New Poems Book Three (10 page)

I see this final storm as nothing very serious in the sight of

the world;

there are so many more important things to worry about

and to

consider.

I see this final storm as nothing very special in the sight of

the world

and it shouldn’t be thought of as special.

other storms have been much greater, more dramatic.

I see this final storm approaching and calmly

my mind waits.

I see this final storm as nothing very serious in the sight of

the world.

the world and I have seldom agreed on most

matters but

now we can agree.

so bring it on, bring on this final storm.

I have patiently waited for too long now.

64 days and nights in that

place, chemotherapy,

antibiotics, blood running into

the catheter.

leukemia.

who, me?

at age 72 I had this foolish thought that

I’d just die peacefully in my sleep

but

the gods want it their way.

I sit at this machine, shattered,

half alive,

still seeking the Muse,

but I am back for the moment only;

while nothing seems the same.

I am not reborn, only

chasing

a few more days, a few more nights,

like

this

one.

more wasted days,

gored days,

evaporated days.

more squandered days,

days pissed away,

days slapped around,

mutilated.

the problem is

that the days add up

to a life,

my life.

I sit here

73 years old

knowing I have been badly

fooled,

picking at my teeth

with a toothpick

which

breaks.

dying should come easy:

like a freight train you

don’t hear when

your back is

turned.

Dear Sir or Madam:

we must inform you that there is no room

left here for you now

and you must leave

despite all your years of faithful service

and the courage you showed on many

occasions,

and despite the fact that many of your fondest dreams

have yet to be realized.

still, you were better than most,

you accepted adversity without complaint,

you drove an automobile carefully,

you served your country and your employers well,

your compassion for

your unloving spouse and

care less children

never wavered,

you never farted in public,

you refused to exhibit rancor,

you were acceptably normal, fairly understanding and rarely

foolish,

you also remembered all birthdays, holidays and special

occasions,

you drank but never to excess,

you seldom cursed,

you lived within all the rules you never made,

you were healthy without effort,

courteous without being prompted,

you even read the classics at an early age,

you were not what we would call selfish or debased,

you were even likeable most of the time,

but now—bang!—

you’re dead, you’re dead, and

you must leave because

there is

no room

left here

for

you

now.

I am alone in this room as the world

washes over me.

I sit and wait and wonder.

I have a terrible taste in my mouth

as I sit and wait in this room.

I can no longer see the walls.

everything has changed into something else.

I cannot joke about this,

I cannot explain this as

the world washes over me.

I don’t care if you believe me because

I’ve lost all interest in that too.

I am in a place where I have never been before.

I am alone in a different place that

does not include other faces,

other human beings.

it is happening to me now

in a space within a space as

I sit and wait alone in this room.

the blade cuts down and through,

pulls out, enters again, twists.

this is the test so

spit it out, sucker, you’ve long ago

demonstrated your valor

in the face of this unhappy world, in the

face of this

bitterly unhappy world,

and who but a fool would want to

linger?

your little supply of good luck has been

used up so

spit it out, sucker:

the last goodbye is always the

sweetest.

I keep getting letters, more and more of

them wondering if I am really dead, they have

heard that I am dead.

well, I suppose that it’s my age and all

the drinking that I have done, still

do.

I should be dead.

I will be dead.

and I have never been too interested in

living, it has been hard work, slave

labor, still is.

I’ve been doing some thinking about

death of late and have come up with

one disturbing thought:

that death could be hard work too,

that maybe it’s another kind of trap.

it probably is.

meanwhile, like everybody else,

I do the things I do and I wait around.

I could use this poem as a reply letter

and mail out copies to those who write

me because they’ve heard that I am dead.

I will sign them to

give them legitimacy so that

the receivers can sell them to

collectors who can then resell them for

an even higher price to each other.

which reminds me that I no longer

receive letters from young ladies who

include nude photos and tell me that

they would love to come around and do

housework and lick my stamps.

they probably hope that I can’t get it up

any more.

in any event,

I’ll just continue to answer the death letters,

have another drink, smoke these

Jamaican cigars and hustle for my

rightful place in Classic American Literature

before I

stiffen up

kick the bucket

swallow the 8 ball

send up my last rocket

hustle into the dark

get the hell out

hang it up

and say my last goodbye while

clutching my

last uncashed

ticket.

the obvious is going to kill us,

the obvious is killing us.

our luck is used up.

as always, we regroup

and wait.

we haven’t forgotten how to

fight

but the long battle has made us

weary.

the obvious is going to kill us,

we are engulfed by the

obvious.

we allowed it.

we deserve it.

a hand moves in the

sky.

a freight train passes in the night.

the fences are broken.

the heart sits alone.

the obvious is going to kill us.

we wait, dreamless.

birthday for me was my 30th.

