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7.
I was a bad writer, I killed N.C. because I made
more of him than there was, and then the ins
made more of my book than there was. there have
been only 3 bad writers in acceptable
American
literature. Drieser, of course, was the worst.
then we had Thomas Wolfe, and then we had me. but
when I try to choose between me and Wolfe, I’ve
got to take Wolfe. I mean as the worst. I like
to think of what Capote, another bad writer said
about me: he just typewrites. sometimes even
bad writers tell the truth.

******

dreamlessly

old grey-haired waitresses
in cafes at night
have given it up,
and as I walk down sidewalks of
light and look into windows
of nursing homes
I can see that it is no longer
with them.
I see people sitting on park benches
and I can see by the way they
sit and look
that it is gone.
I see people driving cars
and I see by the way
they drive their cars
that they neither love nor are
loved—
nor do they consider
sex. it is all forgotten
like an old movie.
I see people in department stores and
supermarkets
walking down aisles
buying things
and I can see by the way their clothing
fits them and by the way they walk
and by their faces and their eyes
that they care for nothing
and that nothing cares
for them.
I can see a hundred people a day
who have given up
entirely.
if I go to a racetrack
or a sporting event
I can see thousands
that feel for nothing or
no one
and get no feeling
back.
everywhere I see those who
crave nothing but
food, shelter, and
clothing; they concentrate
on that,
dreamlessly.
I do not understand why these people do not
vanish
I do not understand why these people do not
expire
why the clouds
do not murder them
or why the dogs
do not murder them
or why the flowers and the children
do not murder them,
I do not understand.
I suppose they are murdered
yet I can’t adjust to the
fact of them
because they are so
many.
each day,
each night,
there are more of them
in the subways and
in the buildings and
in the parks
they feel no terror
at not loving
or at not
being loved
so many many many
of my fellow
creatures.

******

palm leaves

at exactly 12:00 midnight
1973-74
Los Angeles
it began to rain on the
palm leaves outside my window
the horns and firecrackers
went off
and it thundered.
I’d gone to bed at 9 p.m.
turned out the lights
pulled up the covers—
their gaiety, their happiness,
their screams, their paper hats,
their automobiles, their women,
their amateur drunks…
New Year’s Eve always terrifies
me
life knows nothing of years.
now the horns have stopped and
the firecrackers and the thunder…
it’s all over in five minutes…
all I hear is the rain
on the palm leaves,
and I think,
I will never understand men,
but I have lived
it through.

******

one for Sherwood Anderson

sometimes I forget about him and his peculiar
innocence, almost idiotic, awkward and mawkish,
he liked walking over bridges and through cornfields.
tonight I think about him, the way the lines were,
one felt space between his lines, air
and he told it so the lines remained
carved there
something like Van Gogh.
he took his time
looking about
sometimes running to save something
leaving everything to save something,
then at other times giving it all away.
he didn’t understand Hemingway’s neon tattoo,
found Faulkner much too clever.
he was a midwestern hick
he took his time.
he was as far away from Fitzgerald as he was
from Paris.
he told stories and left the meaning
open
and sometimes he told meaningless stories
because that was the way it was.
he told the same story again and again
and he never wrote a story that was unreadable.
and nobody ever talks about his life or
his death.

