What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire
Page 19
dance in the night,
as the sheet pulls up the hand,
as the twilight laughs for its pill.
one more sister cut in half.
one more brother stuffed in the
bin.
the shoes put on you.
you, you, you,
no más, no more.
to lean back into it
like in a chair the color of the sun
as you listen to lazy piano music
and the aircraft overhead are not
at war.
where the last drink is as good as
the first
and you realized that the promises
you made yourself were
kept.
that’s plenty.
that last: about the promises:
what’s not so good is that the few
friends you had are
dead and they seem
irreplaceable.
as for women, you didn’t know enough
early enough
and you knew enough
too late.
and if more self-analysis is allowed: it’s
nice that you turned out well-
honed,
that you arrived late
and remained generally
capable.
outside of that, not much to say
except you can leave without
regret.
until then, a bit more amusement,
a bit more endurance,
leaning back
into it.
like the dog who got across
the busy street:
not all of it was good
luck.
dog fight 1990
he draws up to my rear bumper in the fast lane.
I can see his face in the rear view mirror, his eyes
are blue and he sucks on a dead cigar.
I pull over. he passes, then slows. I don’t like
this.
I pull into the fast lane, ride
his rear bumper. we are as a team passing through
Compton.
I turn the radio on and light a cigarette.
he ups it 5 mph, I do likewise. we are as a team
entering Inglewood.
he pulls out of the fast lane and I drive past.
then I slow. when I check the rear view mirror he is
on my bumper again.
he has almost made me miss my turnoff at Century Blvd.
I hit the blinker and fire across 3 lanes of
traffic, just make the off-ramp,
cutting in front of an inflammable tanker.
blue eyes comes from behind the tanker and
we veer down the ramp in separate lanes to the signal.
we sit there side by side, not looking at each
other.
I am caught behind an empty school bus as he idles
behind a Mercedes.
the signal switches and he is gone. I cut to the
inside lane behind him. then I see the parking
lane open and I flash by to the right of him and the
Mercedes, turn up the radio, make the green light as the
Mercedes and blue eyes run the yellow turning into red.
they make it as I switch back ahead of
them in order to miss a parked vegetable
truck.
now we are running 1-2-3, not a cop in sight. we are
moving through a 1990 California July.
we are driving with skillful nonchalance.
we are moving in perfect formation.
we are as a team
approaching L.A. airport.
1-2-3
2-3-1
3-2-1.
I used to feel sorry for Henry Miller
when he got old he stopped writing, dabbled with
paints and put ads in the UCLA paper for
secretarial help.
Henry preferred Oriental ladies, young
ones
and they came by and did little things for
him
and he fell in love with them,
even though there was no sex.
he wrote them letters, all his writing went into
love letters.
and the ladies were flattered but simply went
on
teasing him.
he liked having them around.
maybe he felt that they held death back a
little
or maybe they stopped him from thinking
about it too much
or maybe the old boy was simply
horny.
I remember a young lady who came to
see me who said,
“I was going to fuck Henry Miller before he
died but now it’s too late so I came to see
you.”
“forget it, baby,” I told her.
I liked the way Henry Miller looked in his
last years, like a wise Buddha
but he didn’t act like one.
I only wish he had gone out in a
different way,
not begging for it,
using his name.
I would have preferred to see him
continue to write books
until the end,
right into the face
of death.
but since he couldn’t do it
well, maybe somebody else
can.
there’s some old fart
somewhere,
I’m sure
who can.
if he doesn’t diddle his brains
away at the
racetrack.
locked in
morning,
it touches the nerves
quickly
as if we were already in
the hunter’s sights.
the body yawns and stretches in the
light.
the pilgrimage
is about to
begin.
padding to the bathroom
to eliminate the
poisons.
behind the curtains is
their world.
wash hands, neck, face,
brush the remaining teeth
for the remaining
days.
clothe thyself.
not that shirt!
it’s depressing…
get something green, something
yellow.
there, look.
smile.
shoes, damned shoes.
shoes look so sad.
you can’t hide facts from
shoes.
forget the shoes,
put on your stupid shorts.
your fat buttery pants.
now, the shoes.
you forgot your hair.
comb your hair.
you look crazy with your hair
uncombed.
you’re not crazy, are
you?
your wife is still asleep.
you’re lucky.
she’s lucky.
smile.
you’re not crazy, are
you?
you go downstairs.
the animals wait for you.
the plants look at you
while the termites eat the wood.
the ant army beneath,
the poisoned air above.
your car outside.
your intestines, your belly,
your heart, your brain, your
etc.
inside.
you’re sane,
you’re normal.
you make sensible
decisions?
only there’s a limit.
that’s the catch.
you’re the catch.
caught.
is it better to be a termite?
an ocelot?
a metronome?
a park bench?
or East Kansas City?
I feed the animals.
for that moment, that is what
I do.
