Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit (2 page)

 

I suck on this beer

in my kitchen

and think about

cleaning my fingernails

and shaving

as I listen to the

classical radio

station.

they play holiday

music.

I prefer to hear Christmas

music in July

while I am being threatened

with death by

a woman.

that’s

when I need it—

that’s

when I need

Bing Crosby and the

elves and

some fast

reindeer.

 

 

now I sit here

listening to this

slop in

season—it’s such

a sugar tit—

I’d rather play a game of

ping-pong with

the risen ghost

of Hitler.

 

 

amateur drunks run their cheerful

cars into each other

the ambulances sing to each

other outside.

 

 

the Waxmans, she said,

he starved,

all these builders wanted to

buy him;

he worked in Paris in London and

even in Africa,

he had his own

concept of

design…

 

 

what the fuck? I said,

a starving architect,

eh?

 

 

yes, yes, he starved
and
his

wife
and
his children

but he was true to

his ideals.

 

 

a starving architect,

eh?

 

 

yes, he finally came through,

I saw him and his wife last

Wednesday night, the Waxmans…

would you care to meet

them?

 

 

tell him, I said, to stick 3 fingers up

his ass

and flick-off.

 

 

you’re always so fucking nasty, she said,

knocking over her tall-stemmed

glass of scotch and

water.

 

 

uh huh, I said, in honor of

the dead.

 

 

there are 4 or 5 guys at the

racetrack bar.

 

 

there is a mirror behind the

bar.

 

 

the reflections are not

kind

 

 

of the 4 or 5 guys at the

racetrack bar.

 

 

there are many bottles at the

racetrack bar.

 

 

we order different drinks.

 

 

there is a mirror behind the

bar.

 

 

the reflections are not

kind.

 

 

“it don’t take brains to beat

the horses, it just takes money

and guts.”

 

 

our reflections are not

kind.

 

 

the clouds are outside.

the sun is outside.

the horses are warming up outside.

 

 

we stand at the racetrack

bar.

“I’ve been playing the races for

40 years and I still can’t beat

them.”

 

 

“you can play the races for another

40 years and you still won’t beat

them.”

 

 

the bartender doesn’t like

us.

the 5 minute warning buzzer

sounds.

 

 

we finish our drinks and

turn away to make our

bets.

 

 

our reflections look better

as we walk away:

you can’t see our

faces.

 

 

4 or 5 guys from the racetrack

bar.

 

 

what shit. nobody

wins. ask

Caesar.

 

 

after the slaughterhouse

there was a bar around the corner

and I sat in there

and watched the sun go down

through the window,

a window that overlooked a lot

full of tall dry weeds.

 

 

I never showered with the boys at the

plant

after work

so I smelled of sweat and

blood.

the smell of sweat lessens after a

while

but the blood-smell begins to fulminate

and gain power.

 

 

I smoked cigarettes and drank beer

until I felt good enough to

board the bus

with the souls of all those dead

animals riding with

me;

heads would turn slightly

women would rise and move away from

me.

 

 

when I got off the bus

I only had a block to walk

and one stairway up to my

room

where I’d turn on my radio and

light a cigarette

and nobody minded me

at all.

 

 

she had an uncle who sniffed her

panties by

firelight while eating

crackerjack and

muffins with honey,

she sat across from me

in that Chinese place

the drinks kept coming and she

talked about Matisse, Iranian

coins, fingerbowls at Cambridge, Pound

at Salerno, Plato at

Madagascar, the death of

Schopenhauer, and the times she and

I had been together and

ebullient.

 

 

drunk in the afternoon

I knew she had kept me too long

and when I got back to the
other

she was

raving

underprivileged

pissed and

bloody unorthodox burning

mad.

 

 

then she said it didn’t matter anymore

and I felt like saying

what do you mean it doesn’t matter anymore?

how can you say it about anything, least of

all us? where are your eyes and your feet and

your head? if the thin blue marching of troops is

correct, we are all about to be

murdered.

 

 

it feels good

to be driven about in a red

porsche

by a woman better-

read than I

am.

it feels good

to be driven about in a red

porsche

by a woman who can explain

things about

classical

music to

me.

 

 

it feels good

to be driven about in a red

porsche

by a woman who buys

things for my refrigerator

and my

kitchen:

cherries, plums, lettuce, celery,

green onions, brown onions,

eggs, muffins, long

chilis, brown sugar,

Italian seasoning, oregano, white

wine vinegar, pompeian olive oil

and red

radishes.

 

 

I like being driven about

in a red porsche

while I smoke cigarettes in

gentle languor.

I’m lucky. I’ve always been

lucky:

even when I was starving to death

the bands were playing for

me.

but the red porsche is very nice

and she is

too, and

I’ve learned to feel good when

I feel good.

 

 

it’s better to be driven around in a

red porsche

than to own

one. the luck of the fool is

inviolate.

 

 

which reminds me

I shacked with Jane for 7 years

she was a drunk

I loved her

 

 

my parents hated her

I hated my parents

it made a nice

foursome

 

 

one day we went on a picnic

together

up in the hills

and we played cards and drank beer and

ate potato salad and weenies

 

 

they talked to her as if she were a living person

at last

 

 

everybody laughed

I didn’t laugh.

 

 

later at my place

over the whiskey

I said to her,

I don’t like them

but it’s good they treated you

nice.

 

 

you damn fool, she said,

don’t you see?

 

 

see what?

 

 

they keep looking at my beer-belly,

they think I’m

pregnant.

oh, I said, well here’s to our beautiful

child.

 

 

here’s to our beautiful child,

she said.

 

 

we drank them down.

 

 

our marriage book, it

says.

I look through it.

they lasted ten years.

they were young once.

now I sleep in her bed.

he phones her:

“I want my drill back.

have it ready.

I’ll pick the children up at

ten.”

when he arrives he waits outside

the door.

his children leave with

him.

she comes back to bed

and I stretch a leg out

place it against hers.

I was young once too.

human relationships simply aren’t

durable.

I think back to the women in

my life.

they seem non-existent.

 

 

“did he get his drill?” I ask.

 

 

“yes, he got his drill.”

 

 

I wonder if I’ll ever have to come

back for my bermuda

shorts and my record album

by
The Academy of St. Martin in the

Fields
? I suppose I

will.

 

 

torn by a temporary wind

we come back together again

 

 

check walls and ceilings for cracks and

the eternal spiders

 

 

wonder if there will be one more

woman

 

 

now

40,000 flies running the arms of my

soul

singing

I met a million dollar baby in a

5 and 10 cent

store

 

 

arms of my soul?

flies?

singing?

 

 

what kind of shit is

this?

 

 

it’s so easy to be a poet

and so hard to be

a man.