I didn’t want anybody to know.

I’d been sitting in the same bar

night and day

and I thought, how long am I going

to be

able to keep up this

bluff?

when am I going to give it up and

start acting like everybody

else?

I ordered another drink and

thought about it

and then the answer came to

me:

when you’re dead, baby, when

you’re dead like the rest of

them.

some people simply need to

be unhappy, they’ll scrounge it out

of any given situation

taking every opportunity

to point out

every simple error

or oversight

and then become

hateful

dissatisfied

vengeful.

don’t they realize that

there’s so little

time

for each of us

in this strange

life to make things

whole?

and to squander

our lives living

like that

is nearly

unforgiveable?

and that

there’s never

ever

any way

then

to recover

all that which will be

thus lost

forever?

Andre the Giant dead in his Paris

hotel room.

7 feet and 550 pounds, dead.

he used to wrestle.

he was a champion.

a week earlier he had attended

his father’s funeral.

Andre had been a kind soul who

liked to send flowers to people.

but dead he was a problem.

they had to carry him out of

there

and no casket would hold him.

now maybe he’d get some

flowers?

Andre the Giant

in Paris

wrestling with the Angel of

Death.

and the fix wasn’t in,

this

time.

the poems keep getting better and

better

and I keep winning at the race

track

and even when the bad moments

arrive

I handle them

better.

it’s as if there was a rocket

inside of me

getting ready to shoot out of

the top of my

head

and when it does

what’s left behind I

won’t regret.

we were both starving writers, Hatcher and I;

he lived on the 2nd floor of the apartment

house, right below me, and a young lady,

Cissy, she lived on the first floor. she had just

a fair mind but a great body and flowing blond hair and

if you could ignore her unkind city face

she was most of anyone’s good dream; anyhow,

I suppose the sound of the typewriters

ignited her curiosity or stirred

something in her—she knocked at my door one

day, we shared some wine and then she nodded

at the bed and that was that.

she knocked at my door, sporadically, after

that

but then sometimes I heard her knocking on

Hatcher’s door

and as I listened from above to their voices, the laughter,

I had trouble typing, especially after it

became silent down there.

to keep myself typing, as if I was unconcerned,

I copied items from the daily

newspaper.

Hatcher and I used to discuss Cissy.

“you in love with her?” he’d ask.

“fuck
no
! how about you?”

“no
way
!” he’d answer. “look, if you’re

in love with her, I’ll tell her not to

come around my place

anymore.”

“hey, baby, I’ll do the same for you,”

I said.

“forget it,” he’d respond.

I don’t know who got the most visits, I

think it was just about

even

but we each realized after a while

that Cissy liked to knock

while the typewriter was working

so both Hatcher and I did a great deal of extra

typing.

Hatcher got lucky with his writing first

so he moved out of that dive and

Cissy went with him; they moved

into his new apartment

together.

after that I began getting phone calls

from Hatcher:

“Jesus, that whore has no class! she’s
never

home!”

“are you in love with her?”

“hell no, man, you think I’d get hooked

on trash like her?”

Cissy would be listening on the extension

and then she’d give Hatcher an explicit verbal

retort.

after a while Cissy moved out of Hatcher’s

place;

she still came around to see me occasionally

but she was always with some different

guy, all of them

real low-life

subnormals.

I couldn’t understand the why of those visits;

but no matter—I had somehow lost all

interest.

then I too got a little lucky and

was able to move from the

slums; I left the ex-landlord my

new phone number

in case of

emergency.

some time went by, then the ex-landlord

phoned: “there’s a woman been coming

by. her name is

Cissy.

she wants your new phone number and

address, she’s very

insistent.

should I give it to

her?”

“no, please don’t.”

“man, she’s a
number!
you mind if I

date her?”

“not at all, help

yourself.”

it’s strange how things like that

are good and interesting

for a while

and it’s o.k. when they end and

you can simply walk

away.

but the good parts were

great and I’ll

also always remember Cissy downstairs

there at Hatcher’s

and me up there madly

typing

weather reports,

political columns

and

obituaries—

I wore out many a good ribbon and

worried myself

stupid, so

Cissy was memorable after

all

and that can’t be said

about just

anybody, you

know?

or

don’t

you

know?