New Poems Book Three (6 page)

sensibly adorned with its iron cross

the red fokker sails my brain

and

as my father opens a door from hell and screams my name

up from below

I know that it is time to

accept what is true:

while there can be no reconciliation

between us

to carp about old wounds is a stupid waste of the heart.

sensibly adorned with its iron cross

the red fokker flies away

and disappears over Brazil

and I close my eyes

as

the light fails in the eye of the falcon,

and the useless anger of the living

for the dead

is

lost

forever.

I broke his bank, totaled his car and slept with

his wife.

of course, everybody was sleeping with his

wife but a nicer guy you never

met.

T.K. Kemper played a couple of years with

the Green Bay Packers

then a bad knee got him.

he went into automotive repair,

did very good work.

he was a

lousy card player though; we’d get him

drunk and take it all from

him,

his wife lurking in the background, her tits

hanging out.

T.K. Kemper.

big, big guy.

hands like hams.

honest blue eyes.

give you the shirt off his back.

give you his back if he could.

one night after work he saw two punks

snatch a purse from an old

lady.

he ran after them trying to get that purse

back.

he was gaining on them when

one of the punks turned, had a gun, fired

5 shots.

he was a big, big guy.

he caught all 5 shots, hit the pavement

hard, didn’t move.

there was a good crowd at the funeral.

his wife cried.

my friend Eddie consoled her,

then took her home and fucked

her.

T.K. Kemper.

bad knee.

good heart.

he was not meant for this indifferent world.

only with supreme luck did he last

29 years.

June, late night, common pain like a rat trapped in

the gut, how brave we are to continue walking through this terrible

flame

as

the sun stuns us

as a dark flood envelops us as

we go on our way—

filling the gas tank, flushing toilets, paying bills—as we

float in our pain

kick our feet

wiggle our toes

while listening to inept melodies

that float in the air

as the agony now eats the soul.

yes, I think we’re admirable and brave but we should have

quit

long ago, don’tcha

think?

yet

here we sit

uncorking a new

bottle and listening to

Shostakovitch.

we’ve died so many times now that we can only wonder why we still

care.

so

I pour this drink for

all of us

and

pour another

for

myself.

the boys

are playing the poetry game

again

putting down

meaningless lines

and

passing them off as art

again.

the boys

are on the telephone

again

writing letters

again

to the publishers and

editors

telling them

who to edit and who to

publish.

the boys

know that either you

belong or you

don’t.

there’s a way to do it

you see

and

only a few know how to

do it

the right way.

all the others

are
out

and

if you don’t know

who’s out

or

who’s in

well

the boys

will tell you

again.

the boys

have been around a

long time:

for a couple of

centuries

at least.

and before some of

the old boys

die

they pass their wisdom on

to the younger

boys

so
they
can put down

meaningless lines

and

pass them off as art

again.

children in the school yard, the horrors they must

endure as they are first shaped for life to come and then

handed a hopeless future consisting of:

false hope

cheap patriotism

minimum-wage jobs

(or no

job at all)

mortgages and car payments

an indifferent government—

the days, nights, years all finally pointing to the

dissolution of any possible

chance.

as I wait in the car wash for my automobile

I watch the children in the school yard to the west

playing at recess.

then a little old man waves a

rag and whistles.

my car is

ready.

I walk to my car, tip the old

fellow: “how’s it

going?”

“o.k.,” he answers, “I’m hoping for it to

rain.”

just then the school bell rings and the children stop

playing and troop into the large brick

building.

“I hope it rains too,”

I say as I climb in and drive

away.

I have a photo of Baron Manfred Von Richthofen

standing with his buddies

and there’s his fighter plane in the background

and further down on the wall

there’s a photo of a red

three-winged fokker in

flight.

the few people who come into this

room (where I

work at night)

have seen these things

but don’t say

anything.

that’s o.k.

but between you and me

things like that

got me through a childhood

that was less than

pleasant.

after that, it was then up to

me.

but I still don’t mind having old

friends

like this

still hanging around.

so many of my brain cells eaten away by

alcohol

I sit here drinking now

all of my drinking partners dead,

I scratch my belly and dream of the

albatross.

I drink alone now.

I drink with myself and to myself.

I drink to my life and to my death.

my thirst is still not satisfied.

I light another cigarette, turn the

bottle slowly, admire

it.

a fine companion.

years like this.

what else could I have done

and done so well?

I have drunk more than the first

one hundred men you will pass

on the street

or see in the madhouse.

I scratch my belly and dream of the

albatross.

I have joined the great drunks of

the centuries.

I have been selected.

I stop now, lift the bottle, swallow a

mighty mouthful.

impossible for me to think that

some have actually stopped and

become sober

citizens.

it saddens me.

they are dry, dull, safe.

I scratch my belly and dream of the

albatross.

this room is full of me and I am

full.

I drink this one to all of you

and to me.

it is past midnight now and a lone

dog howls in the

night.

and I am as young as the fire that still

burns

now.

