The Last Night of the Earth Poems (23 page)

 

the bartender at Musso’s

remembers me when

I was

in rags,

used to

lean on the wood

with the

worst and loudest of

women

and

we would

drink too much

spill our drinks

get

nasty.

 

now

I enter

quietly with an

interviewer

a film director

or some

actor

or

with my wife

and a gentle

friend or

two.

 

at times

now

I see the bartender

looking at me

and I know

he’s thinking

of back then

the way it

was

and I look

back at him

and my eyes

send the

message:

I’m just the

same, friend, only

the circumstances

have

altered

but

I’m

the same.

 

then I

turn back

to

whomever

I am with

and they

too

seem to be

thinking,

when is he

going to go

crazy

again?

 

nothing

to do,

friend,

but

wait

and

see.

 

I’m guilty, I did take one

in college

and the first thing I realized was that

I could beat the hell out of any

2 or 3 people in there

at once

(physically

I mean)

and

of course

this was no way to measure

creativity.

 

also

I noticed that the professor’s advice

on what to do

and what not to do

to become a writer was

very pale and standard stuff

that would lead to

nowhere.

 

some of the students’ work

was read in class

and I found it to be embarrassingly

inept.

 

I sat alone in the back row with

my scowl

further noting that

the men didn’t look like men and

the women didn’t look like women.

again

no way to judge creativity.

but what they produced

looked like

what they were.

well

at least the prof did give me

“A’s” on all the work

I turned in

but I got a “B” overall for

poor attendance.

 

I also knew that

every student in that class

except one

was

creatively doomed.

 

and even that one

would be 50 years old

before even minor notice

would be taken of

his work.

 

a bit longer

than even he

had

expected.

 

often from my typing room I step out onto this small

balcony

and there is the night

a cool wash of black air.

I stand in slippers, shorts and undershirt, sucking at

a small cigarette, I can see the curling headlights of

the cars on the winding Harbor Freeway.

they come and come, those lights, they never stop

and I truly wonder that life is still here

after all these centuries, after the hell of

all of our error and our smallness and our

greed, our

selfishness, our bitterness,

life is still here

and the thought of that makes me strangely

elated.

of course, I am woozy from hours of

typing.

 

and now

the same dog in that yard to the far left barks at me

again.

 

he should know that old fart standing there in his shorts,

he should know me by now.

 

I turn and walk back into my typing room.

 

the typewriter is electric and it is on and it

hums hums hums hums
.

 

last night I did something very odd: after ripping out

a few poems

I covered the machine

then bent down and kissed it once, and said,

“thank you, very much.”

after 50 years in the game I had finally thanked my

typewriter.

 

now I sit down to it and I BANG IT, I don’t use the light

touch, I BANG IT, I want to hear it, I want it to do its

tricks, it has saved my ass from the worst of women and the

worst of men and the

worst of jobs, it has mellowed my nightmares into a gentle

sanity, it has loved me at my lowest and it has made me

seem to be a greater soul than I ever

was.

 

I BANG IT I BANG IT

 

and I know how all of them felt, all the writers, when it was

going good, when it was going hot.

 

death, I have chopped off your arms and your legs and your

head.

 

I am sorry, I know you just do what you have to

do

 

even to that barking dog

 

but now

I BANG IT

BANG IT

 

and wait.

 

as the years went on I seemed to have more luck

but now these jackals

these attackers from the past reappear as if

nothing had ever

occurred (one doesn’t mind literary

criticism so long as the envy and the rancor

do not show through)

and now I meet the jackals in eating

places etc.

some even come to the door

bringing entire families—mothers, fathers,

old aunts…

 

the jackals turn on the charm

and I don’t mind, let the past be

done, I pour the drinks and

listen.

 

it is afterwards that it occurs, usually

within a week:

a large manuscript arrives with

note: “could you read this?

publisher would like a foreword from

you…”

 

I brace myself, flop on the bed, give it

a read: the writing is proficient

but somewhere there is a terrible

lacking, an unnatural void…

the manuscript makes me a bit ill;

I let it fall to the

floor.

