The Last Night of the Earth Poems (14 page)

 

fine then, thunderclaps at midnight, death in the

plaza.

my shoes need shining.

my typewriter is silent.

 

I write this in pen

in an old yellow

notebook

while

leaning propped up against the wall

behind the

bed.

 

Hemingway said, “it won’t come

anymore.”

later—the gun

into the

mouth.

 

not writing is not good

but trying to write

when you can’t is

worse.

 

hey, I have excuses:

I have TB and the

antibiotics dull the

brain.

 

“you’ll write again,” people

assure me, “you’ll be

better than

ever.”

 

that’s nice to know.

but the typewriter is silent

and it looks at

me.

 

meanwhile, every two or three

weeks

I get a fan letter in the mail

telling me that

surely

I must be

the world’s greatest

writer.

 

but

the typewriter is silent

and looks at

me….

 

this is one of the

strangest times

of my

life.

 

I’ve got to do a

Lazarus

and I can’t even

shine

my shoes.

 

they used to call him

“Downtown” Billy.

 

“Downtown” had these

long arms

and he swung them

with

abandon

and with great

force.

 

when you fought

“Downtown” Billy

you never knew

where the punches

were coming

from: “They come

from Downtown…”

 

“Downtown” once rose

all the way

to #4 in his weight

class,

then he dropped out

of the first

ten.

 

then he fell to

fighting 6 rounders,

then 4.

 

the punches still

came from

Downtown

but you could

see them

coming.

then he was just a

sparring

partner.

 

last I heard

he left

town.

 

today I feel

like “Downtown” Billy,

sitting in this

blue garden chair

under the

walnut

tree,

watching the

neighbor boy

bounce a

basketball,

take some

fancy steps

forward,

then loop the

ball

through the

hoop

over the

garage

door.

 

I have just taken

my

pills.

 

from my bed

I watch

3 birds

on a telephone

wire.

 

one flies

off.

then

another.

 

one is left,

then

it too

is gone.

 

my typewriter is

tombstone

still.

 

and I am

reduced to bird

watching.

 

just thought I’d

let you

know,

fucker.

 

being very ill and very weak is a very strange

thing.

when it takes all your strength to get from the

bedroom to the bathroom and back, it seems like

a joke but

you don’t laugh.

 

back in bed you consider death again and find

the same thing: the closer you get to it

the less forbidding it

becomes.

 

you have much time to examine the walls

and outside

birds on a telephone wire take on much

importance.

and there’s the tv: men playing baseball

day after day.

 

no appetite.

food tastes like cardboard, it makes you

ill, more than

ill.

 

the good wife keeps insisting that you

eat.

“the doctor said…”

 

poor dear.

 

and the cats.

the cats jump up on the bed and look at me.

they stare, then jump

off.

 

what a world, you think: eat, work, fuck,

die.

luckily I have a contagious disease: no

visitors.

 

the scale reads 155, down from

217.

 

I look like a man in a death camp.

I

am.

 

still, I’m lucky: I feast on solitude, I

will never miss the crowd.

 

I could read the great books but the great books don’t

interest me.

 

I sit in bed and wait for the whole thing to go

one way or the

other.

 

just like everybody

else.

 

it’s no use, I’ve got to admit,

I am into my first real

writer’s block

after over

5 decades

of typing.

I have some excuses:

I’ve had a long

illness

and I’m nearing the age of

70.

and when you’re near

70 you always consider the

possibility of

slippage.

but I am bucked-up

by the fact that

Cervantes

wrote his greatest work

at the age of

80.

but how many

Cervantes

are there?

 

I’ve been spoiled with the

easy way I have created

things,

and now there’s this

miserable

stoppage.

 

and now

spiritually constipated I’ve

grown testy,

have screamed at my wife

twice this week,

once smashing a glass

into the sink.

bad form,

sick nerves,

bad

style.

 

I should accept this

writer’s block.

hell, I’m lucky I’m alive,

I’m lucky I don’t have

cancer.

I’m lucky in a hundred

different ways.

sometimes at night

in bed

at one or two a.m.

I will think about

how lucky I am

and it keeps me

awake.

 

now I’ve always written in a

selfish way, that is, to please

myself.

by writing things down I have

been better able to

live with them.

 

now, that’s

stopped.

 

I see other old men with canes

sitting at bus stop benches,

staring straight into the sun and

seeing nothing.

and I know there are other

old men

in hospitals and nursing

homes

sitting upright in their

beds

grunting over

bedpans.

death is nothing, brother,

it’s life that’s

hard.

 

writing has been my fountain

of youth,

my whore,

my love,

my gamble.

 

the gods have spoiled me.

 

yet look, I am still

lucky,

for writing about a

writer’s block

is better than not writing

at all.

 

that I have known the dead and now I’m

dying

as they spoon succotash and

noodles

into a skull

past

caring.

 

that I have known the dead and now I’m

dying

in a world long ago

gone

 

leaving this is

nothing.

loving it was

too.

 

that I have known the dead and now I’m

dying

fingers thin to the

bone,

I offer no

prayers.

 

that I have known the dead and now I’m

dying

 

dying

I have known the dead

 

here on earth

and elsewhere;

alone now,

alone then,

alone.

 

washed-up, on shore, the old yellow notebook

out again

I write from the bed

as I did last

year.

 

will see the doctor,

Monday.

 

“yes, doctor, weak legs, vertigo, head-aches

and my back

hurts.”

 

“are you drinking?” he will ask.

“are you getting your

exercise, your

vitamins?”

 

I think that I am just ill

with life, the same stale yet

fluctuating

factors.

 

even at the track

I watch the horses run by

and it seems

meaningless.

 

I leave early after buying tickets on the

remaining races.

 

“taking off?” asks the mutuel

clerk.

 

“yes, it’s boring,”

I tell him.

“if you think it’s boring

out there,” he tells me, “you oughta be

back here.”

 

so here I am

propped against my pillows

again

 

just an old guy

just an old writer

with a yellow

notebook.

 

something is

walking across the

floor

toward

me.

 

oh, it’s just

my cat

 

this

time.