New Poems Book Three (7 page)

in the night now thinking of the years and the

women gone and lost forever

not minding the women gone, not even minding the years

lost forever

if

we could just have some peace now—a year of peace, a month of

peace, a week of peace—

not peace for the world—just a selfish bit of peace

for me

to loll in like in green warm

water, just a bit of it, just an hour of it, some

peace, yes, in the night in the night while thinking of

the years lost and the women gone in this night in this very long

dark and lonely

night.

your critics are always going to be

there

and the more successful you become

the more criticism you’ll

receive

especially from those

who are most desperate

for a taste of the same success

you have

achieved.

but the thing you must always remember

regardless of the criticism

is to try to continue to get

better at whatever it is that

you do.

I think what bothers the critics the most

however

is to see someone succeed

after coming out of

nowhere

instead of from their very

special circle of the waiting-to-be-

annointed.

critics and failed creators

dominate the landscape

and the more you successfully harness

the natural power of your

art

the more they are going to

insist

through intrigue and

through their rankling

pitiful

malice

that

you were never very much

to begin with

and that now, of course, you’re even

less than

that.

the critics are always going to be

there and

when they stop, if ever, then

you will know

that your own brief day in the sun

is over.

I kept looking at him and thinking,

the ears don’t fit and the mouth

is foolish and the eyes are wrong.

his shoes don’t look right and his tone of

voice is an insult.

his shirt hangs from his shoulders

as if it dislikes him.

he chews his food like a dog

and look at that Adam’s apple!

and why are his favorite subjects

“money” and “work”?

why does he splash angrily

in the bathtub

when he bathes?

and why does he hate me?

and why do I hate him?

why are we enemies?

why does he look like a fool?

how can I get away from him?

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU LOOKING

AT
?” he screams.

“GO TO YOUR ROOM
!

I’LL DEAL WITH YOU LATER
!”

“have it your way.”

“WHAT
?”

“have it your way.”

“YOU CAN’T TALK TO ME LIKE

THAT
!

GO TO YOUR ROOM
!”

the room was beautiful.

I couldn’t see him anymore.

I couldn’t hear his voice.

I looked at the dresser.

the dresser was beautiful.

I looked at the rug.

the rug was beautiful.

I sat in a chair and waited.

hours passed.

it was dark.

now he was listening to the

radio

in the living room.

I kicked the screen open and

dropped out the window.

then I was out in the cool night,

walking.

I was 15 years old,

looking for something,

anything.

it wasn’t there.

unshaven, yellow-toothed, sweating in my only shorts

and undershirt (full of cigarette holes),

I was sure that I was better than F. Scott or Faulkner or

even my buddy, Turgenev.

ah, not as good as Céline or Li Po

but, man, I had faith, felt I was more on fire

than

any 3 dozen mortals.

and I typed and lived with women that you

would shrink from, I

brought love back to those faded eyes as vanilla mice

slept below our bed.

I starved and starved and typed and

loved it, I

reached into my mouth and plucked rotten teeth

out of my gums

and laughed

as the rejections came back as fast as I could send my stories

out, I

felt marvelous, I felt like I owned a piece of the

sun, I listened to all the crazy classical music from previous

centuries, I sympathized with those who had suffered

in the past like

Mozart, Verdi, others,

and when things got really bad

I thought of Van Gogh and his ear and even

sometimes

his shotgun, I

jollied myself along as best I could, and Jesus I

got very
thin

and still during the sleepless nights I would

tell my ladies about how I was

going to make it as a writer some day

and from all of them (as if with one voice) they would complain:

“shit, are you going to talk about
that

again?”

(my voice): “you saw how I punched that guy out

in the alley the other night?”

(again, as with one voice): “what has that to do with

writing?”

(my voice): “I don’t know …”

of course, there were many nights with no voices,

there were many nights alone and those were fine

too, of course, but the worst nights were the nights

without a room and that hurt because a writer needed

an address in order to receive those rejection

slips.

but the ladies (bless them!)

always told me, “you’re crazy but you’re

nice.”

being a starving writer is

treacherous

great

fun.

all teeth, big nose

coming directly at me

in the middle of the night.

I am frozen in the bed

as it comes roaring down at me

from the ceiling.

I roll away at the last

moment

and it hits the bed

between me and my white

cat.

the cat jumps straight up,

hits the ceiling,

bounces back, hits the

bed, leaps off, jumps through

the screen and lands two floors

below in the Jacuzzi.

I get up, watch it swim to the

edge, crawl out.

it sits there licking itself in the

moonlight.

“whatcha doin’?” I hear my wife

say.

“gotta go to the bathroom,”

I tell her.

