moon
came through
to light
the
whirling
feast.
hard times
as I got out of my car down at the docks
two men started walking toward
me.
one looked old and mean and the other was
big and smiling.
they were both wearing
caps.
they kept walking toward me.
I got ready.
“something bothering you guys?”
“no,” said the old
guy.
they both stopped.
“don’t you remember us?”
“I’m not sure…”
“we painted your house.”
“oh, yeah…come on, I’ll buy you a
beer…”
we walked toward a cafe.
“you were one of the nicest guys we ever
worked for…”
“yeah?”
“yeah, you kept bringing us beer…”
we sat at one of those rough tables
overlooking the harbor. we
sucked at our
beers.
“you still live with that young
woman?” asked the old
guy.
“yeah. how you guys doing?”
“there’s no work now…”
I took out a ten and handed it to the old
one.
“listen, I forgot to tip you guys…”
“thanks.”
we sat with our beer.
the canneries had shut down.
Todd Shipyard had failed
and was
phasing them
out.
San Pedro was back in the
30’s.
I finished my beer.
“well, you guys, I gotta go.”
“where ya gonna go?”
“gonna buy some fish…”
I walked off toward the fish market,
turned halfway there
gave them
thumb-up
right hand.
they both took their caps off and
waved them.
I laughed, turned, walked
off.
sometimes it’s hard to know
what to
do.
longshot
of course, I had lost much blood
maybe it was a different kind of
dying
but I still had enough left to wonder
about
the absence of fear.
it was going to be easy: they had
put me in a special ward they had
in that place
for the poor who were
dying.
—the doors were a little thicker
—the windows a little smaller
and there was much
wheeling in and out of
bodies
plus
the presence of the priest
giving last
rites.
you saw the priest all the time
but you seldom saw a
doctor.
it was always nice to see a
nurse—
they rather took the place of
angels
for those who
believed in that sort of
thing.
the priest kept bugging me.
“no offense, Father, but I’d
rather die without
it,” I whispered.
“but on your entrance application you
stated ‘Catholic.’”
“that was just to be
social…”
“my son, once a Catholic, always a
Catholic!”
“Father,” I whispered, “that’s not
true…”
the nicest thing about the place were
the Mexican girls who came in to
change the sheets, they giggled, they
joked with the dying and
they were
beautiful.
and the worst thing was
the Salvation Army Band who
came around at
5:30 a.m.
Easter Morning
and gave us the old
religious feeling—horns and drums
and all, much
brass and
pounding, tremendous volume
there were 40 or so
in that room
and that band
stiffened a good
10 or 15 of us by
6 a.m.
and they rolled them right out
to the morgue elevator
over to the west, a very
busy elevator.
I stayed in Death’s waiting room for
3 days.
I watched them roll out close to
fifty.
they finally got tired of waiting
for me
and rolled me
out of there.
a nice black homosexual fellow
pushed me
along.
“you want to know the odds of
coming out of that ward?”
he asked.
“yeah.”
“50 to one.”
“hell,
got any
smokes?”
“no, but I can get you
some.”
we rolled along
as the sun managed to come through the
wire-webbed windows
and I began to think of
that first drink when
I got
out.
concrete
he had set up the
reading
he was one of the foremost practitioners
of concrete poetry
and after I read I went
up there to where he
lived
his place was high in the
mountains and
we drank and looked out the large
window at very large
birds
flying about
gliding mostly
he said they were eagles
(he might have been putting me
on)
and his wife played the
piano
a bit of
Brahms
he didn’t talk
much
he was a concrete
man
his wife was very
beautiful
and the way the eagles
glided
that was very beautiful
also
then it was twilight
then it was night
and you couldn’t see the eagles
anymore
it had been an afternoon
reading
we drank until one
a.m.
then I got into my car
and drove the winding
narrow road
d
o
w
n
I was too drunk to fear the
danger
when I got to my place I
drank two bottles of
beer and went to
bed.
then the phone
rang
it was my
girlfriend
she had been calling all
night
she was angry
she accused me of fornicating with
another
I told her about the beautiful
eagles
how they glided
and that I had been with a concrete
man
bullshit
she said
and hung
up
I stretched out there
looked at the ceiling and
wondered what the eagles
ate
then the phone rang
again
and she asked
did the concrete man have a
concrete wife and did you stick you
dick in her?
no
I answered
I fucked an
eagle
she hung up
again
concrete poetry
I thought
what the hell is
it?
then I went to sleep and I
slept and I
slept.
