and the Wheaties, skirt about 3 inches
above the knee and tight-fitting. she had on a
see-through blouse with a very brief brassiere.
she had slim ankles, flat brown shoes and eyes like
a startled doe.
she smelled of cherry blossoms and French perfume.
36 years old and unhappy in marriage,
her basket was still empty. I pushed past. her eyes
were a rich mad brown, all the meats were priced too
high. I found 2 day-old spencer steaks and one
marked-down sirloin, so I took those, got a dozen medium
eggs, and there she was in the frozen vegetable section,
the mad brown eyes more unhappy than ever.
I lowered my head and pushed past and as I did she
managed to brush her rump against my flank. I got some
frozen peas, some baby limas, I rushed through the bread
section,
decided my shopping was done, got in the checkout
line and was standing there when I felt a leg pressed
against me from ankle to waist. I stood silent
smelling
the cherry blossoms and French perfume as she lit a cigarette.
I took my bags, walked to the parking lot and got into my
car, started it, backed out, turned south and
there she was standing in front of me, smiling and staring.
my car stalled as I watched
her climb into hers, hiking her skirt very high, full fat
thighs, flashes of pink panty, I got out of there fast, got
back to my kitchen, put the groceries on the table,
took the
things out of the bags and started putting them
away.
fast track
jesus christ
the horses again
I mean I said I’d never bet the horses
again
what am I doing standing out here
betting the horses?
anybody can go to the racetrack but
not everybody can
write a sonnet…
the racetrack crowd is the lowest of the breed
thinking their brains can outfox the
15 percent take.
what am I doing here?
if my publisher knew I was blowing my royalties,
if those guys in San Diego
and the one in Detroit who send me money
(a couple of fives and a ten)
or the collector in Jerome, Arizona
who paid me for some paintings,
if they knew
what would
they think?
jesus christ, I’m playing the starving poet who is
creating great Art.
I walk up to the bar with my girlfriend,
she’s a handsome creature in hotpants
with long dark hair,
I order a scotch and water,
she orders a screwdriver
jesus christ
I don’t have a chance
did Vallejo, Lorca and
Shelley have to go through
this?
I drink some of the scotch and
water and think,
the proper mix of the woman and the poem
is infinite Art.
then I sit down with my
Racing Form
and get back
to work.
hanging there on the wall
I used to look across the room
and think,
this female will surely do me
in
and it’s not worth
it.
but I’d do nothing about it
and I wasn’t
lonely.
it was more like a space to
fill in with something;
like on a canvas,
you can keep painting something on it
even if it isn’t very
good.
“what are you thinking
about, you bastard?” she would
say.
“painting.”
“painting? you nuts?
pour me a drink!”
and I would, and then I’d brush her
in, drink in hand, sitting
in a chair, legs crossed, kicking
her high-heeled shoes.
I’d brush her in, bad tempered,
spoiled, loud.
a painting nobody would ever
see
except me.
the hookers, the madmen and the doomed
today at the track
2 or 3 days after
the death of the
jock
came this voice
over the speaker
asking us all to stand
and observe
a few moments
of silence. well,
that’s a tired
formula and
I don’t like it
but I do like
silence. so we
all stood: the
hookers and the
madmen and the
doomed. I was
set to be displeased
but then
I looked up at the
TV screen
and there
standing silently
in the paddock
waiting to mount
up
stood the other jocks
along with
the officials and
the trainers:
quiet and thinking
of death and the
one gone,
they stood
in a semi-circle
the brave little
men in boots and
silks,
the legions of death
appeared and
vanished, the sun
blinked once
I thought of love
with its head ripped
off
still trying to
sing and
then the announcer
said, thank you
and we all went on about
our business.
looking for Jack
like the rest of us, Jack didn’t always shine too brightly:
“the whole game is run by the fags and the Jews,” he’d say,
stamping up and down on my rug, grey hair hanging over hook nose
(he was a Jew); “look, Hank, lemme have a five…”
walking out and around the block,
coming back, stamping on the floor,
he wanted to get the game rolling, he wanted to conquer
the world.
“damn you, Jack, I usually sleep till noon…”
he had a little black book filled with names,
touches, contacts.
I drove him to a large place in the Hollywood hills
and he woke the guy up. the guy was good for
$20.
“they owe it to us,” Jack said.
whenever he got a little ahead—that meant 40 or 50 bucks—
he’d take it to the track and lose it all,
have to walk back.
“nobody beats the horses, Hank, nobody, we’re all losers, poets
are losers, who gives a damn about the poets?”
“nobody, Jack, I don’t like ’em much myself…”
he showed me early photos when he was a young man in
Brooklyn.
he was quite handsome, quite manly, at the cutting edge of the Beat
movement. but the Beats died off and Jack’s been crashing ever
since. when his father died he left Jack 5 or ten grand
and he got married and blew it in Spain—
his wife ended up in bed with a Spanish mayor.
Jack can still lay down the line
and when he does it well
he’s still one of the best in the game
and you forget his complaining and his bumming
and his demand that a poet should get special grace.
he came out with some powerhouse poems
in a Calif. magazine
and the editor wrote me
asking where Jack was
so he could mail him contributor’s copies.
well, Jack is not the suicide type
so I’ve been writing around and I get back
answers:
“no, he’s not here, thank god.”
and:
“who gives a damn?”
well, Jack’s not all that bad,
especially when he forgets the bullshit and sits down to the
typer.
so if you know where he is,
write me, Henry Chinaski,
I haven’t completely given up on him
even if once
in New York
he did piss on Barney Rosset’s shoe
at a party.
apprentices
he used to sit in his bedroom slippers
and a silken robe
his jaw hanging open
they kept coming to see him
bringing wine and pills and
conversation.
the old and the young came to
see him.
he had been a very good poet
in the 30’s and 40’s
and maybe in the 50’s.
for some reason
in the 70’s he settled on
(and in)
New York
City.
it was rather like coming to see God
when you came to see
him.
and his conversation was good
especially after the wine and
pills.
he had style and grace, was
hardly
addled.
he smoked too much and the cigarettes
made him sicker than
anything. he used to spit in the paper
bag at his
feet.
he had many visitors and held his
drink well.
at the end of an evening he would select one
young female admirer to stay.
then she would
suck him off.
he’s gone now.
those young admirers
never developed into the fine writer
he was. of course,
there’s still time.
38,000-to-one
it was during a reading at the University of Utah.
the poets ran out of drinks
and while one was reading
2 or 3 of the others
got into a car
to drive to a liquor store
but we were blocked on the road
by the cars coming to the football stadium.
we were the only car that wanted to go the other way,
they had us: 38,000-to-one.
we sat in our lane and honked.
400 cars honked back.
the cop came over.
“look, officer,” I said, “we’re poets and we need a drink.”
“turn around and to to the stadium,” said
the officer.
“look, we need a drink. we don’t want to see the
football game. we don’t care who wins. we’re poets, we’re
reading at the Underwater Poetry Festival