What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire (20 page)

she keeps coming back

with different men

I am introduced

and I feel sorry for them

sitting there in their pants and

shirts and stockings and shoes

looking out of their heads with

their eyes

hearing with their ears

speaking out of their mouths

I feel sorry for them

for she is finally going to do to

them

just what she did to me.

she hates men but captures and tortures them

with her beautiful, youthful body.

the last time she was over

she followed me

into the kitchen

leaving him sitting alone out there.

“I miss you,” she said, “I really

do. I mean it.”

I knew what she missed. she missed

having a man securely caught in her

net. I stepped around her with

the drinks and walked back into the

other room.

she watched me with her eyes

as she continued to talk.

she had watched me go crazy with the

agony of losing her

so many times before.

now she knew I was free

and when the victim escapes the

executioner

it is hell for the

executioner.

she felt it. she said to him,

“let's get out of here.”

they left and began to walk away

toward the street.

I noticed she had left her coat, the

one with the dark

hood.

“hey!” I shouted, “you left your

coat!”

she ran back to the door:

“oh,
thank
you!” she said

taking the coat with one

hand

and with the other hand

behind the door

where he couldn't see

she gave me the

finger,

vigorously.

I closed the door.

it hadn't been too

bad

they hadn't used up much of

my time

at most

maybe fifteen

minutes.

you're better than ever.

you've sold out.

you suck.

my mother hates you.

you're rich.

you're the best writer in the English language.

can I come see you?

I write just like you do, only better.

why do you drive a BMW?

why don't you give more readings?

can you still get it up?

do you know Allen Ginsberg?

what do you think of Henry Miller?

will you write a foreword to my next book?

I enclose a photograph of Céline.

I enclose my grandfather's pocket watch.

the enclosed jacket was knitted by my wife in Bavarian style.

have you been drunk with Mickey Rourke?

I am a young girl 19 years old and I will come and clean your house.

you are a stinking bastard to tell people that Shakespeare is not readable.

what do you think of Norman Mailer?

why do you steal from Hemingway?

why do you knock Tolstoy?

I'm doing hard time and when I get out I'm coming to see you.

I think you suck ass.

you've saved my god-damned life.

why do you hate women?

I love you.

I read your poems at parties.

did all those things really happen to you?

why do you drink?

I saw you at the racetrack but I didn't bother you.

I'd like to renew our relationship.

do you really stay up all night?

I can out-drink you.

you stole it from Sherwood Anderson.

did you ever meet Ezra?

I am alone and I think of you every night.

who the hell do you think you're fooling?

my tits aren't much but I've got great legs.

fuck you, man.

my wife hates you.

will you please read the enclosed poems and comment?

I am going to publish all those letters you wrote me.

you jack-off motherfuck, you're not fooling anybody.

“I think all life is a matter of luck—good and bad.” —Diane Wakoski

any ballplayer can tell you, Diane:

in games like baseball where luck is just a percentage,
even

there it evens

out—

dribble one through the shortpatch for a single and your next one

might be a line drive into the 2nd baseman's mitt.

in games unlike baseball

in games like life

one good man might survive while another dies

but this isn't luck

this is making a connection

hitting the ball solidly on the nose.

(but even the good man making the connection seldom remains the good

man—he often softens in time and finally

fails).

if you consider yourself lucky,

don't,

for whatever you've gained you've gained by

doing something a little differently or

with a little more magic than

somebody else.

but when the magic goes or

lessens, and it usually

does, and

when the poetry readings drop off

and the publishers stop inquiring as to your next

manuscript, will you then consider your luck

bad?

will you then start bitching about

the unfairness of the game

like some untalented scribblers (not you)

who I know?

see the old ladies in the supermarkets

angry and lonely

pushing their carts—

that they were once given young bodies was not luck

or that they lost them was not,

or that they did not build a life on something firmer

was not.

I am for the survival of all people until

natural age takes

them. but they'll need something more than luck, and a cunning better than

poetry.

it's hardly luck when the spider takes a fly or bad luck when the fly

enters the web.

I could go on

but I feel by now

I've made the point,

and as the people come home this evening

from the war

and sit at their tables to eat and

talk, and perhaps later to make

love

(if they are not too tired)

don't tell them that all life is a matter of luck—

good and bad.

they know it's a matter of

doing or dying.

Hitler, Ty Cobb, the man at the vegetable stand—

they knew it and they know it.

save the bad luck fairy tale for small

children. they'll learn the real story

soon enough.

his paintings would not be as valuable

now

if he hadn't

sliced off his ear

worn that rag around his head

and then done it to himself

among the cornstalks.

and would that one's poems be

so famous if he hadn't

faded at 19,

given it all up to

go gun running and gold hunting

in Africa only to

die of syphilis?

what about the one who was

murdered in the road

by Spanish fascists?

did that

give his words more

meaning?

or take the one who was a

national hero

those iceberg symphonies soaring

cutting that particular sky

in half

he had it all working for him

then he got worried about old age

saved his head

went into his house

vanished and was never seen

again.

such strange behavior, didn't somebody

once say?

that the man should be as durable as his

art, that's what they want, they want the

impossible: creation and creator to be as

one. this is the dirty trick

of the ages.

