New Poems Book Three (13 page)

you begin to smile

all up and down

inside

as the words jump

from your fingers

and onto the keys

and it’s like a

circus dream:

you’re the clown, the lion tamer,

you’re the tiger,

you’re yourself

as

the words leap

through hoops of fire,

do triple somersaults

from trapeze to

trapeze, then

embrace the

Elephant Man

as

the poems keep coming,

one by one

they slip to

the floor,

it’s going hot and good;

the hours rush past

and then

you’re finished,

move toward the bedroom,

throw yourself upon the bed

and sleep your righteous sleep

here on earth,

life perfect at last.

poetry is what happens

when nothing else

can.

it has been going on for some time.

there is this young waitress where I get my coffee

at the racetrack.

“how are you doing today?” she asks.

“winning pretty good,” I reply.

“you won yesterday, didn’t you?” she

asks.

“yes,” I say, “and the day before.”

I don’t know exactly what it is but I

believe we must have incompatible

personalities. there is often a hostile

undertone to our conversations.

“you seem to be the only person

around here who keeps winning,”

she says, not looking at me,

not pleased.

“is that so?” I answer.

there is something very strange about all

this: whenever I do lose

she never seems to be

there.

perhaps it’s her day off or sometimes she works

another counter?

she bets too and loses.

she always loses.

and even though we might have

incompatible personalities I am sorry for

her.

I decide the next time I see her

I will tell her that I am

losing.

so I do.

when she asks, “how are you doing?”

I say, “god, I don’t understand it,

I’m losing, I can’t hit anything, every horse

I bet runs last!”

“really?” she asks.

“really” I say.

it works.

she lowers her gaze

and here comes one of the largest smiles

I have ever seen, it damn near cracks

her face wide open.

I get my coffee, tip her well, walk

out to check the

toteboard.

if I died in a flaming crash on the freeway

she’d surely be happy for a

week!

I take a sip of coffee.

what’s this?

she’s put in a large shot of cream!

she knows I like it black!

in her excitement,

she’d forgotten.

the bitch.

and that’s what I get for lying.

words like wine, words like blood, words

out of the mouths of past loves dead.

words like bullets, words like bees, words for the

way the good die and the bad live on.

words like putting on a shirt.

words like flowers and words like wolves and

words like spiders and words like hungry

dogs.

words like mine

gripping the page

like fingers trying to climb

an impossible mountain.

words like a tiger raging in the

belly.

words like putting on my shoes.

words shaking the walls like fire and

earthquake.

the early days were good, the middle days

were better, now is

best.

words love me.

they have chosen me,

separated me from the

pack.

I weep like Li Po

laugh like Artaud

write like Chinaski.

the problem, of course, isn’t the Democratic System,

it’s the

living parts which make up the Democratic System.

the next person you pass on the street,

multiply

him or

her by

3 or 4 or 30 or 40 million

and you will know

immediately

why things remain non-functional

for most of

us.

I wish I had a cure for the chess pieces

we call Humanity …

we’ve undergone any number of political

cures

and we all remain

foolish enough to hope

that the one on the way

NOW

will cure almost

everything.

fellow citizens,

the problem never was the Democratic

System, the problem is

you.

I met Kraznick in the post office

and like in any place of dull

toil and human suffering it was

the weird and the deformed

and the witless who always

buddied-up to me.

Kraznick talked continually about

how great he was. he was, apparently, great

at everything his mind was great.

his spirit was noble, he would surely write

the great American novel

or play, he loved

Beethoven, hated fags, he was good

with his fists, he said, but what he

was really best at, greatest at, was

sex. he could handle the women!

actually, Kraznick didn’t look too bad

from a distance. but I seldom saw him from

a distance, or if I did he would be

rushing toward me (he punched in an

hour later). we clerks would be

sitting on our stools sticking the

letters and here he would come:

“
hey, man! I really caught some great head

today! she was a real pro! I was

sitting at Schwab’s having a coffee

and a doughnut and
…”

Kraznick would then talk to me for hours.

when I got off work my whole body would be

stiff with the pain of listening. I

could barely walk or steer my car.

I’ll keep this short. I got out of

the post office. Kraznick stayed

on.

I’m not certain it was Kraznick but one day

I was at the racetrack and it looked like

him. he was leaning against a girder and

every now and then he would shudder, the

Racing Form
rattled in his hands. I moved

off quickly. a guy like that could go off at

3 to 5 and still fall over the

rail.

yes, I know that I write many poems but it’s not

because of ambition, it’s more or less just something

to do

while I live out my life

and

if I have to write one hundred bad poems to get one good

one

I don’t feel that I’m wasting my time

besides

I like the rattle of the typewriter, it sounds so professional

even when

nothing

is really happening.

writing is all I know how to do and

I much prefer the music of great classical

composers so

I always listen to them while I’m typing

(and when I finally write a good poem

I’m sure they have
much
to do with

it).

