make it as if I were dying in my sleep instead of in
my life, amen.
I was glad I had money in the Savings and Loan
Friday afternoon hungover
I didn’t have a job
I was glad I had money in the Savings and Loan
I didn’t know how to play a guitar
Friday afternoon hungover
Friday afternoon hungover
across the street from Norm’s
across the street from The Red Fez
I was glad I had money in the Savings and Loan
split with my girlfriend and blue and demented
I was glad to have my passbook and stand in line
I watched the buses run up Vermont
I was too crazy to get a job as a driver of buses
and I didn’t even look at the young girls
I got dizzy standing in line but I
just kept thinking I have money in this building
Friday afternoon hungover
I didn’t know how to play the piano
or even hustle a damnfool job in a carwash
I was glad I had money in the Savings and Loan
finally I was at the window
it was my Japanese girl
she smiled at me as if I were some amazing god
back again, eh? she said and laughed
as I showed her my withdrawal slip and my passbook
as the buses ran up and down Vermont
the camels trotted across the Sahara
she gave me the money and I took the money
Friday afternoon hungover
I walked into the market and got a cart
and I threw sausages and eggs and bacon and bread in there
I threw beer and salami and relish and pickles and mustard in there
I looked at the young house wives wiggling casually
I threw t-bone steaks and porter house and cube steaks in my cart
and tomatoes and cucumbers and oranges in my cart
Friday afternoon hungover
split with my girlfriend and blue and demented
I was glad I had money in the Savings and Loan.
the angel who pushed his wheelchair
long ago he edited a little magazine
it was up in San Francisco
during the beat era
during the reading-poetry-with-jazz experiments
and I remember him because he never returned my manuscripts
even though I wrote him many letters,
humble letters, sane letters, and, at last, violent letters;
I’m told he jumped off a roof
because a woman wouldn’t love him.
no matter. when I saw him again
he was in a wheelchair and carried a wine bottle to piss in;
he wrote very delicate poetry
that I, naturally, couldn’t understand;
he autographed his book for me
(which he said I wouldn’t like)
and once at a party I threatened to punch him and
I was drunk and he wept and
I took pity and instead hit the next poet who walked by
on the head with his piss bottle; so,
we had an understanding after all.
he had this very thin and intense woman
pushing him about, she was his arms and legs and
maybe for a while
his heart.
it was almost commonplace
at poetry readings where he was scheduled to read
to see her swiftly rolling him in,
sometimes stopping by me, saying,
“I don’t see how we are going to get him up on the stage!” sometimes she did. often she did.
then she began writing poetry, I didn’t see much of it, but, somehow, I was glad for her. then she injured her neck while doing her yoga and she went on disability, and again I was glad for her, all the poets wanted to get disability insurance it was better than immortality.
I met her in the market one day
in the bread section, and she held my hands and
trembled all over
and I wondered if they ever had sex
those two. well, they had the muse anyhow
and she told me she was writing poetry and articles
but really more poetry, she was really writing a lot,
and that’s the last I saw of her
until one night somebody told me she’d o.d.’d
and I said, no, not her
and they said, yes, her.
it was a day or so later
sometime in the afternoon
I had to go to the Los Feliz post office
to mail some dirty stories to a sex mag.
coming back
outside a church
I saw these smiling creatures
so many of them smiling
the men with beards and long hair and wearing,
blue jeans
and most of the women blonde
with sunken cheeks and tiny grins,
and I thought, ah, a wedding,
a nice old-fashioned wedding,
and then I saw him on the sidewalk
in his wheelchair
tragic yet somehow calm
looking grayer, a profile like a tamed hawk,
and I knew it was her funeral,
she had really o.d.’d
and he did look tragic out there.
I do have feelings, you know.
maybe tonight I’ll try to read his book.
at North Avenue 21 drunk tank you slept on the floor and at night
there was always some guy who would step on your face on his
way to the crapper
and then you would curse him good, set him straight, so that