The Roominghouse Madrigals (6 page)

 

all the beer was poisoned and the capt. went down

and the mate and the cook

and we had nobody to grab sail

and the N.wester ripped the sheets like toenails

and we pitched like crazy

the hull tearing its sides

and all the time in the corner

some punk had a drunken slut (my wife)

and was pumping away

like nothing was happening

and the cat kept looking at me

and crawling in the pantry

amongst the clanking dishes

with flowers and vines painted on them

until I couldn’t stand it anymore

and took the thing

and heaved it

over

the side.

 

listen, I went to get a haircut, it was a perfectly good day

until they brought it to me, I mean I sat waiting my turn in the

chair and I found a magazine—the usual thing: women with their

breasts hanging out, etc., and then I turned the page and here

were photos of Orientals in a field, there was a big

bastard with the sword—the caption said he had a very good

swing, plenty of power and the picture showed him getting ready

with the sword, and you saw an Oriental kneeling there with his

eyes closed, then—ZIP!—he was kneeling there without a head

and you could see the neck clean, not yet even

spurting blood, the separation having been so astonishingly

swift, and more photos of beheadings, and then a photo of these

heads lolling in the weeds without bodies, the sun shining on
them.

and the heads looking still almost alive as if they hadn’t

accepted the death—and then the barber said

and I walked over to the chair and my head was still on

and his head said to my head,

and he seemed like a nice sensible fellow

and it seemed nice to be near nice sensible fellows

and I wanted to ask him about the heads

but I thought it would upset him

or maybe even give him ideas

or he might say something that wouldn’t help at

all

so I kept quiet.

I listened to him cut my hair

and he began talking about his baby

and I tried to concentrate on his

baby, it seemed very sane and logical

but I still kept thinking about the

heads.

when he finished the cutting

he turned me in the chair so I could look into the

mirror. my head was still on.

fine, I told him, and I got out of the chair, paid, and

gave him a good tip.

I walked outside and a woman walked by and she had her

head on and all the people driving cars had their heads

on.

I should have concentrated on the breasts, I thought,

it’s so much better, all that hanging out, or

the magic and beautiful legs, sex was a fine thing

after all, but my day was spoiled, it would take a night’s sleep

anyway, to get rid of the heads. it was terrible to be a human

being: there was so much going

on.

I saw my head in a plateglass window

I saw the reflection

and my head had a cigarette in it

my head looked tired and sad

it was not smiling with its new

haircut.

then

it disappeared

and I walked on

past the houses full of furniture and cats and

dogs and people

and they were lucky and I threw the cigarette

into the gutter

saw it burning on the asphalt

red and white, a tender spit of smoke,

and I decided that the sun

felt good.

 

he lives in a house with a swimming pool

and says the job is

killing him.

he is 27. I am 44. I can’t seem to

get rid of

him. his novel keeps coming

back. “what do you expect me to do?” he screams

“go to New York and pump the hands of the

publishers?”

“no,” I tell him, “but quit your job, go into a

small room and do the

thing.”

“but I need ASSURANCE, I need something to

go by, some word, some sign!”

“some men did not think that way:

Van Gogh, Wagner—”

“oh hell, Van Gogh had a brother who gave him

paints whenever he

needed them!”

 

 

“look,” he said, “I’m over at this broad’s house today and

this guy walks in. a salesman. you know

how they talk. drove up in this new

car. talked about his vacation. said he went to

Frisco—saw
Fidelio
up there but forgot who

wrote it. now this guy is 54 years

old. so I told him: ‘
Fidelio
is Beethoven’s only

opera.’ and then I told

him: ‘you’re a jerk!’ ‘whatcha mean?’ he

asked. ‘I mean, you’re a jerk, you’re 54 years old and

you don’t know anything!’”

 

 

“what happened

then?”

“I walked out.”

“you mean you left him there with

her?”

“yes.”

 

 

“I can’t quit my job,” he said. “I always have trouble getting a

job. I walk in, they look at me, listen to me talk and

they think right away, ah ha! he’s too
intelligent
for

this job, he won’t stay

so there’s really no sense in hiring

him.

now, YOU walk into a place and you don’t have any trouble:

you look like an old wino, you look like a guy who needs a

job and they look at you and they think:

ah ha!: now here’s a guy who really needs work! if we hire

him he’ll stay a long time and work

HARD!”

 

 

“do any of those people,” he asks “know you are a

writer, that you write poetry?”

“no.”

“you never talk about

it. not even to

me! if I hadn’t seen you in that magazine I’d

have never known.”

“that’s right.”

“still, I’d like to tell these people that you are a

writer!”

