by David Lee
and lastly, as I have neither faith, use for, nor belief
in theological anthropomorphism, I have taken exactly that
as a topic for intensive thought, study, and speculation
since my recent visit to Big Bend Park
produced one predominating conundrum, namely
how many thrones do these desert gods need?
That’s it? said Clovis
The magic number being accomplished, can there be more?
That is the overwhelming question?
Most certainly not, paisano
What must it be then, Mr. Eliot, I presume?
The overwhelming question of the day
which in this instance you must answer is
where do you propose to drive this goddam truck
to a full stop so we can step out
and consume us some lunch?
Can you handle that magnificent interrogative, sirrah?
I shall put mind, body, and perhaps non-existent soul to the task
and I scuttle to do so
meanwhile pondering the depth of your proclivity
Hear hear, well assessed my Yorick
let us make haste to the appointed hour
Hark, my genius of the armadillos
before us I see Miss Lela’s Dew Drop Inn
the winged chariot draws near
Idyll
From the lunch counter at the Dew Drop Inn while one customer visited the lavatory
Yeah, Clovis had this dog
that had the habit of running off
and then getting lost
so many times
his wife changed its name
from Ivan Doig
to Ubi Sunt
so he’d quit asking
every other day
where’d that sonofabitch go
this time?
he can explain in a minute
the why and wherefore
if you ask, yeah
Pain
Now how’d you do that? said John
and Clovis told him
about the pickup being stuck
wouldn’t start
how he got mad and put his back
against the front and started it rocking
then gave all he had
heard the discs rupture
even before the blue pain
picked him up and threw him
on the ground
eyeball to antenna with a red ant
that crawled up his nose
and he didn’t care
I’ve never hurt that way Clovis said
it was the worst pain a man could feel
Oh shit said John it is not
is it Billy?
you lain back down right now
how’d you like it if I taken
and pult on these tractor ropes
they got you hooked up to
wouldn’t that hurt just as bad
or worst?
and what if that one fat nurse
name Martha Rae come in
pull down your covers
with her crapper pan again
says Lift up you gotta try some more
staring at you and you aint got
no underwears on?
you gone tell me that don’t hurt some?
and everbody come in
says Well that aint so bad
mine was worst
or My brother he torn his back up
like yours and he still caint walk
or His pecker still don’t have no feeling
in it and that was twenty years ago
or the doctor come in
says We gone have to operate on you
and everybody you known
says Don’t let him cut you
you’ll be cripple for life
their uncle he’s in a wheelchair
ever since caint do nothing
slobbers down the front of his shirt
nothing below his neck works
all the doctor’s fault
you won’t never be the same no more
you gone tell me that aint the worst
to hear truestories like that
and you just laying on your butt
in the bed taking up space
from people that’s really sick
no that aint the worse
it aint even the worse I heard of
I’ll tell you about some pain
everybody knows about that feller
set down on a crapper
at Possum Kingdom Lake
got blackwidow spider bit
on his privates and the whole end of it
come off with the poison
but I known a man
had cancer in the mouth
hurt so bad he chewed
half his tongue off before he died
got blood poison and gangrene
anothern had to chop his leg off
with a hatchet to get out
of a beartrap or he’d froze to death
died anyway in a car wreck
going to his mother’s funeral
a year later so it wasn’t worth it
and old Dan Walker
when his tractor wouldn’t start
hit it with a sledgehammer
missed and broke his shinbone
crawled a mile to his house
and they’d unhooked his phone
because he’s behind on the bill
that’s pain
but they’s some
kindly hurts a different way
sometimes even worse
it was this boy in the fifth grade
who was being called Johnny Mendietta back then
he would of stoled his daddy’s pickup
given it to you
for this one little girl name Danella Hagins
to say hello to him
but he’s a Mexican and that’s too bad
for him back then
so he helt it in all year
here comes Valentine Day
what’d he do? goes down
to Bob Collier drugstore
taken and bought her a box
of red Valentine candy and a card
given it to her at the class party
we all remembered
because she cried and had to go
to the nurse’s office
she’s so embarrassed to have a Mexican
do such a thing to her
he never come back to school
the rest of the year
I think that hurt pretty good
that aint the worse
I known of
I hurt just as bad
over Thelma Lou Shackleford
when I’s seventeen
we all went out to eat fish
we’d been messing around all day
it was that night I known
I loved that girl more’n life
we all order oysters and horse relish
except Thelma Lou
she orders catfish and the man
says You want that broil or fried ma’am?