“hey, man,” he said, “I liked your poems better when you were

puking and living with whores and hitting the bars and ending

up in the drunk tank and getting into alley fights.”

then

he went on to talk about and read his own down-to-earth

poems.

what some poets and pundits don’t realize is how ridiculous it is

to cling forever to the same subject

matter.

in time the whores wear thin: their hard

vision, their curses, their tiny endearments become more than

deadly.

and as for puking you can soon get too much of

that

especially when it leads to a stinking bed in the

charity ward.

and as for alley fights I was never too good a

warrior, I was only seeing if I had a touch of courage—

I found some, and finding that, there was no further need to

explore.

I mean, you can describe a harsh lifestyle in your poems but sooner

or later you will find it’s time to move on. if you hang on

too long the subject matter gets thin and tiresome and, yes,

I still love my booze but

I can pass on the whores, the bars and the drunk tanks without feeling that

I have sold my god-damned soul down the bloody dung-filled

river.

some pundits would be delighted if my poems again found me

in some skid row alley with

face bashed in and the flies swarming the emptiness of me.

some pundits

need Van Gogh madness and Mozart suffering to feed on

or

Dostoevsky with his back to the firing wall.

some pundits consider misfortune to be the

only viable art –

form.

as for Van Gogh, Mozart, Dostoevsky, etc.

I say that they did neither choose nor welcome their

pain and suffering.

of course, I didn’t tell this to my poet-visitor

he was too busy

belching and farting and woofing and poofing

gurgling the libations I offered him

as he read me his
own
exploits in the almighty

gutter

which were hardly believable

and bordered on farce.

that loud voice

those hairy eyebrows

that delight in personal misfortune—

as if living badly was a triumph and

a very proud

accomplishment.

his feet planted flat upon my floor

he gave me the gut-pain he claimed was so very

necessary and

grand.

you see, this wall is green and that wall is

blue and the 3rd wall has eyes and

the last wall is crawling with angry famished

spiders.

no, that wall is a sheet of frozen water

and the other is one of melting wax

and the 3rd frames my grandmother’s face

and from the 4th spills the bones of my father.

outside is the city, the city outside, a thing that

creeps to the call of bells and lights,

the city is an open grave,

so I never dare to venture forth but

rather remain and hide within

disconnect the phone

lower the shades and

cut the

lights.

the city is more cruel than the walls

and finally the walls are all we have

and

almost nothing is

far better than

nothing at

all.

early one morning, during the Depression,

in the railroad yard, when I was 20 years old,

I walked alone along the Union Pacific tracks.

I was apprehensive as

on the first day on that job

I walked to where we all checked in.

3 dark figures stood in the way

expressionless faces

legs spread a bit;

as I got closer one of them grabbed his crotch

the other 2 leered;

I walked quickly up to them and

at the last moment they parted.

I walked past them

stopped and

turned: “I’ll take on any one of you

one at a time.

anybody

want to try it now?”

nobody moved

nobody spoke

I walked over

found my timecard in the rack and

punched in.

the foreman came over

his face even uglier than mine.

he said: “listen, we do our work around here

we don’t want any trouble-makers.”

I went to work.

later while I was scrubbing down a boxcar

with water and an oakite brush

the leader of that gang came up and

said: “listen, man, we’re going to get you.”

“maybe,” I said, “but it won’t be easy.”

it wasn’t bad work

the hangover had worn off

and I liked the way the oakite brush dissolved the grime;

also the cheap bars of the coming night beckoned to me

and there was always a bottle of wine waiting in my room.

at noon in the mess hall

when I got up to put a coin in the soft drink machine

all 3 stopped talking and watched.

but as days and weeks went on

nothing ever happened.

I gave that job six weeks then took a Trailways bus to New Orleans

and looking out the window at all that empty, wasted land

while sucking at a pint of

Cutty Sark

I wondered when and where

I might finally come to rest and then

fit in.

she was one of the most beautiful actresses

of our time

once married to a series of

rich and famous men

and now she is in traction, in hospital, a fractured

back, the painkillers at work.

she is now 60

and only a few years ago

her room would have been bursting with flowers,

the phone ringing, many visitors on the waiting

list.

now, the phone seldom rings, there

are only a few obligatory flowers,

and visitors are at a

minimum.

yet, with age the lady has matured, she knows more now, understands

more, feels more deeply, relates to life much more

kindly.

all to no avail: if you are no longer a good young

fuck, if you can’t play the

temptress with

legs crossed high and

violet eyes glowing

behind

long dark lashes,

if you’re not still beautiful

if you ain’t in movies any longer

if you aren’t photographed drunk and obnoxious

in the best

restaurants with new young

lovers:

it’s all to no

avail.

now she sits forgotten

in hospital

straddling a bedpan

as new horizons open up for

the new generation.

in traction you’re pathetic at 60

and

nobody wants to sit in a room with

you.

it’s too

depressing.

this world wants only the young and the strong and the

still beautiful.

as this once-famous actress

lies forgotten in hospital

I wonder what thoughts she

has

about her x-lovers

about her x-public

about her vanished youth

as the hours and the days

crawl

by.

I truly wonder what thoughts she

has.

possibly she has discovered her real self,

achieved real wisdom.

but has it come too late?

and when late wisdom

finally arrives

is that better than none at

all?