I feed the animals.
it’s
easy.
wasted
too often the people complain that they have
done nothing with their
lives
and then they wait for somebody to tell them
that this isn’t so.
look, you’ve done this and that and you’ve
done that and that’s
something.
you really think so?
of course.
but
they had it right.
they’ve done nothing.
shown no courage.
no inventiveness.
they did what they were taught to
do.
they did what they were told to
do.
they had no resistance, no thoughts
of their own.
they were pushed and shoved
and went obediently.
they had no heart.
they were cowardly.
they stank in life.
they stank up life.
and now they want to be told that
they didn’t fail.
you’ve met them.
they’re everywhere.
the spiritless.
the dead-before-death gang.
be kind?
lie to them?
tell them what they want to hear?
tell them anything they want to hear?
people with courage made them what they
aren’t.
and if they ask me, I’ll tell them what they
don’t want to hear.
it’s better you
keep them away from me, or
they’ll tell you I’m a cruel man.
it’s better that they confer
with you.
I want to be free of
that.
Sunday lunch at the Holy Mission
he got knifed in broad daylight, came up the street
holding his hands over his gut, dripping red
on the pavement.
nobody waiting in line left their place to help him.
he made it to the Mission doorway, collapsed in the
lobby where the desk clerk screamed, “hey, you
son-of-a-bitch, what are you doing?”
then he called an ambulance but the man was dead
when they got there.
the police came and circled the spots of blood
on the pavement
with white chalk
photographed everything
then asked the men waiting for their Sunday meal
if they had seen anything
if they knew anything.
they all said “no” to both.
while the police strutted in their uniforms
the others finally loaded the body into an ambulance.
afterwards the homeless men rolled cigarettes
as they waited for their meal
talking about the action
blowing farts and smoke
enjoying the sun
feeling quite like
celebrities.
slaughter
the first seven rows were roped off for the Counselors
of Exceptional Children, the Frequent Flyers Club, and the
German Society.
it was Saturday at the track and they were all talking
at once, standing up, sitting down, waving, laughing.
when the winner of the first race came in, most of them
leaped up and down screaming and some of them hugged
one another.
it was difficult to believe that they had all bet on the same
horse.
I tried to separate the Counselors of Exceptional Children
from the
Frequent Flyers and the Germans
but they all looked very much alike and as each race
went by they became quieter and quieter, and some of them
began to leave.
by the last race only a few of them remained
and they looked tired and very sad and were quiet.
they had learned a hard truth: losing one’s money was very
much like death
and although the horses were beautiful, it was much easier
being German or an Exceptional Children’s Counselor
or to fly around the country at reduced rates.
they had also learned that sometimes
the racetrack was no place to jump up and down
in, no place to scream in and to hug one another.
it got dark and cold as the wind came down off
the Sierra Madre, and as they put the horses into the gate
for the last race, even a winner wouldn’t help much
now as the tote machines were shut down, taking the last
bite,
freezing the odds forever.
favorites don’t win enough
longshots don’t win enough
the rest of the horses don’t win enough.
next Saturday they’ll bring in 3 new groups
and rope them off too.
a vote for the gentle light
burned senseless by other people’s constant
depression,
I pull the curtains apart,
aching for the gentle light.
it’s there, it’s there
somewhere,
I’m sure.
oh, the faces of depression, expressions
pulled down into the gluey dark.
the bitter small sour mouths,
the self-pity, the self-justification is
too much, all too much.
the faces in shadow,
deep creases of gloom.
there’s no courage there, just the desire to
possess something—admiration, fame, lovers,
money, any damn thing
so long as it comes easy.
so long as they don’t have to do
what’s necessary.
and when they don’t succeed they
become embittered,
ugly,
they imagine that they have
been slighted, cheated,
demeaned.
then they concentrate upon their
unhappiness, their last
refuge.
and they’re good at that,
they are very good at that.
they have so much unhappiness
they insist upon your sharing it
too.
they bathe and splash in their
unhappiness,
they splash it upon you.
it’s all they have.
it’s all they want.
it’s all they can be.
you must refuse to join them.
you must remain yourself.
you must open the curtains
or the blinds
or the windows
to the gentle light.
to joy.
it’s there in life
and even in death
it can be
there.
be alone
when you think about how often
it all goes wrong
again and again
you begin to look at the walls
and yearn to stay inside
because the streets are the
same old movie
and the heroes all end up like
old movie heroes:
fat ass, fat face and the brain
of a lizard.
it’s no wonder that
a wise man will
climb a 10,000 foot mountain
and sit there waiting
living off of berry bush leaves
rather than bet it all on two dimpled knees
that surely won’t last a lifetime
and 2 times out of 3
won’t remain even for one long night.
mountains are hard to climb.
thus the walls are your friends.
learn your walls.
what they have given us out there
in the streets
is something that even children
get tired of.
stay within your walls.
they are the truest love.
build where few others build.
it’s the last way left.
I inherit
the old guy next door died
last week,
he was 95 or 96,
I am not sure.
but I am now the oldest fart
in the neighborhood.
when I bend over to
pick up the morning
paper
I think of heart attack
or when I swim in my
pool
alone
I think,
Jesus Christ,
they’ll come and
find me floating here
face down,
my 8 cats sitting on the
edge
licking and
scratching.
dying’s not bad,
it’s that little transition
from here to
there
that’s strange
like flicking the light
switch
off.
I’m now the old fart
in the neighborhood,
been working at it for
some time,
but now I have to work
in some new
moves:
I have to forget to zip up
all the way,
wear slippers instead of my
shoes,
hang my glasses around my
neck,
fart loudly in the
supermarket,
wear unmatched
socks,
back my car into a
garbage can.
I must shorten my
stride, take small
mincing steps,
develop a squint,
bow my head and
ask, “what? what