she said Fried
I can still hear the way that sound
slid off the front of her tongue
I’s so ashamed eating raw oysters
I couldn’t hardly hold one
in my mouth and Tommy Wayne Clayborn
ate his and half of mine
slopped saurcet all over the table
like a hog licking his fingers
I watched her eat every bite
of her fish begging myself John
ask her to go for a ride
but I’s too ascaired
afraid she might say no or laugh
when she’s through
Tommy Wayne says Come on Thelma Lou
let’s go up Sawmill Road
she never said a word
got up and walked off with him
it wasn’t nothing I coul
d do
but watch her go
and that’s not the worse
Thelma Lou was my sister’s bestfriend
I known for a fact
because Thelma Lou told her
and sworn her to a life secret
so she told me
how when she’s twelve and come in
first time how she never known
what it was
nobody done told her
she thought she’s busted something
bleeding to death
she went in the kitchen
told her mother
her mother never turnt around
said You get out of this room
you shut the door behind you
caint you see I’m cooking supper?
I think that’s worse
but even worst than that
was Tommy Wayne Clayborn
knocked her up and I think he done it
that night I couldn’t say nothing
on the Sawmill Road
they didn’t know what to do
everybody in town known about it
before they got around to telling their folks
finally Tommy Wayne told
his daddy name Shirley Clayborn
he’s the sheriff back then and a good one
about the toughest man in town
partly because of his name
you’d say Morning Shirley
he’d look right in your eye
if it was sparkling any
it wouldn’t be purdy quick
so Tommy Wayne told him
he said What you gone do, boy?
Tommy Wayne said Gone marry her, Daddy
Shirley said Is that what you want?
Tommy Wayne said Yas she’s a hell of a girl
and she was goddammit
Shirley Clayborn called her family over
they all talked it out and said okay
if that’s how it is
and nobody got his ast kicked
like he should of
when they left Tommy Wayne
was just standing there in the room
with his daddy
Shirley went over and poured
two glasses of bootleg whiskey
he’d confisgated out said You want a drank?
Tommy Wayne said Yas I do, I think
and they did
then Shirley Clayborn said
Boy, do you know what’s worst
than doing what you did to that girl
in the backseat of my Chevrolet car?
and he said No Daddy, what?
Shirley Clayborn said
Not doing that to that girl
in the backseat of my Chevrolet car
and that’s pain.
All my life I’ve had to known
I never had a daddy like that
and it aint no way I know how
to be one either
and you caint tell me you hurt worst
than I do about that
and besides
I busted my back up
like yours
and I think mine’s worst
when I got home
I couldn’t set up in bed by myself
so LaVerne she put a screw in the ceiling
we hooked up a comealong
to help me get up and a belt around my chest
so I needed to pee and I hit that ratchet
belt slipped down around my belly
I done comealong my back up off the bed
I holler and here comes LaVerne
she don’t know how to undo
that ratchet and let me down
she hits it three licks there I am
my head and feet touching the bed
and the rest of me
pretending to be a rainbow with slipped discs
me needing to pee
the only way she could think of
to get me down so I’d quit hollering
was with a hacksaw
neighbors a mile off heard me and come down
fore she got me cut aloost
seen where I couldn’t help it
peed all over my bed
I couldn’t do nothing but lay in it
so don’t tell me or Billy about no worst pain
because it aint never the worse
it’s always something better’n that
you can bet on it anyday
besides, here come the fatnurse
so you better be getting ready, now.
