25032012 / a plausible finish
there ought to be a place to go
when you can’t sleep
or you’re tired of getting drunk
and the grass doesn’t work anymore,
and I don’t mean go on
to hash or cocaine,
I mean a place to go besides
a death that’s waiting
and a love that doesn’t work
anymore.
there ought to be a place to go
when you can’t sleep
besides a tv set or a movie
or a newspaper
or a novel about a woman
whit her clit in her throat.
it’s not having that place to go
that creates the people in madhouses
and the suicides.
I suppose what most people do
when there isn’t any place to go
is to go to someplace or something
that hardly satisfies them,
and this ritual tends to sandpaper them
into a dullness where they can relax
without hope.
those faces you see everyday on the streets
were not created
entirely without
thought: be kind to them:
they have:
escaped.
14032012 / this is free, take it, and feel better
bad-natured people are everywhere like flies upon a dead horse in a
hot summer
they are set upon objects, things, situations
in a rather congenial viciousness
that is most often mistaken for courage
but generally
(setting aside bad companionship, bad diet, bad breeding)
most acrimonious nerves (setting aside bad elimination of wastes and so
forth) are caused by
failure.
and they fail
first
because they are simply incompetent at what they try to do or
be
and second
because of an educational system
and a
national philosophy which
beckons them higher than they are
able.
in other words, they are not failures
but unrealistic forces and demands make them feel to be
failures
and so business is good for the
psychiatrists and psychologists
and the jails-and the mental
institutions
(which are only dumping grounds for the overload
like unhappy homes, thieves, skid row and etc.)
there is no such thing as failure, there is only the
comparative grind, there is only the concept of
failure.
and a $175 an hour shrink won’t even tell you
this
because
he’s been taught by the book
just like his victim.
so take this poem and keep it somewhere for
ready reference
because it might not only save you
money
it might also save your
sad and angry
ass.
13032012 / toy christ (bonus)
the sun in snuffed by oily
clouds,
I flip the king on the table
face-side up—
the eyes are gouged-out.
and old woman throws a bucket of piss out the window
as they enter the gate for the
6th race.
a door closes like the end of everything.
the machinegunners at the pass
tell dirty jokes.
the lemon trees lean and moan
not wanting to bear
the good yellow fruit.
it rains, the landlord looks at me with
angry eyes.
get 5 pounds of hamburger
shape it into a head—
grapes for eyes, green grapes, and no
body needed, and it can’t hear, and I’ll
make the mouth—there!
but what’ll we have it
say?
in garages, murders are enacted
in attics great paintings are painted
dogs die at night
in attics murders are
completed.
the president uses good toilet paper
the chickens eat grain don’t
complain. can’t. get out. they are
eaten at one end or all
together.
Man sometimes knows he is being eaten
at both ends
only he doesn’t know what to do
about it
except
write songs, drink, screw, go
crazy, wait to
die.
dear man: I don’t mean to brag but
there’s this great sheeney red blash of blood
going down my chest, and it rained today, ha
and I’m strapped to the ground here,
like a little christ
like a little toy christ
but it’s warm
I
eat cheese
scratch
read old newspapers
wonder about the republican party
about the communist party
about all the parties
wonder about 800 billion Paris orgies
wonder about 800 billion pairs of outworn and torn
ladies’
panties while
ships are sailing planes flying palms sweating cocks
stroking tubs fillings tubs draining tubs empty tubs
clean tubs dirty sewers filling
paint
painting
plants
growing
pants showing
children
yowling all I’ve got to do is
lay down on this torn mattress and
let go—
like falling through space with a bag of ripe
avocados
as the sky clubs the land across the neck
like a dead and rubbery Mexican cactus at
two minutes to midnight and
the refrigerator doors
open.
13032012 / it’s not exactly the sun
it’s a yellow light.
I mean walking down the sidewalk
it’s a yellow light
soundless.
picking up the telephone
peeling an orange
it’s the yellow light.
shoot an arrow through it
it’s yellow.
fight with your woman
at night
it moves across the room
between you
yellow—
head,
half-arms fat,
glob body
wide legs
no eyes.
I saw it at my mother’s funeral
I saw it in the garden
I saw it sliding among the bottles at
the liquor store.
I don’t know what it is.
it sits inside of me now
and yet it looks at me
from the walls.
we can’t nail this one on the cross
we’ll live with it
like we live with dresser drawers
dogs
cats
roaches.
if it comes to see you
don’t phone me
I’ve gone
unlisted.