******

nothing

when I was in
the post office
there was a
black girl
there was something
wrong
with her
and
there was something
wrong
with me
one
lunch period
she
walked up to me
and said,
“come on, buy
me a drink.”
so
we walked
across the street
to the
Chinaman’s
and we
had the drink
and
then I said,
“come on, buy
me a drink.”
and
she did
and then we
noticed a guy
passed out in a
corner booth
and she said,
“Jesus Christ,
it’s
Skinny Minny!”
Skinny Minny was
a high yellow
supervisor who had
given me
plenty of trouble
and it
looked strange
to see him there
human enough
to get drunk
like that
“I don’t hate
him
so much
now,” I
told her.
we finished
our drinks
and walked out
to go back to
work
“come on over here,” she
said
and she led me
up a little alley
to a wire
fence
where some
empty cartons
were stacked
it was very
dark and
she pulled over
a carton
sat down and
unzipped me
and began licking me
and then she
had me
in her mouth
sucking
I grabbed the
wire fence
“JESUS, JESUS,
JESUS!”
I came
she zipped me
up
and we walked
back to work
and punched in
late
after that
night
we never went
out together
again
maybe she had
been
playing me
against
some other guy
but Skinny Minny
never looked
as bad
again
I don’t know
what
that night
meant
it probably
didn’t mean
anything
at all
it’s when you
look
for meaning
that you get
confused
about a month
later
she said goodby
and quit
the job
that
made sense.

******

the Indian

the old Indian in Texas
was a handyman in return for
some beans and a shack and some
money for wine.
he didn’t want much.
he didn’t do much.
I knew the rich people who had
hired him: I had married their
granddaughter.
she had everything and wanted
more.
she wore high-heels and
crunched the earth when she
walked. it jolted her
frame.
her hair bounced like a horse’s mane
as she went about.
she told me the Indian’s name
and I saw him mending fences sometimes
a long tan rolled cigarette
hanging from his mouth
and at the most curious
times
a tiny blue puff of smoke
emanated from it.
I liked his face
it had diggings, veins, rivers, burnt areas.
he was never in a hurry.
I wasn’t either
his back looked like it was tied
to a pine board
while I was bent and slumped
weary and with
gut.
there wasn’t much to do on that ranch
for either of us.
I took long walks while my wife
painted oil paintings. she
painted best alone and I respected
that.
I came back each evening with
dust on my
shoes.
in time
in not too long a time
the Indian began to die. he knew
the landscape.
he didn’t want the hospital. he
wanted to die in his shack, he
told them.
they obliged.
he died there
secure
untroubled
and easy.
he wanted to die
there
and he did
with his cigarettes and wine jug.
my wife went on painting
and grandmother went on with her
migraines
and grandfather played old cowboy
songs on the victrola;
listening with a drink in his hand
he asked me,
“you like that one, Hank?”
“yeah, I think it’s good,”
I told him.

******

two drunks

I was trying to write.
I was barely existing.
mostly I typed dirty things
for the girly magazines.
Eddie was trying to paint.
he was barely existing
but he was luckier than
I: he lived in this big
house
with this beautiful girl
who was
taking care of him.
Eddie and I were
drinking together.
we did our work
plenty of it but we
drank plenty too.
he had
all his paintings
down in the cellar
of this house—
hundreds of them
thrown about and
stuck together.
he painted only with
yellow paint run through
with black india ink.
yellow was
my favorite color so
I liked the paintings.
I stayed over there
in the daytime
and drank
and then at night I
went back to my place
and drank some more
and typed.
it was
an exciting time even
though
we were hardly
making it
and the madhouse and/
or skid row were just
around the corner.
we fought and screamed and
drank with strangers
and the sun was always
up or
it was midnight
and either way
it was
raw shit energy.
Eddie liked to
paint to music
and since that was the
way I wrote I
understood it.
“read me some of your
god damned poems…”
I’d read them and
he’d begin
violently ripping
the canvas
with his brush
black across yellow
his beautiful woman watching.
we must have
gone on like that for
two or three months.
one day
I went over
to see Eddie and
his girl
met me
at the door.
“Eddie’s gone,” she
said, “I kicked his
ass out!”
“did he take his paintings?”
“no, I trashed
them!”
she didn’t look
beautiful to me
anymore.
“do you know
where he went?”
“no, and I don’t
give a damn!”
she
closed the door.
Eddie never came by
my place.
every now and then I’d
wonder about him.
I even got drunk
one night and went
back to the house and
tried to make
his x-girlfriend.
I couldn’t do it.
I went back home.
I had to keep
typing.
I was 50 years old
and
didn’t have a job.
I even tried to
paint
but I was
no way near
as good as Eddie.
I went back to
writing dirty stories.
I never saw
Eddie again.
and after a while
I just
forgot about him
until tonight
ten years later.
Eddie, I don’t care
much for people
but you could have
come by
you could have slept on the couch
or the floor.
not much
I know
but yellow is
my favorite color
just in case
you see this poem.

