read some more, read some
more!”
he read one more poem and then he said,
“this is the last poem that
I will read.”
“oh no,” said all the little
girls in their red and green see-
through dresses. “oh no,” said
all the little girls in their tight blue
jeans with little sewn hearts on them.
“oh no,” said all the little girls,
“please read
more poems!”
but he was as good as his word.
he got the poem out and he got down and
vanished somewhere. as I got up to read
the little girls wiggled in
their seats and one of them hissed and
some of them made interesting remarks to me
which I will use in a poem at some later date
because this particular goddamned poem
has to end somewhere.
anyway, it was two or three weeks later
when I got this letter from the poet William
saying that he did enjoy my reading.
he was a true gentleman.
I was in bed with a
three-day hangover. I lost the envelope
but I took the letter and folded it
into one of those paper airplanes
I had learned to make in grammar
school. it sailed around the room
and landed between an old Racing Form
and a pair of well-worn shorts.
we have not corresponded since.
no more of those young men
my first husband, Retzel, she said,
flew gliders. he had only one hand.
he never went down on me even once.
he wants to meet you, he lives in
Redondo Beach.
Redondo Beach, I said, Redondo Beach.
my next husband,
Craft, took pills and played the piano all day.
then he had to have one of his fingers operated on.
a wart. he was cruel to me. he knows now
how cruel he was to me.
where is he now?
Africa. he’s still in Africa.
I hitched all over Africa. I bummed down there
on a boat. I met a man with a
leopard. he used to take his leopard for a
walk every day on a chain.
one day he didn’t show up. his leopard had
eaten him.
that’s a funny story.
I think so too. I like you. you understand
things. no more of those young men for me,
those hard bodies. I want you. you’re in control
of everything.
I am?
yes, my next husband,
Larry, once covered my body with
rose petals. all those flowers! it was
lovely but he didn’t make love to me
again for 2 years. he was such a bad
lover. you’re a great
lover.
I am?
yes, wouldn’t you like to go to Holland?
no.
to Paris?
no.
to Africa?
no.
Redondo Beach?
no.
you’re strange. don’t you like to
travel?
I’m sick of that.
you should have seen me fly Retzel’s glider!
I was good on that glider.
but he would never go down on
me.
Retzel?
yes, he’s a publicist now. he makes good
money.
some day I’ll tell you about my
wives.
I don’t want to hear about your
wives. I don’t want to hear about
any of
them.
she turned over in bed
giving me her back and her
behind.
kid, I said, tell me more about
Retzel.
she turned back toward
me. you really want to
hear?
sure.
then we lay there on our backs
and she talked about Retzel
and I listened.
two
beware women grown
old
who were never
anything but
young.
legs
she arrived in a taxi
completely intoxicated.
it was
after one of my long days as
a May Co. stock boy
and I sat there
exhausted and
sucking at
my beer and
looking at her
in her rumpled state
spread across the bed
skirt hiked high.
I sucked at my drink
then walked over
to the bed and lifted
her skirt higher:
such a sight
those glorious legs
uncovered and helpless.
she was a great woman with
great legs.
we had such tremendous fun
and much agony together
for some years
but she found
life too hard;
she died
34 years ago and
I haven’t seen
legs like that
since
and I have
never stopped
looking.
Jane’s shoes
my shoes in the closet like forgotten
lilies,
my shoes alone right now,
like dogs walking dead avenues,
and I got a letter from a
woman in a hospital,
love, she says, love,
but I do not write back,
I do not understand myself,
she sends me photographs of
herself
taken in the hospital
and I remember her on other
nights,
not dying,
her shoes with heels like daggers
sitting next to mine
in the closet;
how those strong nights
lied to us,
how those nights became quiet
finally,
my shoes alone in the closet now
flown over by coats and
awkward shirts,
and I look into the hole the
door leaves
and the walls, and I do not
write
back.
Rimbaud be damned
it was in Santa Fe.
we sat up waiting for her.
she had gone to some art show or some other
goddamned silly useless thing.
she was a good artist
better than many men
and that was the
problem.
“what the hell happened to Helen?”
“where’s Helen?”
Helen’s husband, x-husband, was now sitting on the top of a
hill somewhere with a new blue-eyed whore.
quite a
whore: she even wrote
poetry. Vicki was her name. Vicki was now “Mrs.”
she had exchanged a rich husband for an even
richer one.
“Helen asked me not to hate Vicki,” said my hostess,
“but hell, I can’t even like Vicki.”
“hell,” said my host, “can’t you
try?”
“do you like Vicki?” asked my hostess.
Vicki had looked good to me. I couldn’t find anything wrong
with her.
“where’s Helen?” I asked again. “oh where oh where the hell is
Helen?”
“she’ll be here, she’ll be here, she said she was
coming.”
Helen showed up 3 hours later.
she looked like a snake in a green dress, all fluid,
wild wild, glazed,
her silver necklace pulsating
on her throat
right under my nose.
she was consumed by 3 simple things:
drink, despair, loneliness; and 2 more:
youth and beauty.
it was too much:
I could not withstand the force of
her. I kissed her. I kissed her
again. I was like a schoolboy,
all my toughness
gone.
