New Poems Book Three (16 page)

after decades and decades of poverty

as I now approach the lip of the

grave,

suddenly I have a home, a new car, a

spa, a swimming pool, a computer.

will this destroy me?

well, something was going to destroy

me sooner or later

anyway.

the boys in the jails, the slaughterhouses,

the factories, the park benches, the

post offices, the bars

would never believe this

now.

I have a problem believing it myself.

I am no different now

than I was in the tiny rooms of

starvation and madness.

the only difference

is that I am

older

and I eat better

food,

drink better

liquor.

all the rest is

nonsense,

the luck of the

draw.

a life can change in a tenth of

a second

or sometimes it can take

70

years.

before I came up here to

write poems

tonight

I was downstairs with my

wife

and on tv

was the beginning of a

documentary.

the narrator said,

“after Ken Kesey wrote

his first novel

he didn’t write another for

25 years.”

then Mr. Kesey came on the

screen and said,

“I wanted to live my life,

not just write about it.”

I left then, went upstairs

to my electric

IBM,

sat down,

slipped in a sheet of

paper and

thought about what Mr.

Kesey had said:

“I wanted to live my life,

not just write about it.”

well, each person has the

right of choice

but if the choosing was

mine,

I’d rather have both:

the living and the

writing,

because I find them both

inseparable.

I have it, looking to my left, the cars of this

night coming down the freeway toward

me, they never stop, it’s a consistency

which is rather miraculous, and now a

night bird unseen in a tree outside

sings to me, he’s up late and I am too.

my mother, poor thing, used to say,

“Henry, you’re a night owl!”

little did she know, poor poor thing,

that I would close 3,000 bars

waiting for the cry,

“
LAST CALL
!”

now I drink alone on a second floor,

watching freeway headlights,

listening to crazy night birds.

I get lucky after midnight, the gods

talk to me then.

they don’t say very much but they

do say enough to take some of the

edge off of the day.

the mail has been bad, dozens of

letters, most of them asserting

“I know you won’t answer this but …”

and they’re right: the answers for myself

must come first as

I have suffered and still suffer many

of the things they complain

of.

there’s only one cure for life but

I don’t know what it is.

now the night bird sings no more.

but I still have my freeway

headlights

and these hands

these same hands

receiving thoughts from my somewhat

damaged brain.

the pleasure of unseen

company

climbs these walls,

this night of gentle quiet and

a not very good poem

about it.

now the territory is taken,

the sacrificial lambs have met their end,

as the shadows get ready to fall,

as history is scratched again on sallow walls,

as the bankers scurry to collect loans overdue,

as young girls paint their hungry lips,

as dogs sleep again in temporary peace,

as the oceans gobble the poisons of man,

as heaven and hell dance in the anteroom,

it all begins again:

we bake the apple,

buy the car,

mow the lawn,

pay the tax,

hang the wallpaper,

clip the nails,

listen to crickets,

blow up balloons,

drink orange juice,

forget the past,

pass the mustard,

pull down the shades,

take the pills,

check the temperature,

lace on the gloves,

the bell is ringing,

the pearl is in the oyster,

the rain falls

as the shadows get ready to fall again.

it’s a damned drag when your

brain and your legs get

weary and you stumble

about.

time to select your tombstone,

kid?

or maybe you’ll piss everybody off

and go on for another

twenty years?

(you could pick up some new

critics that way.)

but meanwhile, I believe I’ll take a

late dip in my spa in the

moonlight.

it’s been a great fight and, I think, a

worthy one,

so now I’ll follow my belly

down the stairway and into the

yard and into the bubbling

water.

this precious thing isn’t over yet, my

friend,

it could be that I’m just warming up to the

battle

with you, with me, with life, with death

itself.

I warned you long ago that I’d

always be here to disturb your fondest

dreams!

and now it’s into the foaming spa as

new poems

begin to

swirl and build

within.

I have caged the world away

from me.

I am an old eagle

smoking this fine Italian cigar.

think of it:

an old eagle

smoking a fine Italian cigar!

it has become pleasant

again

to be alive.

just like you

just for a time there

I thought I wasn’t going to

make

it.

Céline will bat

lead-off,

Shostakovich is in the

second

spot,

Dostoevsky should hit

3rd,

Beethoven will definitely bat

clean-up,

Jeffers is in the 5th

spot,

Dreiser can hit

6th

and batting 7th

let’s have

Boccaccio

and 8th the

catcher:

Hemingway.

the pitcher?

hell, give me the

fucking

ball.

the quicksilver sun of my youth is

gone

and the mad girls belong to others

as I drive my car to the wash

and watch the boys polish it to a hearty

shine.

standing there and watching

I realize that

too much time

has slipped through my hands,

many years have vanished and now

my time left here is short.

I walk to my car,

tip the gentleman a dollar,

get in,

the quicksilver sun of my youth

gone.

I drive off,

turn left

turn right.

I am going somewhere.

my hands are on the wheel.

I nervously check the rearview mirror.

I am old game now for the young

hunters.

I stop at a red light.

it’s a lovely day for the

young and strong

and I have been living here now for

such a very long

time.

then the green light flashes

and I continue

on.