******

bad press

years ago while I was living on DeLongpre Ave.
typing at that window facing the sidewalk
he came by
a college professor
he came by with beer and I drank most of the
beer.
I don’t remember much about the conversation
but I do remember that I wasn’t very excited
by his visit.
one afternoon he came by and I had the flu.
I met him at the door. “I can’t see you,”
I told him.
then I took the 6-pack he was holding from
him and closed the door leaving him
standing there.
many years later now I receive literary magazines
to which I don’t subscribe.
and in them are reviews by this professor of
the anthologies I am in.
the professor always praises many, damns
a few, and when it comes to me he simply
blows me off the page like
cigarette ash that has fallen there.
I really had the flu, you know.
it didn’t kill me but it certainly did appear
to ravage my talents.

******

night school

in the drunk driver’s class
assigned there by division 63
we are given tiny yellow pencils
to take a test
to see if we have been listening
to the instructor.
questions like: the minimum sentence for a
2nd drunk driving conviction is:
a) 48 days
b) 6 months
c) 90 days
there are 9 other questions.
after the instructor leaves the room
the students begin asking the questions:
“hey, how about question 5? that’s a
tough one!”
“did he talk about that?”
“I think it’s 48 days.”
“are you sure?”
“no, but that’s what I’m putting
down.”
one woman circles all 3 answers
on all questions
even though we’ve been told to
select only one.
on our break I go down and
drink a can of beer
outside a liquor store.
I watch a black hooker
on her evening stroll.
a car pulls up.
she walks over and they
talk.
the door opens.
she gets in and
they drive off.
back in class
the students have gotten
to know each other.
they are a not-very-interesting
bunch of drunks and
x-drunks.
I visualize them sitting in a
bar
and I remember why
I started drinking
alone.
the class begins again.
it is discovered that I am
the only one to have gotten
100 percent on the test.
I slouch back in my chair
with my dark shades on.
I am the class
intellectual.

******

overt population

I’ll say one thing: her older sister wrote
more novels than anybody I ever knew but
the novels kept coming back. I read some
of them, or rather—parts of them. maybe
they were good, I didn’t know, I wasn’t a
critic: I didn’t like Tolstoy or Thomas
Mann or Henry James.
anyhow, her novels kept coming back and
her men kept leaving, and she just ate more,
had more babies; she didn’t bathe and seldom
combed her hair and she let the diapers lay
about stinking. and she talked continually
and laughed continually—a highly nervous
laugh—she talked about men and sex
continually and I never criticized her because
I sensed she had enough trouble and
I was living with her younger sister, besides.
but one afternoon when we were visiting, the
older sister said to me: “all right, I know
you’ve had some novels published but I have
these babies, these children, that’s an art,
that’s my art!”
“many people have babies,” I said, “that’s
really not exceptional, it’s rather standard.
but to write a good novel is a rare and an
exceptional thing.”
she leaped up and waved her arms: “oh yeah.
oh yeah? what about your daughter? where
is your daughter now?”
“Santa Monica, California.”
‘“SANTA MONICA? WHAT THE HELL KIND OF FATHER
ARE YOU?”
I no longer see either sister, although
about 2 months ago the younger one phoned
long distance and among other things she
told me that her sister had just mailed
her latest novel off to New York and that
her sister thought it was very good, that
it was the one, that it was the one that
would do it.
I didn’t tell her younger sister that
all of us novelists think that and that
is why there are so many of us.