“let’s get the hell out of here!”
I told her, ignoring our host and hostess.
we went next door to her place
and I sat in her kitchen drinking and
watching
her.
“your body, your body, Jesus!” I told
her. she was truly beautiful and laughing,
just like you read about in a novel
only it never really happens to
anybody.
she twisted her body and while humming
did a lovely dance filled with
innuendo.
“baby, I love you,” I said, “baby, I love
you!”
we walked down a dark hall hung with a
crucifix and some of her paintings. we entered
another large room. I hung on to my
drink.
“stay here,” she said.
I sat on a couch and drank. it seemed
cold and hollow suddenly and
I wondered where she had
gone.
then I looked around and she was lying on another couch
naked and smiling
which was unsettling
for I am used to undressing my
women
and the look of her stark naked there reminded me more of
my slaughterhouse days than
it did of Mozart,
but, of course, who wants to fuck
Mozart?
I finished my drink and undressed and I tried
but I guess I was not much
it was my fault
my fault
and she shoved me
away.
I made a few more halfhearted
tries and then she got up and left.
I also dressed and then
I don’t remember much else except
being pretty drunk.
but then when she shoved me out into the rain
I revived.
the rain was wet the rain was cold the rain was
freezing.
“shit,” I said, “shit!” I ran back to her
door or to the door I thought was her door
but there seemed to be dozens of doors,
a series of apartments all
enjoined.
I beat on the door I hoped was hers:
“baby, baby, I don’t want to fuck you! I realize that I am
a lousy lover! all I want is to get out of this
goddamned rain!”
she didn’t reply. I gave up. I ran back to
my first host’s apartment. I beat on his door.
it didn’t work. the rain was like ice.
I looked into an open garage but it was filled with mud and water;
no place to lie down.
“let me in!” I screamed. “Jesus! mercy! what have I done?
what have I failed to do? YOU ARE YOUR BROTHER’S KEEPER!”
my host came to the door:
“you are a dirty dog!”
“I know, but let me in,
please.”
he opened the door and I followed him down the
hall.
“boy oh boy,” he said, “you are a son-of-a-bitch, you are
a yellow hound, you aren’t worth a damn!”
“I know it,” I said.
“did you tell her that I was an x-con?”
“hell, no, I wasn’t even thinking of
you.”
“then what the hell do you want from
me?”
“nothing. you paid the
train fare down.”
“you insulted us both. I don’t care about myself but you can’t
insult my wife. you said to Helen, ‘let’s you and I get the
hell out of here, these other people are nothing!’”
“fuck that. you got any whiskey
left?”
“in the refrigerator.”
“thanks.”
he grunted and climbed into bed beside his
wife.
I brought the bottle out to my cot
and nipped nipped nipped and
listened to the
rain. I thought the night was
over but then he began
again:
“I thought you were a great writer
I thought you were a great man
that’s why I paid your fare down here
that’s why I published your poetry
that’s why I wanted all these people to meet
you!”
“all right,” I said, gulping the good whiskey,
“I’ll leave in the morning. why don’t we all go to
sleep?”
“you are really a son-of-a-bitch!
I never thought you’d be such a son-of-a-bitch!
why do you always keep your eyes half closed?
why can’t you look a man in the face?
why do you always avert your glance?”
“I dunno, I dunno.”
“you’re yellow, that’s all: YELLOW!”
I knew it was true
and I took a big hit of whiskey and
said:
“ya wanna go outside and fight?”
“hell! you’ve got ten years on me!”
“I’ll give ya the first
punch!”
“you promise you’ll leave in the morning?”
“sure.”
Helen heard about me leaving
from them I guess
and she came down a little early the next morning to ask if
she could drive me to the little hotel to catch the bus to
the train station.
she still looked good
even more than before
dressed in tight pants and Indian moccasins and
when nobody was looking
I reached over and pinched her
foot. she ignored it but did not tell me to
go to hell
so I felt all warm
inside.
“o.k., I’ll drive him down,” she said to my
hosts.
“thanks,” they said.
I went in to take a
shit.
“we hate to see him go,” I heard
my hosts say.
“so do I,” she
said.
a big turd dropped
out.
“I’ll be back at 2 to pick him up,”
she said.
“goodbye.”
“goodbye.”
when I came out there were 2 Indians sitting there
with my hosts.
the Chief said, “I trusted that nigger with 8 bucks
for 2 four-pound sacks of chili beans. it’s been 2
weeks and he ain’t back yet. he worked for some cement company.
lemme have your phone book, I’m gonna find that
bastard!”
they introduced me to his squaw. I kissed her on the
cheek. she giggled. she was about 60 years old and had
bad legs.
“I got problems,” said the Chief, and
then he ripped the blanket off my cot
and wrapped it around and around himself.
“I am big Chief,” he said, “all I need is a
good piece of ass and then to catch that nigger.”
“don’t look at me,” I told him, “I am
neither.”
the Chief looked at
me. “I think I need a bath,”
he said.
he went and climbed into one of the 3 tubs in one of the
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