The Last Night of the Earth Poems (12 page)

 

after 9 long races among greedy faces

on a hot Sunday that hardly rhymes with

reason

I have murdered another day,

come out with shoelaces flopping (while

secretly craving to be in a moss-lined

cave, say,

watching black and white cartoons

while wanton simplicity soothes the

muddled brain)

as my buddy the valet races the

machine up, revving the 8-year-old

engine, he leaps

out:

“how ya doin’, baby?”

“things have me by the jugular, Frank,

I’m ready to run up the white

flag.”

“not
you
, baby, you’re my

leader!
”

“you can do better than that,

Frank…”

 

I get in, hook the seat belt, put on

the driving glasses, put it in first…

 

“hey, man,” he sticks his head into the

window, “let’s go out and get drunk and

kick some ass and find some

pussy!”

 

I tell him, “I’ll consider that.”

 

as I pull out I can see him in the rearview mirror: he’s giving me the

finger.

 

I smile for the first time in 7 or

8 hours.

 

blazing bastard fools

poets

with your

idiot scrolls

you are so

pompous

in your

knowledge

so

assured

that you are

on a hot roll

to

nirvana

 

you

soft lumps of

humanity

 

you

imitators of

other

pretenders

 

you are still

in

the shadow of

the

Mother

 

you

have never

bargained with

the

Beast

you have never

tasted

the full flavor of

Hell

 

you have never

seen

the Edge of

yourself

you have never

been alone

with the

razor-sharp

walls

 

you

blazing bastard fools

with your

idiot scrolls

 

there is nothing

to

know

 

no place

to

travel

 

your

lives

your

deaths

your

idiot

scrolls

 

useless

 

disgusting

and

 

not as real

as

 

the

wart

on the ass

of

a

hog.

 

you

are rejected by

circumstance.

 

good

bye.

 

I always resented all the years, the hours, the

minutes I gave them as a working stiff, it

actually hurt my head, my insides, it made me

dizzy and a bit crazy—I couldn’t understand the

murdering of my years

yet my fellow workers gave no signs of

agony, many of them even seemed satisfied, and

seeing them that way drove me almost as crazy as

the dull and senseless work.

 

the workers submitted.

the work pounded them to nothingness, they were

scooped-out and thrown away.

 

I resented each minute, every minute as it was

mutilated

and nothing relieved the monotony.

 

I considered suicide.

I drank away my few leisure hours.

 

I worked for decades.

 

I lived with the worst kind of women, they killed what

the job failed to kill.

 

I knew that I was dying.

something in me said, go ahead, die, sleep, become as

them, accept.

 

then something else in me said, no, save the tiniest

bit.

it needn’t be much, just a spark.

a spark can set a whole forest on

fire.

just a spark.

save it.

I think I did.

I’m glad I did.

what a lucky god damned

thing.

 

long gone along the way, faces

grey and white and black and brown, and

eyes, all color of eyes.

eyes are odd, I have lived with a woman,

at least one, where the sex was fair, the

conversation passable and sometimes there was

even a seeming love

but then I suddenly noticed the eyes, saw there

the dark smeared walls of a stinking

hell.

 

(of course, I am pleased that I do not often have to

see my own eyes, lips, hair, ears, so

forth—

I avoid the mirror with a studied

regularity.)

 

long gone along the way, he had a face like a

mole pie, fat and unshivering and he walked up to

me in the railroad yards, I was beastly sick

and that flesh plate shook my innards, my psycho-kid

insides as he said, “I’m waiting on my pay-check,

I been squeezing this nickel so hard that the

buffalo is screaming.” he showed me the

nickel.

tough, but no beer, I walked away from him,

my face white like a bright headlight, I walked

away from him and toward the faces of the nonwhites

who

hated me with a natural

ease.

 

long gone along the way, the landladies’ faces,

doomed, powdered, old lilac faces, old lovely dolls

with husbands so long gone, the agony diminished but

still there as I followed them up stairways nearly a

century old to some cubicle of a room and I always

told them, “ah, a very nice room…”; to pay

then, close the door, undress, lay upon that

bed and turn out the light (it was always early

evening) and then soon to hear the same sound:

the scurry of my old friends: either the roaches or

the mice or the rats.

 

long gone along the way, now I wonder about Inez

and Irene and their sky-blue eyes and their wonderful

legs and breasts

but mostly

their faces, faces carved out of a marble that

sometimes the gods

bestow and

Inez and Irene sat in front of me in class and learned about

algebra, the shortest distance between two points, the

Treaty of Versailles, about Attila the Hun and

etc.

and I watched them and
wondered
what they were

thinking?

nothing much,

probably.

and I wonder where they are tonight

with their faces these 5 decades and 2 years

later?

the skin which covers the bone, the eyes that

smile; quick, turn out the light, let the dark

dance…

 

the most beautiful face I ever saw was that of a

paperman, a newsboy, the old fellow so long gone

down the way

who sat at a stand at Beverly and Vermont,

his head, his face looked like what they

called him: The Frog Man. I saw him

often but we seldom spoke and

The Frog Man died suddenly

and was gone

but I will always remember him

and one night

I came out of a nearby bar,

he was there at his stand and

he looked at me and said, “you and I, we know the same

things.”