******

out of the mainstream

after Mickey’s wife goes to work
he walks to the back of the court and starts smoking dope
with Harry the house painter.
Harry the house painter has a cowed dog named
“Pluto”
who whines away the day
at the end of a long rope.
I can’t blame anybody: people get tired of the
mainstream
I sit inside my place
reading the daily newspaper over and over
again.
then I turn on the tv to the
morning soap operas
and I am glad that I don’t live
with any of those women
they are always getting pregnant and are
always unhappy
with their doctors and lawyers.
I snap the set off
consider masturbating
reject that and
take a bath instead.
the phone rings, it’s my
girlfriend: “what are you
doing?”
“nothing.”
“what do you mean, ‘nothing’?”
“I’m in bed.”
“in bed? it’s almost noon.”
“I know.”
“why don’t you take a walk?”
“all right…”
I get up, get dressed and go outside.
I walk south down Western
I walk all the way to Santa Monica Boulevard
go into Sears-Roebuck.
there’s a blue jean sale on.
I purchase a pair for under $10.
I take the escalator down
and in the candy section
I buy a large bag of popcorn.
then I stroll through the hardware section
looking at tools that I have no interest in,
then to the electrical section
where I stand looking at a series of
sunlamps,
jamming the popcorn into my mouth
and feeling like a total
asshole.

******

yes

no matter who I’m with
people always say,
are you still with her?
my average relationship lasts
two and one half years.
with wars
inflation
unemployment
alcoholism
gambling
and my own degenerate nervousness
I think I do well enough.
I like reading the Sunday papers in bed.
I like orange ribbons tied around the cat’s neck.
I like sleeping up against a body that I know well.
I like black slips at the foot of my bed
at 2 in the afternoon.
I like seeing how the photos turned out.
I like to be helped through the holidays:
4th of July, Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving,
Christmas, New Year’s.
they know how to ride these rapids
and they are less afraid of love than I am.
they can make me laugh where professional comedians
fail.
there is walking out to buy a newspaper together.
there is much good in being alone
but there is a strange warmth in not being alone.
I like boiled red potatoes.
I like eyes and fingers better than mine that can
get knots out of shoelaces.
I like letting her drive the car on dark nights
when the road and the way have gotten to me,
the car radio on
we light cigarettes and talk about things
and now and then
become silent.
I like hairpins on tables,
on the floor.
I like knowing the same walls
the same people.
I dislike the insane and useless fights which always
occur
and I dislike myself at these times
giving nothing
understanding nothing.
I like boiled asparagus
I like radishes
green onions.
I like to put my car into a car wash.
I like it when I have ten win on a six to one
shot.
I like my radio which keeps playing
Brahms, Beethoven, Mahler.
I like it when there’s a knock on the door and
she’s there.
no matter who I’m with
people always say,
are you still with her?
they must think I bury them in
the Hollywood Hills.

******

on the hustle

I suppose
one of the worst times was
when
after a drunken reading and
an all night party
I promised to appear at
an eleven o’clock English
class
and there they sat
nicely dressed
terribly young
awfully comfortable.
I only wanted to sleep
and I kept the wastebasket
close
in case I
puked.
I think I was in the state of
Nebraska or Illinois or
Ohio.
no more of this,
I thought,
I’ll go back to the factories
if they’ll have me.
“why do you write?”
a young man asked.
“next question,”
I responded.
a sweet birdie with blue eyes
asked, “who are your 3
favorite contemporary
writers?”
I answered, “Henry Chinaski,
Henry Chinaski and Henry…”
somebody asked,
“what do you think about Norman
Mailer?”
I told them that I didn’t think
about Norman Mailer and then I
asked, “doesn’t anybody have a
beer?”
there was this silence, this
continuing silence and the class
and the prof looked at me and I
looked at them.
then the sweet birdie with
the blue eyes
asked,
“won’t you read us
one of your poems?”
and then that’s when I
got up and walked
out
I left them in there
with their prof
and I walked down
through the campus
looking at the
young girls
their hair
their legs
their eyes
their behinds…
they all look so good,
I thought, but
they’re going to grow up
into nothing but
trouble…
suddenly I braced myself
against a tree and began
puking…
“look at that old
man,” a sweet birdie with
brown eyes said to a sweet
birdie with pale green eyes,
“he’s really
fucked-up…”
the truth, at
last.