I am listening to a composer now who is taking me completely

out of this world and suddenly

I don’t give a damn if I live or die or pay the

gas bill on time, I

just want to listen,

I feel like hugging the radio to my chest so

that I can be part of the

music, I mean,

this actually occurs to me and I wish I could capture

what I am hearing

and write it

into this poem

now

but I can’t,

all I can do is sit and listen and type small

words as he makes his grand

immortal

statement.

now the music is finished and I stare

at my hands

and the typewriter is

silent

and suddenly I feel both

much better

and far

worse.

the next bottle was all that

mattered.

to hell with food, to hell with

the rent

the next bottle solved

everything

and if you could get two or

three or four bottles ahead

then life was really good.

it got to be a habit,

a way of living.

where were we going to get that next

bottle?

it made us inventive, crafty,

daring.

sometimes we even got stupid

and took a job for 3 or 4 days

or a week.

all we wanted to do was sit

around and talk about

books and literature

and pour down the

wine.

it was the only thing that made any

sense to us.

in addition, of course,

we had our adventures:

crazy girlfriends, fights, the

desperate landladies, the

police.

we thrived on the drinking and

the madness and the

conversation.

while other people hit time

clocks

we often didn’t even know

what day or week it was.

there was this small gang of us,

all very young, it changed continually

as some members just

vanished, others were drafted,

some died in the war

but new recruits always

arrived.

it was the Club from Hell

and I was Chairman of the

Board.

* * *

now I drink alone in my

quiet room on the

second floor facing the San Pedro

harbor.

am I the very last of the

last?

old ghosts float in and out of

this room.

I only half-remember their faces.

they watch me, their tongues

hanging out.

I lift my glass to them.

I pick up a cigar, stick it into

the flame of my cigarette

lighter.

I draw deeply

and there is a flare of blue

smoke as

in the harbor

a boat blasts its

horn.

it all seems a good show, as I wonder again

as I always have:

what am I doing

here?

it was after

my 9-hour shift as a stock boy

wearing a green smock

and pushing my wagon full of goods

up and down the crowded aisles

listening to the complaints

of the neurotic salesgirls

and angry customers

that I returned home to our place

and she was gone

again.

I went down to the corner bar

and there she sat.

she looked up as all the men

edged away from her.

“take it easy now, Hank,” said the barkeep.

I sat down next to her.

“how’s it going?” I asked.

“listen,” she said, “I haven’t been here that

long.”

“I’ll have a beer,” I told the

barkeep.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“for what?” I asked.

“this is a nice place. I

don’t blame you for coming here.”

“what is it with you?” she asked.

“please don’t act crazy.”

I drank my beer slowly.

then I put the glass down and walked out.

it was a perfect night.

I’d left her where I had first

found her.

even though her clothes were in my closet

and she’d be back for them

it was the end

I was making it the end.

and I went into the next bar

sat down and ordered a beer

knowing

that what I once thought would be hard

was really very easy.

I got the beer and drank it

and it tasted far better

than any beer

I had had during

the two long years since we

first met.

sometimes when I’m standing around feeling good

it will happen

it does happen again and again

somebody will come up to me and say,

“hey, I know you!”

they will say this with some

excitement and pleasure,

and then I’ll tell them,

“no, you have me confused with

someone else,”

but they’ll go on to insist

that I can’t fool them:

I was a desk clerk at this vacation

resort in Florida,

or I was a hot walker at

Saratoga, or I used to run numbers in

Philly,

or they saw me play a part in some

non-descript movie.

this makes me smile.

it pleases me.

I like to be seen as a

regular old guy,

a gentle member of the race,

a good old guy still struggling

along,

but I must then explain to them that

they are wrong about who they think I am

and then I walk away

leaving them somewhat confused and

suspicious.

the strange thing is that when I’m

Standing around

not
feeling good

worried about trivialities

scratching at minor wrongs

nobody ever comes up to me

thinking that I am

someone else.

the mob knows more than you

suspect

about

off and

on,

dead or

alive.

we change each moment

for good or ill

as time passes

and they

(like you and me)

prefer the up times

the light in the eye

the flash of lightning

behind the mountain

because as far as is known

if despair finally comes to

stay

nobody is ever mistaken

for someone else;

so

as long as they

continue to walk up

to me

and confuse me with someone

truly alive

I can hope

that in some real sense

I must be truly living

too.