Lake Hills, Texas A Tale of Rapunzel’s Lover
Once in his mind
an open window
moonflooded
upon a sweat and sex stained
flat twin bed
sheet curtain
made at Postex Cotton Mill, Texas
and shipped to J. C. Penney
in San Antonio
paflumped its belly
against blacksnake wind
crawling forty years backward
into the tornado crazed
Algerita Hotel bedroom
of his darkest memory
you just bed not go back in that place again
she might be Eve in the garden
or that Lilith or mebbe the bruja they say
even though he knew
he would find his way
through the nightmare maze
many times
to learn if the story’s end
might change
she beside him
lying upon a moon shard
in the Duffy Hotel in Bandera
instead of locking him outside
her mind’s door
where he stands, still
trying to find a way
to get back
into his
even now
even then
after all that
Zen and the Art of German Engineering
1
For his 74th birthday
Charles E. Carr, Sr. the Second
received fifteen dollars in the mail
with a handscribbled signature
inside a Judy’s Motel notepad tear away
from your son Charles E. Carr, Junior III.
which burned an archetypal hole
in his proverbial pocket
until he went
to Hamilton Drug Store
found the Braun Electric Dry Razor
he’d heard about on radio and t. v.
said How much is it?
Gordon Hamilton said Seventeen seventy-five
Holy cow he said
I bought a Remington
out the Sears catalog
for six dollars
not that long ago
That would have been in 1936
said Gordon Hamilton
the cheapest model
I got one, too
and it wasn’t worth a damn
these ones are good
made all the way over to Germany
I only got fifteen dollars
said Charles E. Carr, Sr.
Gordon Hamilton said
I’ll think about it
come back and see me this afternoon
Charles E. Carr, Sr.
drove to Bill Edwards Hardware and Appliance
two blocks away
said Can you order me
a Braun Electric Dry Razor?
Bill Edwards got his book out
said Yes I can
it’ll be sixteen dollars and fifty cents
including shipping
be here next Tuesday
Charles E. Carr, Sr. said
I’ll think about it
get back to you this afternoon
drove back to Hamilton Drug
said Gordon, Ign get that razor
down to Bill Edwards
for under sixteen dollars
Gordon said Is that right?
Charles E. Carr, Sr. said
Yep
though I’d of rather do bidness
with you being a neighbor
but I still only have fifteen
What if I sell it to you for fifteen fifty?
What if Bill Edwards went to fifteen?
I’ll go fifteen and a quarter, no less
yougn get a quarter from your wife
I can?
Yep
How’d you know that?
What if I called and asked her?
You didn’t do that
What if I did?
Can you gift wrap it?
It’s a birthday present
2
On the morning after his 74th birthday
Charles E. Carr, Sr. the Second
broke out in a blood bright rash
head to neck
down his shoulders, arms
scratched himself raw and moaned
like a three tawn cat in heat
his wife
stuffed him in the Buick
drove to Dr. Tubbs
You got shingles
said the Dr.
Is it some pills I can take for it?
said Charles E. Carr, Sr.
Yessir, but it’s going to take some time
said Dr. Tubbs
How much?
Dollars or time?
You’re going to be taking penicillin
and administering calamine lotion
for at least a month
on all afflicted areas
including some you might not
know about yet
Month?
Yessir and I hope your missus
will come to enjoy your looks
because you’re going to get downright scruffy
not being able to shave the whole time
3
Forty days forty nights
Charles E. Carr, Sr. the Second
lived in his Barcalounger
memorizing the schedule
of every program on Channel 7 and ll
Ding Dong School with Miss Francis
Captain Kangaroo soap operas all the days of his life
Queen for a Day Hopalong Roy Gene Durango Kid
Cisco and Lone Ranger Howdy Doody
Liberache and Tennessee Ernie Ford oh my both ways
Serenaders at 5 Bernie Howell on the Organ at 5:30
Douglas Edwards Edward R. Murrow See It Now
Jimmy Issac’s State News and Weather from Lubbock
Father Knows Alfred Hitchcock Best Loretta Young
Ed Sullivan Loves Lucy Milton Berle
Sid Caesar Dizzy Dean Dragnet Gunsmoke
It’s after eleven o’clock
will you turn that goddam thing down?
Yes dear I wished you wouldn’t talk that way
I’m getting real tired of this I’m warning you
Yes dear
his scruff sprouting through
a peat moss mask of dried pink lotion
splotches and patches
in his lap every day, all night
his Braun Electric Dry Razor
which during every commercial
sunrise to midnight, forty consecutive days
in the wilderness of temptation