******

attack and retreat

read to them
read to them and drink wine, let the young girls
dream of sucking your soul out of your cock
read to them
read to them and drink your wine, get paid in cash,
leave and let somebody else drive the car.
but before that
when you
read to them
read them the new ones so you
won’t be bored
and when the applause comes
and the young girls look at you
with their hot bright eyes
remember when you were starving in small
rooms
remember the only time anybody wanted your
autograph was when you signed in
at the drunk tank
remember when other young girls thought you
were a roach.
read to them
read to them and drink your wine, and remember
all the poets who think that reading is
an important and a holy thing;
these are the poets who hate you,
these are the poets who read to 8 or 12 or
14 people.
these are the poets who write of
love and honesty and courage
or believe that they do.
leave the young girls to them, they need
the young girls for they have nothing
else.
take the cash and jam it
into your side pocket and get out and get away,
get back to your place, lock in.
you will be contacted: they’ll want to issue a phonograph
record of the reading.
give the contract to your lawyer.
start in on novel #
4.

******

it’s strange

it’s strange when famous people die
whether they have fought the good fight or
the bad one.
it’s strange when famous people die
whether we like them or not
they are like old buildings old streets
things and places that we are used to
which we accept simply because they’re
there.
it’s strange when famous people die
it’s like the death of a father or
a pet cat or dog.
and it’s strange when famous people are killed
or when they kill themselves.
the trouble with the famous is that they must
be replaced and they can never quite be
replaced, and that gives us this unique
sadness.
it’s strange when famous people die
the sidewalks look different and our
children look different and our bedmates
and our curtains and our automobiles.
it’s strange when famous people die:
we become troubled.

******

true confession

now look Benny, he said
(blowing the cigar smoke into Benny’s
face),
we don’t want to circumvent the
truth, do we?
ah, no, said Benny
look, the only way I can defend you is
if you tell the truth.
sure…
then, tell me…
what?
you raped and killed this little girl,
right?
no, no, not me, it was somebody else…
you like little girls?
sure…
then you did it?
ah, no.
o.k., Benny, I did it. you defend
me.
I got no law training.
tell me, did you like it, Benny? what
did it feel like? he asked (blowing more
cigar smoke into Benny’s face).
it was like eating an ice-cream cone….
what flavor, Benny?
all the flavors….
I’m not going to let them put you in the
chair, Benny, I’m going to get you life…
thank you, Mr. Markovitch….
no thanks needed, Benny, I only do what I have to
do.
I guess we’re both lawyers then, Mr.
Markovitch….

******

fourteen dollars and thirty-two cents

hair in the soup
blinkers don’t work.
the usual insomnia.
pissed-off in traffic.
dead flowers.
dental appointment.
no auto insurance.
torn shorts.
roach in the radio.
sober neighbors.
lost space ship
boil on the neck.
dead cat on the boulevard.
de Sade grinning in the dark.
more trouble in the government.
supermarket line:
standing in torn shorts
with a boil on my neck.
getting an erection
looking at the girl cashier.
“how you doing?” she asks.
“I need my teeth drilled,” I tell
her.
she doesn’t answer.
she works the register
bags my groceries.
I pay her.
“have a nice day,” she tells
me.
I walk out.
my erection goes down.
there’s trouble in the government.
I didn’t run over the cat.
all those people in the market will eat
tonight.
I will too but I won’t sleep.
I go to my car.
the blinkers won’t work
but it’s only 2 p.m.
I’ll use hand
signals.
does that girl cashier ever think of
sex?
hair in the soup.
dead flowers.
roach in the radio.
lost space ship.
no auto insurance.
I drive off as
de Sade grins in the
dark.