“don’t.”

“I’d still like to

tell them.”

“why?”

“well, they talk about you. they think you are just a

horseplayer and a drunk.”

“I am both of those.”

“well, they talk about you. you have odd ways. you travel

alone.

I’m the only friend you

have.”

“yes.”

“they talk you down. I’d like to defend you. I’d like to tell

them you write

poetry.”

“leave it alone. I work here like they

do. we’re all the same.”

“well, I’d like to do it for
myself
then. I want them to know

why

I travel with

you. I speak 7 languages, I know my music—”

“forget it.”

“all right, I’ll respect your

wishes. but there’s something else—”

“what?”

“I’ve been thinking about getting a

piano. but then I’ve been thinking about getting a

violin too but I can’t make up my

mind!”

“buy a piano.”

“you think

so?”

“yes.”

 

 

he walks away

thinking about

it.

 

 

I was thinking about it

too: I figure he can always come over with his

violin and more

sad music.

 

 

in the featherbeds of grander times

when Kings could call their shots,

I rather imagine on days like this

that concubines were sought,

or the unspoiled genius

or the chopping block.

 

 

how about a partridge or a grouse

or a bound behind the merry hounds?

Maybe I’ll phone Saroyan in Malibu

or eat a slice of toast…

 

 

the trees shake down September

like dysentery, and churches sit on their

corners and wait, and the streetcars are slow,

and everywhere

birds fly, cats walk, people ruefully

exist…

 

 

the charmers are gone, the armies have put down

their arms, the druid’s drunk, the horses have tossed

their dice; there are no fires, the phone won’t ring,

the factory’s closed, tenesmus, everything…

 

 

I think

even the schizomycetes are sleeping;

I think

the horror of no action is greater

than the scorch of pain; death is the

barker, but things

may get better

yet. I’ll use the knives for spreading

jam, and the gas to warm

my greying love.

 

 

as the wind breaks in from the sea again

and the land is marred with riot and disorder

be careful with the sabre of choice,

remember

what may have been noble

5 centuries

or even 20 years ago

is now

more often than not

wasted action

your life runs but once,

history has chance after chance

to prove men fools.

 

 

be careful, then, I would say,

of any seeming noble

deed

ideal

or action,

be for this country or love or Art,

be not taken by the nearness of the minute

or a beauty or politic

that will wilt like a cut flower;

love, yes, but not as a task of marriage,

and beware bad food and excessive labor;

live in a country, you must,

but love is not an order

either of woman or the land;

take your time; and drink as much as is needed

in order to maintain continuance,

for drink is a form of life

wherein the partaker returns to a new chance

at life; furthermore, I say,

live alone as much as possible;

bear children if it happens

but try not to bear

raising them; engage not in small arguments

of hand or voice

unless your foe seeks the life of your body

or the life of your soul; then,

kill, if necessary; and

when it comes time to die

do not be selfish:

consider it inexpensive

and where you are going:

neither a mark of shame or failure

or a call upon sorrow

as the wind breaks in from the sea

and time goes on

flushing your bones with soft peace.

 

 

I wait in the white rain for knives like your tongue

I see the spiral clowns fountain up with myths untrue,

I wrestle spasms in the dark on dark stairways

while dollar crazy landladies

are threaded with the hot needles of sperm,

come these morning drunks

brushing away sunlight from the eyes like a web,

come darling, come gloria patri, come luck,

come anything,

this is the hot way—

points sticking in like armadillos

in the rear of a Benedictine mind,

and snow snow snow snow snow

shovel all the snow upon me I can hold,

gingerbread mouth, duck-like dick,

raisins for buttons, thread for heart-strings,

damned waves of blood caught in them

like a minnow in the Tide of Everywhere

I wait in the white rain for knives like your tongue,

and the trucks go by

with bankrupt faces

the steam of their essence like foul sweat

stale stink death in my socks

all the drums of hell

cannot awaken a rhythm within me

I am gone

like an old pale goldfish

dead and stiff as aunt Helen

looking flat-eyed into the center of my brain

and flushed away like any other waste of man,

the man-turd, the breath of life,

and why we don’t go mad as roaches, why not more

suicides I’ll never know

as I wait in the white rain for knives like your tongue,

I am done, quite; like any ford that cuts off a river

I am done forever and only,

this christ-awful waiting on the end of a stale movie,

everyone screaming for beauty and victory

like children for candy,

my hands open

unamazed hand

unamazed mind

unamazed doorsill

send your flowers to Shakey Joe

or Butternut Carlyle

who might trade them to useful purpose

before everything, everyone,

is dead