Mercy (31 page)

S IX

In June 1967

(Age 20)

One night I’m just there, where I live, alone, afraid, the men

have been trying to come in. I’m for using men up as fast as

you can; pulling them, grab, twist, put it here, so they dangle

like twisted dough or you bend them all around like pretzels;

you pull down, the asshole crawls. Y ou need a firm, fast hand,

a steady stare, calm nerve; grab, twist. First, fast; before they

get to throw you down. Y ou surprise them with your stance,

warrior queen, quiet, mean, and once your hands are around

their thing they’re stupid, not tough; still mean but slow and

you can get gone, it takes the edge o ff how mean he’s going to

be. Were you ever so alone as me? It doesn’t matter what they

do to you just so you get them first— it’s your game and you

get money; even if they shit on you it’s your game; as long as

it’s your game you have freedom, you say it’s fun but

whatever you say you’re in charge. Some people think being

poor is the freedom or the game. It’s being the one who says

how and do it to me now; instead o f just waiting until he does

it and he’s gone. Y ou got to be mad at them perpetually and

forever and fierce and you got to know that you got a cunt and

that’s it. Y ou want philosophy and you’re dumb and dead;

you want true love and real romance, the same. Y ou put your

hand between them and your twat and you got a chance; you

use it like it’s a muscle, sinew and grease, a gun, a knife; you

grab and twist and turn and stare him in the eye, smile, he’s

already losing because you got there first, between his legs; his

thing’s in your fist and your fist is closing on him fast and he’s

got a failure o f nerve for one second, a pause, a gulp, one

second, disarmed, unsure, long enough so he doesn’t know ,

can’t remember, how mean he is; and then you have to take

him into you, o f course, yo u ’ve given your word; there on the

cement or in a shadow or some room; a shadow ’s warm and

dark and consoling and no one can close the door on you and

lock you in; you don’t go with him somewhere unless you got

a feeling for him because you never know what they’ll do; you

go for the edge, a feeling, it’s worth the risk; you learn what

they want, early, easy, it’s not hard, you can ride the energy

they give out or see it in how they m ove or read it o ff their

hips; or you can guide them, there’s never enough blow jo b s

they had to make them tired o f it i f worse comes to worse and

you need to, it will make him stupid and weak but sometimes

he’s mean after because he’s sure yo u ’re dirt, anyone w h o ’s

had him in her mouth is dirt, how do they get by, these guys,

so low and mean. It’s you, him, midnight, cement; viscous

dark, slate gray bed, light falling down from tarnished bulbs

above you; neon somewhere rattling, shaking, static shocks to

your eye, flash, zing, zip, winding words, a long poem in

flickering light; what is neon and how did it get into the sky at

night? The great gray poet talked it but he didn’t have to do it.

He was a shithead. I’m the real poet o f everyone; the Am erikan

democrat on cement, with everyone; it wears you down,

Walt; I don’t like poetry anymore; it’s semen, you great gray

clod, not some fraternal wave o f democratic j o y . I was born in

1946 down the street from where Walt Whitman lived; the girl

he never wanted, I can face it now; in Cam den, the great gray

city; on great gray cement, broken, bleeding, the girls

squashed down on it, the fuck weighing down on top,

pushing in behind; blood staining the gravel, mine not his;

bullshitter poet, great gray bullshitter; having all the men in

the world, and all the wom en, hard, real, true, it wears you

down, great gray virgin with fantastic dreams, you great gray

fool. I was born in 1946 down the street from where Walt

Whitman lived, in Camden, Andrea, it means manhood or

courage but it was pink pussy anyway wrapped in a pink fuzzy

blanket with big men’s fingers going coochie coochie coo.

Pappa said don’t believe what’s in books but if it was a poem I

believed it; m y first lyric poem was a street, cement, gray,

lined with monuments, broken brick buildings, archaic,

empty vessels, great, bloodstained walls, a winding road to

nowhere, gray, hard, light falling on it from a tarnished moon

so it was silver and brass in the dark and it went out straight

into the gray sky where the moon was, one road o f cement and

silver and night stained red with real blood, you’re down on

your knees and he’s pushing you from inside, G od’s heartbeat

ramming into you and the skin is scraped loose and you bleed

and stain the stone under you. Here’s the poem you got. It’s

your flesh scraped until it’s rubbed o ff and you got a mark, you

got a burn, you got stains o f blood, you got desolation on you.

It’s his mark on you and you’ve got his smell on you and his

bruise inside you; the houses are monuments, brick, broken

brick, red, blood red. There’s a skyline, five floors high, three

floors high, broken brick, chopped o ff brick, empty inside,

with gravel lots and a winding cement road, Dorothy

tap-dances to Oz, up the yellow brick road, the great gray road,

he’s on you, twisted on top o f you, his arms twisted in your

arms, his legs twisted in your legs, he’s twisted in you, there’s

a great animal in the dark, him twisting draped over you, the

sweat silver and slick; the houses are brick, monuments

around you, you’re laid out dead and they’re the headstones,

nothing written on them, they tower over your body put to

rest. The only signs o f existence are on you, you carry them on

you, the marks, the bruises, the scars, your body gets marked

where you exist, it’s a history book with the signs o f civilized

life, communication, the city, the society,
belles lettres
, a

primitive alphabet o f blood and pain, the flesh poem, poem o f

the girl, when a girl says yes, what a girl says yes to, what

happens to a girl who is poesy on cement, your body the paper

and the poem, the press and the ink, the singer and the song;

it’s real, it’s literal, this song o f myself, yo u ’re what there is,

the medium, the message, the sign, the signifier; an autistic

poem. Tattooed boys are your friends, they write the words

on their skin; but your skin gets used up, scraped aw ay every

time they push you down, you carry what you got and what

you know, all your belongings, him on you through time, in

the scars— your meanings, your lists, your items, your serial

numbers and identification numbers, social security, registration, which one you are, your name in blood spread thin on

your skin, spread out on porous skin, thin and stretched, a

delicate shade o f fear toughened by callouses o f hate; and you

learn to read your name on your body written in your blood,

the book o f signs, manhood or courage but it’s different when

pussy does it. Y ou don’t set up housekeeping, a room with

things; instead you carry it all on you, not on your back tied

down, or on your head piled up; it’s in you, carved in, the cold

on you, you on cement, sexy abrasions, sexy blood, sexy

black and blue, the heat’s on you, your sw eat’s a wet

membrane between you and the weather, all there is, and you

have burns, scars, there’s gray cement, a silver gray under a

tarnished, brassy moon, there’s a cement graveyard, brick

gravestones, the em pty brick buildings; and yo u ’re laid out,

for the fucking. Walt was a fool, a virgin fool; you would have

been ground down, it’s not love, it’s slaughter, you fucking