******

the sniveler

you’re a sniveler, she said,
you snivel when she doesn’t call,
I phone you and you’re shit-faced on wine.
I’m a baby, I said, then too I can’t figure out
how anybody can live without me.
my god, she said, you really mean that?
yes, I said.
oh my god, you’re impossible, you big soft
baby’s ass!
suck me off and maybe I can forget, help me
forget.
you big soft baby’s ass!
I’m sensitive, yes. and how can anybody live
without me?
she hung up.
well, I thought, there’s two who can live without me.
there might be 2000, 2 million, 2 billion, 2 million
billion.
it was one of the most depressing thoughts I’d had
in years.
I went into my bedroom and stretched out and looked at
the ceiling.
I thought, well, I can masturbate, I can look at television,
and then there’s suicide.
having already masturbated twice that day
I had two choices left and
being a big soft baby’s ass I
switched on the tv.

******

just another bad affair

Paris
is the place you’ve heard about
it’s very large and the people seem rich but very
separated from each other
each person
a temple of indifference
but
when you search these structures more intently
you see that
fear
has become a habit with them
they are stuffed with
fear
and it’s the
fear
which makes them seem indifferent
to each other
and to you.
these grand Parisians,
the ladies and children
sit in the park like paper flowers
and the men roar about in their tiny cars
bravely pretending.
I’m sure the French
have done many things of import
but
it smells of the past.
to go to Paris to create art
now
would be much like sitting around
waiting for a butterfly to fart.
I like the waiters and the dogs
and the whores
and the way the people stay up
most of the night
any night
but there is a chill upon
the soul of Paris.
cities die
like people die
only more slowly
and people
who live in dying cities
become stuffed with indifference and
fear
and when their deaths
become actual
funerals seem superfluous.
Paris
you expected nothing of me
but I expected more
of you.
now that we know all this
let us quietly
say goodbye.

******

the woman from Germany

every 3 or 4 nights the phone rings
and it’s this woman from Germany.
she keeps her calls short:
“hello,” she says, “it’s me.”
I never ask her name.
“what are you doing?” she asks.
“drinking white wine and typing,” I
say.
“you always say that.”
“that means that things are good.”
“I’ve had some red wine, how are things with
you?”
“more bad affairs,” I say, “they all end up
badly.”
“mine too,” she answers.
“it’s sad, isn’t it? I want to quit.”
“I can’t quit,” she answers.
“good. I don’t think I can either.”
“I’m going to sleep now. goodnight.”
“goodnight,” I say.
and I can see her in her bedroom. I can see her
put the phone down. now she puts out the light.
she pulls the covers up, inhales and exhales deeply.
she is sad. her walls cover her. she is alone.
I want to know her name.

******

parked

sitting in my car
on Catalina Avenue in Redondo Beach
I see a fellow of 19 or 20
riding his bicycle on the sidewalk.
he wears sandals and blue shorts,
slows down, stops, puts one foot down,
sits upon his bicycle seat.
it is 4:30 in the afternoon and
he is tanned a deep and even tan,
has yellow hair and mustache.
his face is smooth
unmarked by pain or experience.
then something animates him
and he pedals off.
another crosses the street,
he must be 21,
very large of chest, blond,
blue-eyed, very tanned, wearing
green shorts and sandals.
it is a Tuesday afternoon.
he stands a moment
looking down the street.
his face is the same as the
other face:
without expression or purpose.
a long cigarette is in his mouth.
he finally enters a liquor store,
comes out a moment later
holding a can of Bubble-Up.
these are the kind that my parents wanted
me to be
the kind my country wanted me to
be
the kind the girls wanted me to
be.
I start the engine and back out of
there
thinking about
Leo Durocher, Machine Gun Kelly,
Rocky Marciano, Two Ton Tony Galento
and Dutch Van Gogh.