I walk to the bathroom,

come back,

climb under the

covers.

“don’t snore,” says my wife.

I stare at the spot in the ceiling

from where the apparition first

appeared.

for two hours I do this.

then I am asleep again.

I am dreaming.

I am naked and driving one of

those old-fashioned steam locomotives

through a shopping

mall.

I smile and wave

to the crowds but

nobody seems to notice

me.

when you start boring yourself

you know damn well

you’re going to start

boring other people;

in fact, all the people you come

into contact with:

on the telephone, in the post

office, over a bowl of

spaghetti.

oh, all the tiresome people with their

tiresome stories:

like how they got screwed by life’s

Unkind Forces, how they are fucked

and there isn’t much they can do

now

except tell you all about it.

then they step back and wait for

you to console them

but what you really feel like doing

is

piss all over them,

which might stop them from

inviting themselves over for

dinner

and then telling you more about

their tragic

lives.

there are more and more of

them,

they line up outside in the gloom

waiting for you.

nobody else will listen to

them.

they’ve alienated

hundreds of former

friends, lovers and acquaintances

but they still need to whine and

complain.

I’m sending them all over to

see you

starting today.

get your compassion and

understanding

ready.

I might be there at the end of that

line

myself.

B kind

B a good listener

B able to engage in physical combat

B a lover of classical music

B a tolerator of children

B a good horseplayer

B an agnostic

B generous on the freeways of the world

B a good sleeper

B not fearful of death

B unable to beg

B able to love

B able to feel superior

B able to understand that too much education is a fart in the dark

B able to dislike poets and poetry

B able to understand that the rich can be poor in spirit

B able to understand that the poor live better than the rich

B able to understand that shit is necessary

B aware that in every life a little bit of shit must fall B aware that a hell of a lot more shit falls on some more than on others

B aware that many dumb bastards crawl the earth

B aware that the human heart cannot be broken

B able to stay away from movies

B able to sit alone in a room and feel good

B able to watch your cat cross the floor like a miracle

B able to recognize bullshit even when you hear it from

B ukowski.

it’s a good day, a good time, anybody can

blow a hole through you at any minute.

they are shooting from the rooftops now

and the night sky is smoking,

red.

what more could you want?

you can watch it on your tv or you

can look outside, it’s the same

thing.

they are letting it all out again.

airing it out.

it’s healthy.

the cops are hiding.

nobody is bored tonight.

the safest people are already in jail.

everybody feels curiously alive,

at last.

it’s party time!

this city is the whole world

and it’s running right at you.

it’s a good day, a good time!

hell is coming out to play

with you.

it’s been raining forever

and I haven’t had a drink in

a week-and-a-half.

I must be going crazy.

I just sit in these green pajamas

smoke cigars and stare at the walls.

I try to read the newspapers but

the print blurs and I can’t

make sense out of any of

it.

I watch the second hand

go around and around on my

watch.

I am waiting for the ghosts

of tomorrow.

I look at the telephone and

thank it for not

ringing.

my life has been lived

in vain;

I should have been a

shortstop, a race car driver,

a matador.

I sit in this room, I wait in this

room.

I rub my left hand over my

face.

my whiskers are sharp,

they feel good.

I think tomorrow I’ll get

dressed, go outside,

I’ll go to Thrifty’s,

buy a roll of Scotch tape,

a bag of orange slices,

a flashlight and a

pocket comb.

then I’ll snap out of it,

maybe.

they shot the horse.

he kicked 4 times

with the bullet in his

brain.

his skin shone.

his skin sweated.

they pushed him into a green trailer

pulled by a yellow tractor

driven by a man in a grey

felt hat.

I walked back inside

and looked up the legs of a young woman

sitting and

reading the
Racing Form
.

she made me hot.

the dead horse had been my last

bet.

my handicapping was gone sour.

then she saw me looking.

I turned around,

walked away.

walked to a white water fountain,

bent and drank.

you get so sick finally of the personal,

the relaxed and little personal

things like a visit to mother

or getting your car stolen

or masturbating in a mortuary

the personal, the personal things:

like how big your breasts are

or how you used to be a go-go

dancer;

or how you worked the night shift

at your machine and got

slivers of hot metal under your

fingernails.

personal, personal things:

like how many wives or husbands

you’ve had;

or how your students ask

questions and you answer them

wrong and only realize that two weeks

later;

or how your boyfriend screwed you from

behind as you raced his motorcycle;

or how she gave you a blow job at

midnight as you drove her car

somewhere through the Arizona desert.

the personal would be all right if it was

better told

but all these little poems

are just like listening to

somebody blowing wind your way

from the next

barstool.

which reminds me:

there was this night when I was sitting

in a bar and …