press it with a spoon;
Symphony #2 in B Minor Prince Igor In the Steppes of Central Asia he could sleep only by putting a piece of dark cloth over his eyes; in 1887 he attended a dance at the Medical Academy dressed in a merrymaking national costume; at last, he seemed exceptionally gay and when he fell to the floor, they thought he was clowning.
the next time you listen to Borodin,
remember . . .
Hugo Wolf went mad while eating an onion
and writing his 253rd song; it was rainy
April and the worms came out of the ground
humming Tannhãuser, and he spilled his milk
with his ink, and his blood fell out to the walls
and he howled and he roared and he screamed, and
down-
stairs his landlady said, I knew it, that rotten son of a bitch has dummied up his brain, he’s jacked-off his last piece of music and now I’ll never get the rent, and someday he’ll be famous and they’ll bury him in the rain, but right now I wish he’d shut up that god damned screaming—for my money he’s a silly pansy jackass and when they move him out of here, I hope they move in a good solid fisherman or a hangman or a seller of biblical tracts.
a rose
red sunlight;
I take it apart
in the garage
like a puzzle:
the petals are as greasy
as old bacon
and fall
like the maidens of the world
backs to floor
and I look up
at the old calendar
hung from a nail
and touch
my wrinkled face
and smile
because
the secret
is beyond me.
the day I kicked a bankroll out the window
and, I said, you can take your rich aunts and uncles
and grandfathers and fathers
and all their lousy oil
and their seven lakes
and their wild turkey
and buffalo
and the whole state of Texas,
meaning, your crow-blasts
and your Saturday night boardwalks,
and your 2-bit
library
and your crooked councilmen
and your pansy artists—
you can take all these
and your weekly newspaper
and your famous tornadoes
and your filthy floods
and all your yowling cats
and your subscription to Life, and shove them, baby, shove them.
I can handle a pick and ax again (I think)
and I can pick up
25 bucks for a 4-rounder (maybe);
sure, I’m 38
but a little dye can pinch the gray
out of my hair;
and I can still write a poem (sometimes),
don’t forget that, and even if they don’t pay off, it’s better than waiting for death and oil, and shooting wild turkey, and waiting for the world to begin.
all right, bum, she said,
get out.
what? I said.
get out. you’ve thrown your
last tantrum.
I’m tired of your damned tantrums:
you’re always acting like a
character in an O’Neill play.
but I’m different, baby,
I can’t help
it.
you’re different, all right!
God, how different!
don’t slam
the door
when you leave.
but, baby, I love your money!
you never once said
you loved me!
what do you want
a liar or a
lover?
you’re neither! out, bum,
out!
. . . but baby!
go back to O’Neill!
I went to the door,
softly closed it and walked away,
thinking: all they want
is a wooden Indian
to say yes and no
and stand over the fire and
not raise too much hell;
but you’re getting to be
an old man, kiddo:
next time play it closer
to the
vest.
he hinted at times that I was a bastard and I told him to listen
to Brahms, and I told him to learn to paint and drink and not be
dominated by women and dollars
but he screamed at me, For Christ’s sake remember your mother,
remember your country,
you’ll kill us all! . . .
I move through my father’s house (on which he owed $8,000 after 20
years on the same job) and look at his dead shoes
the way his feet curled the leather, as if he was angrily planting roses,
and he was, and I look at his dead cigarette, his last cigarette
and the last bed he slept in that night, and I feel I should remake it
but I can’t, for a father is always your master even when he’s gone;
I guess these things have happened time and again but I can’t help
thinking
to die on a kitchen floor at 7 o’clock in the morning
while other people are frying eggs
is not so rough
unless it happens to you.
I go outside and pick an orange and peel back the bright skin;
things