I have seen an old man around town recently

carrying an enormous pack.

he uses a walking stick

and moves up and down the streets

with this pack strapped to his back.

I keep seeing him.

if he'd only throw that pack away, I think,

he'd have a chance, not much of a chance

but a chance.

and he's in a tough district—east Hollywood.

they aren't going to give him a

dry bone in east Hollywood.

he is lost. with that pack.

on the sidewalk and in the sun.

god almighty, old man, I think, throw away that

pack.

then I drive on, thinking of my own

problems.

the last time I saw him he was not walking.

it was ten thirty a.m. on north Bronson and

hot, very hot, and he sat on a little ledge, bent,

the pack still strapped to his back.

I slowed down to look at his face.

I had seen one or two other men in my life

with looks on their faces like

that.

I speeded up and turned on the

radio.

I knew that look.

I would never see him again.

there are times when those eyes inside your

brain stare back at

you;

it is always sudden.

sometimes when you come in

and lie down on the bed

it happens—

2 eyes that have nothing to do with

you

stare back at you from inside your

brain.

you sit up

until they go away.

or say you scream at a child

or slap a woman—

as you walk into the kitchen

the eyes appear in the back of your brain

hang there

as you drink

water.

or sometimes you are at peace

sitting on a park bench

reading a newspaper—

here come the

eyes:

fat red golden eyes,

a pair.

you get up and

walk

away.

or the phone rings and as you answer the

phone

the eyes arrive again—

“yes, of course. no, I'm not doing

anything. yeh, I feel

o.k.”

then you hang up, go to the bathroom and

throw water on

your face.

I would gladly give these eyes to the

blind or to anybody who

would take them.

o, o, there they are

again.

I don't understand it.

what do they

want?

somewhere in whatever neighborhood

there's

some guy

at 10:30 in the morning

sunday morning

monday morning

any morning

washing and polishing his

car

with the radio on

LOUD

so that the entire neighborhood

is compelled

to listen to the music

that he is

listening to

but it's all right

because we surely don't

want him to be bored out

there;

it's going to take him

hours.

they'd arrest a drunk or a

panhandler

as a

public nuisance

but this boy is a

respectable citizen

and it's the respectable

citizens

that our culture is built

upon

and whom

the music is written

for.

if I murdered him

no court in America would

forgive

my courage.

meanwhile

he circles his car

with the

hose plus

a bucket of

suds.

he's safe

he's fearless

look at him there

almost as handsome as that twittering

bluejay

and at least 4 women are

in love with

him and he

deserves them all

and I hope he

gets them all.

it's the only way we can

teach that

son-of-a-bitch what

suffering is.

took me 45 minutes to find my glasses,

and I lost a credit card mailed to me today,

then I sat down at this machine and it wouldn't

function,

took me 15 minutes to put it back in

order.

yes, I am constantly losing things and

the fault is mine,

I sit in this room and it is a collection of

trash—

papers, wine bottle corks, scotch tape,

magazines, letters, bills, old wrist

watches and sundry other items

which rest one upon the

other:

paint tubes, toothpicks,

non-functioning cigarette lighters,

liquid paper, pens, address labels,

boxes of light bulbs, a red toy devil,

a wall socket (for 3 prongs), matchbooks,

lens cleaning tissue, 25 cent stamps (they

are now 29 cents and rising),

bottle openers, band-aids, well, I just don't

know what else.

I suppose the saddest of all are the letters

from lonely people

(and look, here are two pocket combs

resting side by side)

and then there's the telephone and

the answering machine taking the

messages:

more lonely people, more frustrated

people, more eager people,

more people wanting to come by,

wanting to talk…

how can they find TIME to talk?

I don't have time to do the simplest

things.

in my wallet there is a piece of paper:

IN CASE OF ACCIDENT OR DEATH
,

PLEASE INFORM, ETC.

for 3 years now I have been wanting

to take this piece of paper out of my

wallet and update it,

because all the phone numbers and

addresses except one

have changed

yet I haven't been able to attend to

this matter.

also, I know that the spare tire

in my car needs a bit of

air.

but when?

when will I do it?

when will I get my teeth cleaned?

when will I cut my toenails?

when will I get a haircut?

there are countless other untended

matters

while the IRS and the California Franchise Tax Board

loom…

and still there are people who come by here

and plant themselves upon the couch

and they seem to have absolutely

NOTHING to do

but

chat away.

chat, chat, chat about absolutely

nothing.

or they want to play GAMES or watch the

damnedest garbage on TV

(I've been waiting to shine my shoes

for a year now)

or they work crossword puzzles

or tell jokes.

every time there is a knock at the

door

a deathly chill runs up my

back:

it will be one of them,

it is always one of them

and when they come in and ease

down on that couch

I am truly in hell.

I do all that I can to keep

them away

but through one guise or

another

or through some affiliation,

they slip

through.

and they are aware of it,

they are very aware of

it

and then they begin…

my life, at that moment,

becomes only a process of

waiting for them to

leave

and their life becomes

a process of staying

as long as

possible.

and one must not hurt

their feelings

for they would not

understand!