The Roominghouse Madrigals (8 page)

 

that this is the gift

and I am ill with it;

it has sloshed around my bones

and brings me awake to

stare at walls.

 

 

musing often leads to madness,

o dog with an

old rag doll.

 

 

into and beyond terror.

seriousness will not do,

seriousness is gone:

we must carve from

fresh marble.

 

 

hell, jack, this is wise-time:

we must insist on camouflage,

they taught us that;

wine come down through

staring eye,

god coughed alive

through the indistinct smoke

of verse.

 

 

the light yellow mamas are gone

the garter high on the leg,

the charm of 18 is 80.

and the kisses,

snakes darting liquid silver

have stopped:

no man lives the magic

long.

until one morning it catches you;

you light the fire,

pour a hasty drink

as the psyche crawls like a mouse

into an empty pantry.

 

 

if you were El Greco

or even a watersnake

something could be done.

 

 

another drink.

well, rub your hands

and prove you are alive.

walk the floor. seriousness

will not do.

 

 

this is the gift,

this is the gift…

certainly the charm of dying

lies in the fact

that very little

is lost.

 

 

It is always best, of course,

to push it in right below

the heart.

 

 

Don’t try to hit the

bull’s eye.

 

 

When seeking damage

aim for a large target

and strike several times.

 

 

He who pauses is

one damn fool.

 

 

I remember a discourse

with a leper

who suggested using

hooks and pulleys.

 

 

Not so. Not so.

 

 

He was very bitter.

 

 

It is best to go for the eye,

smash the cornea,

blind him,

then strangle him with rope.

 

 

My mother suggested an old bathing cap

down the throat.

 

 

Not so. Not so.

 

 

Be safe. Be wise.

Tell him to seek the stars

and he will kill himself with climbing.

 

 

Tell him about Chatterton. Villon.

 

 

Make suggestions.

Take your time.

He will do it himself.

 

 

There is no hurry. Time means nothing

to you.

 

 

my goldfish stares with watery eyes

into the hemisphere of my sorrow;

upon the thinnest of threads

we hang together,

hang hang hang

in the hangman’s noose;

I stare into his place and

he into mine…

he must have thoughts,

can you deny this?

he has eyes and hunger

and his love too

died in January; but he is

gold, really gold, and I am grey

and it is indecent to search him out,

indecent like the burning of peaches

or the rape of children,

and I turn and look elsewhere,

but I know that he is there behind me,

one gold goblet of blood,

one thing alone

hung between the reddest cloud

of purgatory

and apt. no. 303.

 

 

god, can it be

that we are the same?

 

 

she was a short one

getting fat and she had once been

beautiful and

she drank the wine

she drank the wine in bed and

talked and screamed and cursed at

me

and i told her

                please, I need some

                sleep.

 

 

        —sleep? sleep? you son of a

            bitch, you never sleep, you

            don’t need any

            sleep!

 

 

I buried her one morning early

I carried her down the sides of the Hollywood Hills

brambles and rabbits and rocks

running in front of me

and by the time I’d dug the ditch

and stuck her in

belly down

and put the dirt back on

the sun was up and it was warm

and the flies were lazy and

I could hardly see anything out of my eyes

everything was so

warm and yellow.

 

 

I managed to drive home and I got into bed and I

slept for 5 days and 4

nights.

 

 

the Chinaman said don’t take the hardware

and gave me a steak I couldn’t cut (except the fat)

and there was an ant circling the coffee cup;

I left a dime tip and broke out a stick of cancer,

and outside I gave an old bum who looked about

the way I felt, I gave him a quarter,

and then I went up to see the old man

strong as steel girders, fit for bombers and blondes,

up the green rotten steps that housed rats

and past the secretaries showing leg and doing nothing

and the old man sat there looking at me

through two pairs of glasses and a vacation in Paris,

and he said, Kid, I hear you been takin’ Marylou out,

and I said, just to dinner, boss,

and he said, just to dinner, eh? you couldn’t hold

that broad’s pants on with all the rivets on 5th street,

and please remember you are a shipping clerk,

I am the boss here and I pay these broads and I pay you.

yes, sir, I said, and I felt he was going to skip it

but he slid my last check across the desk

and I took it and walked out

past

all the lovely legs, the skirts pulled up to the ass,

Marylou’s ass, Ann’s ass, Vicki’s ass, all of them,

and I went down to the bar

and George said whatya gonna do now,

and I said go to Russia or Hollywood Park,

and I looked up in time to see Marylou come in,

the long thin nose, the delicate face, the lips, the legs,

the breasts, the music, the talk the love the laughing

and she said

I quit when I found out

and the bastard got down on his knees and cried

and kissed the hem of my skirt and offered me money

and I

walked out

and he blubbered like a baby.

George, I said, another drink, and I put a quarter in

the juke

and the sun came out

and I looked outside in time to see the old bum

with my quarter

and a little more luck

that had turned into a happy wine-bottle,

and a bird even flew by
cheep cheep
,

right there on Eastside downtown, no kidding,

and the Chinaman came in for a quickie

claiming somebody had stolen a spoon and a coffee cup

and I leaned over and bit Marylou on the ear

and the whole joint rocked with music and freedom

and I decided that Russia was too far away

and Hollywood Park just close enough.

 

 

There is this long still knife somehow like a

cossack’s sword…

 

 

and C. writes that Ferlinghetti has written

a poem about Castro. well, all the boys

are doing poems on Castro now, only

Castro’s not that good

or that bad—just a small horse

in a big race.

 

 

I see this knife on the stove and I move it to

the breadboard…

 

 

after a while it is time to look around and

listen to the engines and wonder if it’s

raining; after a while writing won’t help

anymore, and drinking won’t help anymore, or

even a good piece of ass won’t.

 

 

I see this knife on the breadboard and I move it

to the sink…

 

 

this wallpaper here: how many years was it here

before I arrived?…this cigarette in my hand

it is like a thing itself, like a donkey walking

uphill…somebody took my candle and candle-

holder: a lady with red hair and a white face

standing near the closet, saying, “Can I have

this? can I really have this?”

 

 

The edge of the knife is not as sharp as it should

be…but the point, the point fascinates, the way

they grind it down like that—symmetry, real Art,

and I pick up this breadknife and walk into the

dining room…

        Larsen says we mustn’t take ourselves so

        seriously. Hell, I’ve been telling him that

        for 8 years!

 

 

There is this full length mirror in the hall. I

can see myself in it and I look, at last.

It hasn’t rained in 175 days and it

is as quiet as a sleeping peacock. a

friend of mine shoots pool in a hall across from

the university where he teaches English, and when

he gets tired of that, he drags out a .357 magnum

and splits the rocks in half BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

while figuring just where the word will fit real

good. In front of the mirror I cut swift circles in the

air, dividing sides of light. I am hypnotized,

unsettled, embarrassed. my nose is pink, my

cheeks are pink, my throat is white, the phone

rings like a wall sliding down and I answer

“Nothing, no, I’m not doing anything…”

 

 

it is a dull conversation but it is soon over. I

walk to the window and open it. the cars go by

and a bird turns on the wire and looks at me. I

think 3 centuries ahead, of myself dead that long

and life seems very odd…like a crack of

light in a buried tomb.

 

 

the bird flies away and I walk to the machine and

sit down: