Love is a Dog from Hell (11 page)

 

it’s the same as before

or the other time

or the time before that.

here’s a cock

and here’s a cunt

and here’s trouble.

 

only each time

you think

well now I’ve learned:

I’ll let her do that

and I’ll do this,

I no longer want it all,

just some comfort

and some sex

and only a minor

love.

 

now I’m waiting again

and the years run thin.

I have my radio

and the kitchen walls

are yellow.

I keep dumping bottles

and listening

for footsteps.

 

I hope that death contains

less than this.

 

there are many single women in the world

with one or two or three children

and one wonders where the husbands

have gone or where the lovers have

gone

leaving behind

all those hands and eyes and feet

and voices.

as I pass through their homes

I like opening cupboards and

looking in

or under the sink

or in a closet—

I expect to find the husband

or lover and he’ll tell me:

“hey, buddy, didn’t you notice her

stretch-marks, she’s got stretch-marks

and floppy tits and she eats

onions all the time and farts…but

I’m
a handy man. I can fix things,

I know how to use a turret-lathe and

I make my own oil changes. I can shoot

pool, bowl, and I can finish 5th or

6th in any cross-country marathon

anywhere. I’ve got a set of golf

clubs, can shoot in the 80’s. I know

where the clit is and what to do about

it. I’ve got a cowboy hat with the brim

turned straight up at the sides.

I’m good with the lasso and the dukes

and I know all the latest dance steps.”

 

and I’ll say, “look, I was just leaving.”

and I
will
leave before he can challenge me

to arm-wrestling

or tell a dirty joke

or show me the dancing tattoo on his

right bicep.

 

but really

all I find in the cupboards are

coffee cups and large cracked brown plates

and under the sink a stack of hardened

rags, and in the closet—more coathangers

than clothes, and it’s not until she shows

me the photo album and the photos of him—

nice enough like a shoehorn, or a cart in

the supermarket whose wheels aren’t stuck—

that the self-doubt leaves, and the

pages turn and there’s one child on a

swing wearing a red outfit and there’s

the other one

chasing a seagull in Santa Monica.

and life becomes sad and not dangerous

and therefore good enough:

to have her bring you a cup of coffee in

one of those coffee cups without
him

jumping out.

 

I keep thinking it will be outside

now

waiting for me

blue

front bumper twisted

Maltese cross hanging

from the mirror.

rubber floormat

twisted under the pedals.

20 m.p.g.

good old TRV 491

the faithful love of a man,

the way I put her into second

while taking a corner

the way she could dig from a signal

with any other around.

the way we conquered large and

small spaces

rain

sun

smog

hostility

the crush of things.

 

I came out of last Thursday night’s

fights at the Olympic

and my 1967 Volks was gone

with another lover

to another place.

 

the fights had been good.

I called a cab at a Standard station

and sat eating a jelly doughnut

with coffee in a cafe and

waited,

and I knew that if I found

the man who stole her

I would kill him.

 

the cab came. I waved to the

driver, paid for the coffee and

doughnut, got out into the night,

got in, and told him, “Hollywood

and Western,” and that particular

night was just about over.

 

if I suffer at this

typewriter

think how I’d feel

among the lettuce-pickers

of Salinas?

 

I think of the men

I’ve known in

factories

with no way to

get out—

choking while living

choking while laughing

at Bob Hope or Lucille

Ball while

2 or 3 children beat

tennis balls against

the walls.

 

some suicides are never

recorded.

 

and the subnormal.

all through grammar school

junior high

high school

junior college

the unwanted would attach

themselves to

me.

guys with one arm

guys with twitches

guys with speech defects

guys with white film

over one eye,

cowards

misanthropes

killers

peep-freaks

and thieves.

and all through the

factories and on the

bum

I always drew the

unwanted. they found me

right off and attached

themselves. they

still do.

in this neighborhood now

there’s one who’s

found me.

he pushes around a

shopping cart

filled with trash:

broken canes, shoelaces,

empty potato chip bags,

milk cartons, newspapers, penholders…

“hey, buddy, how ya doin’?”

I stop and we talk a

while.

then I say goodbye

but he still follows

me

past the beer

parlours and the

love parlours…

“keep me
informed
,

buddy, keep me
informed
,

I want to know what’s

going on.”

he’s my new one.

I’ve never seen him

talk to anybody

else.

the cart rattles

along a little bit

behind me

then something

falls out.

he stops to pick

it up.

as he does I

walk through the

front door of the

green hotel on the

corner

pass down through

the hall

come out the back

door and

there’s a cat

shitting there in

absolute delight,

he grins at

me.

 

in junior high school

Big Max was a problem.

we’d be sitting during lunch hour

eating our peanut butter sandwiches

and potato chips.

he was hairy of nostril

and of eyebrow, his lips

glistened with spittle.

he already wore size ten and a half

shoes. his shirts stretched across a

massive chest. his wrists looked like

two by fours. and he walked up

through the shadows behind the gym

where we sat, my friend Eli and I.

“you guys,” he stood there, “you guys

sit with your shoulders slumped!

you walk around with your shoulders

slumped! how are you ever going to

make it?”

 

we didn’t answer.

 

then Max would look at me.

“stand up!”

 

I’d stand up and he’d walk around

behind me and say, “square your

shoulders like this!”

 

and he’d snap my shoulders back.

“there! doesn’t that feel
better
?”

 

“yeah, Max.”

 

then he’d walk off and I’d resume a

normal posture.

Big Max was ready for the

world. it made us sick

to look at him.

 

in the winter walking on my

ceiling my eyes the size of streetlamps.

I have 4 feet like a mouse but

wash my own underwear—bearded and

hungover and a hard-on and no lawyer. I

have a face like a washrag. I sing

love songs and carry steel.

 

I would rather die than cry. I can’t

stand hounds can’t live without them.

I hang my head against the white

refrigerator and want to scream like

the last weeping of life forever but

I am bigger than the mountains.

 

call it love

stand it up in the failing

light

put it in a dress

pray sing beg cry laugh

turn off the lights

turn on the radio

add trimmings:

butter, raw eggs, yesterday’s

newspaper;

one new shoelace, then add

paprika, sugar, salt, pepper,

phone your drunken aunt in

Calexico;

call it love, you

skewer it good, add

cabbage and applesauce,

then heat it from the

left side,

then heat it from the right

side,

put it in a box

give it away

leave it on a doorstep

vomiting as you go

into the

hydrangea.

 

I’m soft. I

dream too.

I let myself dream. I dream of

being famous. I dream of

walking the streets of London and

Paris. I dream of

sitting in cafes

drinking fine wines and

taking a taxi back to a good

hotel.

I dream of

meeting beautiful ladies in the hall

and

turning them away because

I have a sonnet in mind that

I want to write

before sunrise. at sunrise

I will be asleep and there will be a

strange cat curled up on the

windowsill.

 

I think we all feel like this

now and then.

I’d even like to visit

Andernach, Germany, the place where

I began. then I’d like to

fly on to Moscow to check out

their mass transit system so

I’d have something faintly lewd to

whisper into the ear of the mayor of

Los Angeles upon my return to this

fucking place.

 

it could happen.

I’m ready.

I’ve watched snails climb over

ten foot walls and

vanish.

 

you mustn’t confuse this with

ambition.

I would be able to laugh at my

good turn of the cards—

 

and I won’t forget you.

I’ll send postcards and

snapshots, and the

finished sonnet.