12032012 / 5000 dollars
the cafe was almost empty and the waiter
told us how he had won 5000 dollars at
the racetrack. he had an emblem pinned
to his jacket indicating that he had 6
children. we ordered a bottle of wine
and sand dabs. Stevie Wonder walked by
guided by a young lady and followed by
a bodyguard. the waiter said he went
to the racetrack twice a week—on
Friday and on Sunday. he stated that
since the rains had stopped that is was
easier to handicap. when the sand dabs
arrived they were burned on the bottom.
the chef had been there 31 years but he
only went to the racetrack on sundays.
29022012 / an afternoon in mid-February 1974
they think I’m up here drunk on
beer
PELIKAN
tinta
china
17 negro
a paper container in front of me
says
as the paperboys begin to grow beards and
look like the bad
poets
Martin Van Buren was the 8th, president
of the U.S. from 1837 to 1841,
then I spill coffee on the
dictionary
the phone rings
all these women want to talk to me
they can’t forget me—
am I that good?
the lady downstairs borrows a vacuum cleaner
from the manager and crackles her thanks
her thanks come upward to me here
and also mingle with two pigeons and their
feathers as they sit on the roof in the
wind. vacuum is spelled very strangely,
I think, and I watch the 2 pigeons on the roof,
they sit motionless in the wind, just a few small
feathers on their bodies
rising and falling
the phone rings again
“I have just about gotten over it,
I have just about gotten over
you.”
“thank Christ,” I say and
hang up.
it is 2 p.m. in the afternoon
I have finished my coffee and had a smoke
and now the coffee water is boiling
again, there is an original painting of
Eric Heckel’s THE SLEEPING WOMAN
on my north wall
and there is neither joy nor sorrow here now
just all the paperboys in Los Angeles
trying to grow beards
and the sound of the vacuum cleaner.
28022012 / you’ve got to fall up to get down….
consistency is the heart of excellence, excellence is the
heart of consistency, and excellent consistency has
heart…
—most people in the arts lack
(a) durability
(b) durability
(c) same.
the painters are far more
durable
than the writers.
I don’t know much about
the musicians
the sculptors
others.
maybe there should be
joy and explorative madness
in a work?
maybe finely crafted works
are finally a
bore?
maybe more than a
bore?
maybe works should never be
work?
maybe all classes
all instructors are a
waste?
maybe I talk like one
of those?
here I’ve already said
too much.
no
maybe.
27022012 / the good guy
we stood in the wings and he looked out
at the audience.
“I can’t see the audience,” he told
me.
“yeah,” I said.
“I like to see the audience,” he said,
“I like to see their faces and their
eyes, don’t you?”
“I prefer them in the dark,” I answered,
“all I want is a little beer and horse
money and then I want to clear out.”
“I don’t know about you,” he said, “but
I want to give the audience my feelings
and my art.”
he walked out on the stage and hollered
out, “I want LIGHTS! I want lights on
the audience!”
the lights went on.
“all right,” he said, “everybody come down
close, gather about me here. that’s it,
that’s it, get close, get closer. I want
to see your faces, I want to look into
your EYES and I want you to look into
mine!”
I walked back stage looking for a restroom.
I couldn’t find one. I couldn’t find a
trash can. I walked down a small stairway
and began to pewk. my vomit dripped down
the stairway and he began tossing his love
song.
07012012 / back to the machinegun
I awaken about noon and go out to get the mail in my old torn bathrobe I’m hungover hair down in my eyes barefooted tenderly stepping upon small rocks and branches still afraid of pain behind my four day beard as the young housewife next door shakes a rug out of her window and sees me: “hello, Hank!” god damn, it’s almost like being shot in the ass with a .22 “hello,” I say gathering up my Visa card bill, my PENNYSAVER, the Dept. of Water and Power plus a notice from the Weed Abatement Department giving me 32 days to clean up my act I mince back again over the various debris thinking, maybe I’ll write tonight, they seem to be closing in there’s only one way to handle those motherfuckers the night harness races will have to wait.
12122011 / the parts dept. (bonus)
listen, she said, I never knew my husband had a big cock
he was the only man I’d ever been to bed with until I
met you.
listen, I asked her, do you ever hear me talking about
my x-wife’s genital organs?
you don’t even talk about your x-wife, she said.
well, until I met you I thought she had a small one,
I said.
small what? she asked.
automobile, I said, now let’s put on some records and
dance.
