the grass is growing quite well,
the sun sends down its rays circled by a Russian satellite,
a dog barks senselessly somewhere, the neighbors peek behind blinds.
I am a stranger here, and have been (I suppose) somewhat the rogue,
and I have no doubt he painted me quite well (the old boy and I
fought like mountain lions) and they say he left it all to some woman
in Duarte but I don’t give a damn—she can have it: he was my old
man
and he died.
inside, I try on a light blue suit
much better than anything I have ever worn
and I flap the arms like a scarecrow in the wind
but it’s no good:
I can’t keep him alive
no matter how much we hated each other.
we looked exactly alike, we could have been twins
the old man and I: that’s what they
said. he had his bulbs on the screen
ready for planting
while I was lying with a whore from 3rd Street.
very well. grant us this moment: standing before a mirror
in my dead father’s suit
waiting also
to die.
to the whore who took my poems
some say we should keep personal remorse from the
poem,
stay abstract, and there is some reason in this,
but jezus:
12 poems gone and I don’t keep carbons and you have
my
paintings too, my best ones; it’s stifling:
are you trying to crush me out like the rest of them?
why didn’t you take my money? they usually do
from the sleeping drunken pants sick in the corner.
next time take my left arm or a fifty
but not my poems:
I’m not Shakespeare
but sometimes simply
there won’t be any more, abstract or otherwise;
there’ll always be money and whores and drunkards
down to the last bomb,
but as God said,
crossing his legs,
I see where I have made plenty of poets
but not so very much
poetry.
and the next I remembered I’m on a table,
everybody’s gone: the head of bravery
under light, scowling, flailing me down . . .
and then some toad stood there, smoking a cigar:
“Kid, you’re no fighter,” he told me,
and I got up and knocked him over a chair;
it was like a scene in a movie, and
he stayed there on his big rump and said
over and over: “Jesus, Jesus, whatsamatta wit
you?” and I got up and dressed,
the tape still on my hands, and when I got home
I tore the tape off my hands and
wrote my first poem,
and I’ve been fighting
ever since.
the best way to get famous is to run away
I found a loose cement slab outside the ice-cream store,
tossed it aside and began to dig; the earth was
soft and full of worms and soon I was in to my
waist, size 36;
a crowd gathered but stepped back before my shots
of mud,
and by the time the police came, I was in below
my head,
frightening gophers, eels and finding bits of golden
inlaid skull,
and they asked me, are you looking for oil, treasure,
gold, the end of China? are you looking for love, God,
a lost key chain? and little girls dripping ice-cream
peered into my darkness, and a psychiatrist came
and a
college professor and a movie actress in a bikini, and
a Russian spy and a French spy and an English spy,
and a drama critic and a bill collector and an old
girlfriend, and they all asked me, what are you
looking
for? and soon it began to rain . . . atomic submarines
changed course, Tuesday Weld hid behind a newspaper,
Jean-Paul Sartre rolled in his sleep, and my hole
filled
with water; I came out black as Africa, shooting
stars
and epitaphs, my pockets full of lovely worms,
and they took me to their jail and gave me a shower
and a nice cell, rent-free, and even now the people
are picketing in my cause, and I have signed
contracts to appear on the stage and television,
to write a guest column for the local paper and
write a book and endorse some products, I have
enough money to last me several years at the best
hotels, but as soon as I get out of here, I’m gonna
find me another loose slab and begin to dig, dig,
dig, and this time I’m not coming back . . . rain, shine,
or bikini, and the reporters keep asking, why did you
do it? but I just light my cigarette and smile . . .
I awakened to dryness and the ferns were dead,
the potted plants yellow as corn;
my woman was gone
and the empty bottles like bled corpses
surrounded me with their uselessness;
the sun was still good, though,
and my landlady’s note cracked in fine and
undemanding yellowness; what was needed now
was a good comedian, ancient style, a jester
with jokes upon absurd pain; pain is absurd
because it exists, nothing more;
I shaved carefully