Gay Paree
the cafes in Paris are just like you imagine
they are:
very well-dressed people, snobs, and
the snob-waiter comes up and takes your
order
as if you were a
leper.
but after you get your wine
you feel better
you begin to feel like a snob
yourself
and you give the guy at the next table
a sidelong glance
he catches you and
you twitch your nose
a bit as if you had just smelled
dogshit
then you
look away.
and the food
when it arrives
is always too mild.
the French are delicate with their
spices.
and
as you eat and drink
you realize that everybody is
terrorized:
too bad
too bad
such a lovely city
full of
cowards.
then
more wine brings more
realization:
Paris is the world and the world
is
Paris.
drink to it
and
because of
it.
I thought the stuff tasted worse than usual
I used to drink with Jane
every night
until two or
three
a.m.
and I had to
report for
work
at 5:30
a.m.
one morning
I was sitting
casing mail
next to this
healthy
religious
fellow
and he said,
“hey, I smell
something, don’t
you?”
I answered in the
negative.
“actually,” he said,
“it smells something
like
gasoline.”
“well,” I told
him, “don’t light a
match or
I might
explode.”
the blade
there was no parking near the post office where
I worked at night
so I found this splendid spot
(nobody seemed to care to park there)
on a dirt road behind a
slaughterhouse
and as I sat in my car
just before work
smoking a last cigarette
I was treated to the same
scene
as each evening tailed off into
night—
the pigs were herded out of the
yard pens
and onto runways
by a man making pig sounds and
flapping a large canvas
and the pigs ran wildly
up the runway
toward the waiting
blade,
and many evenings
after watching that
after finishing my
smoke
I just started the car
backed out of there and
drove away from my
job.
my absenteeism reached such astonishing
proportions
that I had to finally
park
at some expense
behind a Chinese bar
where all I could see were tiny shuttered
windows
with neon signs advertising some
oriental
libation.
it seemed less real, and that was
what was
needed.
the boil
I was making good with the girls on the assembly line at
Nabisco, I had recently beaten up the company
bully
on my lunch hour,
things were going well, I was from out of
town, the stranger who seldom spoke to
anybody, I was the mystery man, I was the
cool number,
almost all those fillies had an interest
in me
and the guys didn’t know
what the hell.
then one morning I awakened in my
room
with a huge boil on the side of
my head (right cheek)
and
it was damn near the size of a
golf ball.
I should have phoned in sick
but
I didn’t have the sense and
went on in
anyhow.
it made a difference: the women’s eyes
fell away from mine, and the guys
no longer acted fearful
and I felt defeated by
fate.
the boil remained
for
2 days
3 days
4 days.
on the 5th day the foreman handed me
my papers: “we’re cutting back, you’re
finished.”
this was one hour before
lunch.
I walked to my locker, opened it,
took off my apron and cap
threw them in there
along with the
key
and walked
out
a truly horrible walk
to the street
where I turned around
and looked back at the building
feeling as if they had
discovered
something
hideously indecent
about me.
not listed
my horse was the grey
a 4 to one shot
with early lick
and he had a length and
a half
3/4’s of the way
down the stretch
when his left front leg
snapped
and he tumbled
tossing the jock
over his neck and
head.
luckily
the field avoided both
the horse and the
jock—who
got up and limped away
from the kicking
animal.
accident potential:
that’s something
that’s not listed in
the Racing Form.
in the clubhouse
I saw Harry
standing in a far-
off corner.
he was an x-jock’s
agent
now working as a
trainer
but not having
too many mounts
to train.
he was behind his
dark shades
looking
awful.
“you have the grey?”
I asked.
“yeah,” he said,
“heavy…”
“you need a transfusion,
it’s not much but…”
I slipped
3 folded 20’s
into his coat
pocket.
<
br /> “thanks,” he
said.
“put it on a good one.”
Harry had done me some
nice things
and anyhow
he was one of the
best
working for an edge
in one of the bloodiest
rackets
around: we are trying to
beat the percentages
and each day
some must fall
so that
others can go
on. (the track is just
like anyplace else
only there
it usually happens
more
quickly.)
I walked over and got
a coffee.
I liked the next
race
a six furlong affair for
non-winners of
two.
one good hit
would put the gods in
place
and cure
everything
in a flash of
glory…
I’m not a misogynist
more and more
I get letters from
young ladies:
“I’m a well-built 19
am between jobs and
your writing turns me
on
I’m a good housekeeper
and secretary and
would never get in
your way
and
would send a
photo but that’s
so tacky…”
“I’m 21
tall and attractive
have read your books
You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense Page 8