 

I nodded, put both thumbs up, and that big Frog

face, the big Frog head lifted in the moonlight

and began laughing the most terrible and real

laughter I have ever

heard.

 

long gone along the way

 

what bargains we have made

we have

kept

and

as the dogs of the hours

close in

nothing

can be taken

from us

but

our lives.

 

puffing on tiny cigarette butts as the world washes to the

shore I

burn my

dumb lips

think of

Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen

und sein

Fliegerzirkus
.

 

as my cat sits in the bathroom window I

light a new

stub

 

as Norway winks and the dogs of hell pray for

me

 

downstairs my wife studies the

Italian

language.

 

up here

I would give half my ass for a

decent

smoke…

 

I

sneeze

then

jump: a little red coal of ash has dropped onto my

white white

belly—I

dig the fiery bit out with my

fingers:

a bit of minor

pain

I type naked: see my sulking soul

now

with a little pink

dot.

 

you see, I have my own show going on up

here, I don’t need Vegas or cable

tv,

the label on my wine bottle states

in part:

 

“…
our winemaker, Edward Sbragia, has retained the

fresh, fruity character of the Pinot Noir and Napa

Gamay grapes
…”

 

the dogs of hell pray for me as the

world washes to the

shore.

 

languid conjecture during hours of moil, trapped in the shadows

of the father.

sidewalks outside of cafes are lonely

through the day.

 

my cat looks at me and is not sure what I am and

I look back and am pleased to feel

the same

about him…

 

reading 2 issues of a famous magazine of 40 years

ago, the writing that I felt was bad then,

I still feel

is

that way

 

and none of the writers have lasted.

 

sometimes there is a strange justice

working

somewhere.

 

sometimes

not…

 

grammar school was the first awakening of a long hell

to come:

meeting other beings as horrible as my

parents.

 

something I never thought

possible…

 

when I won the medal for Manual of Arms in the

R.O.T.C.

I wasn’t interested in

winning.

I wasn’t much interested in anything, even the

girls seemed a bad game

to chase: all too much for all too

little

 

at night before sleeping I often considered what I

would do, what I would be:

bank robber, drunk, beggar, idiot, common

laborer.

 

I settled on idiot and common laborer, it

seemed more comfortable than any of the

alternatives…

the best thing about near-starvation and hunger is

that when you finally

eat

it is such a beautiful and delicious and

magical thing.

 

people who eat 3 meals a day throughout life

have never really

tasted

food…

 

people are strange: they are constantly angered by

trivial things,

but on a major matter

like

totally wasting their lives,

they hardly seem to

notice…

 

on writers: I found out that most of them

swam together.

there were schools, establishments,

theories.

groups gathered and fought each

other.

there was literary politics.

there was game-playing and

bitterness.

 

I always thought writing was a

solitary profession.

 

still do…

 

animals never worry about

Heaven or Hell.

 

neither do

I.

 

maybe that’s why

we

get along…

 

when lonely people come around

I soon can understand why

other people leave them

alone.

 

and that which would be a

blessing to

me

 

is a horror to

them…

 

poor poor Celine.

he only wrote one book.

forget the others.

but what a book it was:

Voyage au bout de la nuit
.

it took everything out of

him.

it left him a hopscotch

odd-ball

skittering through the

fog of

eventuality…

 

the United States is a very strange

place: it reached its apex in

1970

and since then

for every year

it has regressed

3 years,

until now

in 1989

it is 1930

in the way of

doing things.

 

you don’t have to go to the movies

to see a horror

show.

 

there is a madhouse near the post office

where I mail my works

out.

 

I never park in front of the post office,

I park in front of the madhouse

and walk down.

 

I walk past the madhouse.

 

some of the lesser mad are allowed

out on the porch.

they sit like

pigeons.

 

I feel a brotherhood with

them.

but I don’t sit with them.

I walk down and drop my works

in the first class slot.

 

I am supposed to know what I am

doing.

 

I walk back, look at them and

don’t look at

them.

 

I get in my car and drive

off.

 

I am allowed to drive a

car.

 

I drive it all the way back to my

house.

 

I drive my car up the driveway,

thinking,

what am I doing?

 

I get out of my car

and one of my 5 cats walks up to

me, he is a very fine

fellow.

 

I reach down and touch

him.

 

then I feel all right.

 

I am exactly what I am supposed to

be.