 

the other night I made a brief

appearance at a theater where my

video was showing and

as I was leaving

here came the poet, glass of

cheap free wine in his hand, he

poked his face into mine

and repeated his
same
speech all

over again as if he had forgotten

he had given it

to me before.

 

“remember me? we met at L’s.

there’s this new mag starting, it’s

going to be better than
Rolling

Stone
…

what they want me to do is

interview you and you interview me,

we get a thousand a-piece, maybe

more…”

 

(said jackal had attacked me in an

article after begging me to go

to the boxing matches with him.

his face was continually

in mine, talking, talking,

“listen,” I told him, “let’s just

watch the fights…”

he had told

me he was there to cover the

fights, but he wasn’t: the

article was about me: a

terrible human being who was a

drunk and far past his prime.)

 

now he kept shoving his face into

mine there on the sidewalk,

repeating his spiel: “I interview

you, you interview me…one

thousand, what do you think, huh,

huh?”

“I’ll let you know,” I told

him.

 

but he just kept walking along,

pushing his face into mine…

 

well, I thought, I am going to

have to punch him out.

 

but I tried something else

first:

 

“get the fuck away from me!”

 

he backed off and I walked off

to a better place…

 

give it a week, I came in from the

track one evening and here was a

large package: 3 of his latest

books from a local press.

I flipped through the pages:

a breezy, bantering style

playing the open, good

human guy but it was like he

was writing on benzedrine

lashing you with shreds of his

soul,

but it was more boring-than

derring-do.

 

there was a note with phone

number, home address:

“I’ll interview you, you

interview me, the editor thinks

it’s a great idea…and there’s a

grand a-piece in it for each of

us, maybe more…”

I walked into the kitchen and

dumped him into the trash

bag.

 

I fed the cats and then the phone

rang.

it was a new voice:

 

“Chinaski?”

 

“yes?”

 

“listen, you don’t know me

but my name is Dipper

and I got a great deal for

you.”

 

“listen, how did you get my

phone number?”

 

“hey, man, what difference

does
that
make?”

 

I hung up.

 

in a moment the phone was ringing

again.

 

I walked into the front room

looked out the south window, it

looked fine out there: trees, lawn,

shrubbery,

not a jackal in

sight.

 

alone

tonight

in this house,

alone with

6 cats

who tell me

without

effort

all that there

is

to know.

 

born like this

into this

as the chalk faces smile

as Mrs. Death laughs

as the elevators break

as political landscapes dissolve

as the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree

as the oily fish spit out their oily prey

as the sun is masked

 

we are

born like this

into this

into these carefully mad wars

into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness

into bars where people no longer speak to each other

into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings

 

born into this

into hospitals which are so expensive that it’s cheaper to die

into lawyers who charge so much it’s cheaper to plead guilty

into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed

into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes

 

born into this

walking and living through this

dying because of this

muted because of this

castrated

debauched

disinherited

because of this

fooled by this

used by this

pissed on by this

made crazy and sick by this

made violent

made inhuman

by this

 

the heart is blackened

the fingers reach for the throat

the gun

the knife

the bomb

the fingers reach toward an unresponsive god

 

the fingers reach for the bottle

the pill

the powder

 

we are born into this sorrowful deadliness

we are born into a government 60 years in debt

that soon will be unable to even pay the interest on that debt

and the banks will burn

money will be useless

there will be open and unpunished murder in the streets

it will be guns and roving mobs

land will be useless

food will become a diminishing return

nuclear power will be taken over by the many

explosions will continually shake the earth

radiated robot men will stalk each other

the rich and the chosen will watch from space platforms

Dante’s Inferno will be made to look like a children’s playground

 

the sun will not be seen and it will always be night

trees will die

all vegetation will die

radiated men will eat the flesh of radiated men

the sea will be poisoned

the lakes and rivers will vanish

rain will be the new gold

 

the rotting bodies of men and animals will stink in the dark wind

 

the last few survivors will be overtaken by new and hideous diseases

and the space platforms will be destroyed by attrition

the petering out of supplies

the natural effect of general decay

 

and there will be the most beautiful silence never heard

 

born out of that.

 

the sun still hidden there

 

awaiting the next chapter.