The Last Night of the Earth Poems (20 page)

 

being half-young I sat about the bars

in it up to the ears

thinking something might happen to

me, I mean, I tried the ladies:

“hey, baby, listen, the golden coast

weeps for your beauty…”

or some such.

 

their heads never turned, they looked

ahead, straight ahead,

bored.

 

“hey, baby, listen, I am a

genius, ha ha ha…”

 

silent before the bar mirror, these

magic creatures, these secret sirens,

big-legged, bursting out of their

dresses, wearing dagger

heels, earrings, strawberry mouths,

just sitting there, sitting there,

sitting there.

 

one of them told me, “you bore

me.”

 

“no, baby, you got it

backwards…”

 

“oh, shut up.”

 

then in would walk some dandy, some fellow

neat in a suit, pencil mustache, bow tie;

he would be slim, light, delicate

and so knowing

and the ladies would call his

name: “oh, Murray, Murray!”

or some such.

 

“hi, girls!”

 

I knew I could deck one of those

fuckers but that hardly mattered in the

scheme of things,

the ladies just gathered around Murray

(or some such) and I just kept ordering

drinks,

sharing the juke music with them

and listening to the laughter from

the outside.

 

I wondered what wonderful things

I was missing, the secret of the

magic, something that only they knew,

and I felt myself again the idiot in the

schoolyard, sometimes a man never got out

of there—he was marked, it could be told

at a glance

 

and so

I was shut out,

“I am the lost face of

Janus,” I might say at some

momentary silence.

of course, to be

ignored.

 

they’d pile out

to cars parked in back

smoking

laughing

finally to drive off

to some consummate

victory

leaving me

to keep on drinking

just me

sitting there

then the face of the

bartender near

mine:

 

“LAST CALL!”

 

his meaty indifferent face

cheap in the cheap

light

to have my last drink

go out to my ten year old car

at the curb

get in

to drive ever so carefully

to my rented

room

 

remembering the schoolyard

again,

recess time,

being chosen next to last

on the baseball team,

the same sun shining on me

as on them,

now it was night,

most people of the world

together.

my cigarette dangling,

I heard the sound of the

engine.

 

he sat in the kitchen at the breakfastnook table

reading the manuscripts writing a short rejection

on each replacing the paperclip then

sliding the pages back into the brown

manila envelopes.

 

he’d been reading for an hour and thirty-five

minutes and hadn’t found a single poem

 

well he’d have to do the usual thing

for the next issue: write the poems himself and

make up names for the authors.

 

where was the talent?

 

for the last 3 decades the poets had

flattened

out it was like reading stuff

from a house of

subnormals.

 

but

he’d save Rabowski

for last

 

Rabowski had sent 8 or ten poems in a batch

but always there were one or two

good ones.

 

he sighed and pulled out the Rabowski

poems.

 

he slowly read them he finished

 

he got up went to the refrigerator

got out

a can of beer cracked it sat back

down

 

he read the poems all over again they were

all bad even Rabowski had

crapped out.

 

the editor got out a printed rejection slip

wrote “you must have had a bad

week.”

then he slipped the poems back into the

manila envelope sealed it tossed it

on top of the pile for mailing

 

then he took the beer sat down next to his wife

on the couch

 

she was watching Johnny Carson

he watched

 

Carson was bad Carson knew he was bad but

he couldn’t do anything about

it.

 

the editor got up with his can of beer and

began walking up the

stairway.

 

“where are you going?” his wife

asked.

 

“to bed to sleep.”

 

“but it’s early.”

 

“god damn it I know that!”

 

“well you needn’t act
that way

about it!”

he walked into the bedroom flicked on

the wall switch

there was a small bright flash and then

the overhead light burned

out.

 

he sat on the edge of the bed and finished his

beer in the

dark.

 

today at the track

I was standing alone

looking down

when I saw these

two shoes

moving directly

toward

me

 

at once

I started into motion

toward my right

but he still caught part of

me:

 

“making any money

today?”

 

“yeah,” I answered and

was gone.

 

not too many years ago

I would have stood

there

while this slipped

soul

unloaded his

inanities on

me

pissing over my day

and my feelings

as he made me pay

for where he allowed

himself to be

in his mind

and in his

life.

no longer.

 

yet I am my brother’s

keeper.

 

I keep him

away.

 

I go to the men’s crapper

for a bowel

movement,

get up to flush.

what the hell.

something blood-dark

falls upon the

seat.

I’m 70, I

drink.

have been on my deathbed

twice.

I reach down for what has

fallen…

it’s a small burnt

potato chip

from my

lunch.

not yet…

damn thing fell from my

shirt…

 

I finish my toiletry,

go out and watch the

race.

my horse runs

second

chasing a 25-to-one

shot

to the

wire.

 

I don’t mind.

 

then I see this fellow

rushing toward me,

he always needs a

shave, his glasses seem

about to fall off

his face,

he knows me

and maybe I know

him.

 

“hey, Hank, Hank!”

 

we shake hands like two

lost souls.

“always good to see you,”

he says, “it refreshes

me, I know you lead a

hard life

just like I

do.”

 

“sure, kid, how you

doing?”

 

he tells me that he is

a big winner

then

rushes off.

the big board

overhead

flashes the first odds

on the next

race.

 

I check my program

decide to leave the

clubhouse,

try my luck in the

grandstand,

that’s where a hard-living

player belongs

anyhow,

right?

 

right.

 

I never watch tv so I don’t know

but I’m told he was the leading man in a

long-running

series.

he does movie bits

now

I see him at the track almost every

day (“I used to have women coming out of

my ass,” he once informed me).

and people still remember him, call him

by name and my wife often asks me, “did

you see him today?”

“oh yes, he’s a gambling son of a bitch.”

 

the track is where you go when the other

action drops away.

 

he still looks like a celebrity, the way

he walks and talks and

I never meet him without feeling

good.

 

the toteboard flashes.

 

the sky shakes.

 

the mountains call us home.

 

another one.

this night the people sit drunk or drugged or some of them

sit in front of their tv sets

slapped silly.

some few have air-conditioning.

 

the neighborhood dogs and cats flop about

waiting for a better time.

 

and I remember the cars along the freeway today

some of them stalled in the fast lane,

hoods up.

 

there are more murders in the heat

more domestic arguments.

 

Los Angeles has been burning for

weeks.

 

even the desperately lonely have not phoned

and that alone

makes all this almost

worthwhile:

 

those little mewling voices cooked into

silence

as I listen to the music of a long dead man

written in the 19th

century.