******

let nothing ever happen

I drove in for gas and began filling my tank
and the attendant was a fat man dressed all in
orange.
he stood there watching and I had this feeling
that I should take the gas nozzle
jam it into his mouth
and fill him with about
five gallons of supreme.
I filled the tank instead
and hung up the hose.
I paid
got my change
and he watched me as I walked to the
front of my car
kicked the right front tire hard
circled the car
got in
and drove off.
I drove north down Pacific Coast Highway and it was all
right until I came to these orange
road-markers
which narrowed the three lanes down
to one.
traffic slowed
then stopped in a long line
for a red signal.
they had us all in the left
lane.
I looked out the right window
and saw this blond road-worker with a
beard.
he tossed a road-marker through the air
to another road-worker with a beard.
he caught it
laughed and tossed it back.
they were playing catch.
hell, I remember when only hermits wore
beards.
the lane to the left wasn’t moving and
I wanted to make a right turn
and there was nothing going on in the
other lanes
but this game of catch.
I cut into the right lane.
the blond boy saw me coming and
missed his catch.
as I drove past him he screamed,
“what the hell are you doing?”
I stopped my car and got out.
as I walked up to the blond the other
worker ran up.
he stopped in front of me.
“you can’t drive in this lane,”
he said.
“what the hell are you doing?” asked
the blond.
“if a cop was around he’d tag your
ass!” said the other boy.
“are you a cop?” I asked.
“no, you can see I’m not a cop.”
“this is what the hell I am doing: I’m going to get into
my car and make a right turn from this lane.”
“who the fuck do you think you are?” asked the
blond.
”I don’t know who I am, but I’m going to get into
my car now and make a right turn from this lane.”
“yeah,” said the other boy, “you can eat shit too!”
“there’s too much of it around here, I’m going to leave you
with it.”
I got into my car
started it and
made my right turn.
I shouldn’t have done that, I thought.
it’s when you do things like that too often that
they put you in the madhouse.
maybe it’s happening: this thing I’ve been
fighting against
so long.
I thought about driving back and
apologizing: “listen, fellows, I know I was wrong
and I’ve come back here to ask your forgiveness.”
or I could go back to the gas station man:
“listen, do you know that I was thinking of filling
you with five gallons of supreme and I’m here to
apologize for that.”
but I just kept driving along.
if I was careful I could hide among all of them
for years.
as I stopped for a signal there were cars all
around me.
I turned my radio on loud
to the worst music I could
find.

******

smooth

slowly driving the back streets of the town, looking at
old houses, garbage cans, fences…in decay;
driving through the warehouse district,
then running the car down to the harbor, parking,
getting out, getting a coffee at a stand,
then sitting at a table watching ships as long as
a city block going out to sea, thinking of all the women
now gone and how important each one had seemed
of enormous importance
an importance bigger than any of the ships
and now they were elsewhere with other men
or alone.
getting up, back to the car, driving to the market
to get oranges and wine, radishes, green onions, toilet
paper,
looking at the people who had once seemed so dangerous,
now they were listless, pushing their carts,
no arguments, no trouble, no impatience.
even the racetracks were closed because of a special
holiday.
getting into the car with the goods
driving the back streets
there are children playing some game,
they step back to let the car through;
no curses, no rocks thrown, silence,
afternoon into evening, an effortless evolving;
no ambulances, not even a dead dog in the street.
it’s going to be a bad night,
I’m going to be mean to my woman and it’s not going to be
her fault.

******

message

I’ve been sitting in this
room for hours
typing, and drinking
red wine.
I thought I was
alone here.
the door is closed and
the window.
now a big fat fly
ugly and black
sits on the edge
of my wine glass.
where did it come
from?
so silent, motionless
like that.
that’s the way
it might be
with death.

******

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