she walked into the other room
and got dressed and then ran past me
slammed the door
and was
gone.
and to think,
she’d read all my books of
poetry too.
I just hoped she wouldn’t tell
anybody that
I wasn’t pretty.
the telephone has not been kind of late,
of late there have been more and more calls
from people who want to come over and talk
from people who are depressed
from people who are lonely
from people who just don’t know what to do
with their time;
I’m no snob, I try to help, try to suggest something that
might be of assistance
but there have been more calls
more and more calls
and what the callers don’t realize is that
I too have
problems
and even when I don’t
it’s
necessary for me
sometimes
just to be alone and quiet and
doing nothing.
so the other day
after many days of listening to depressed and lonely people
wanting me to assuage their grief,
I was lying there
enjoying looking at the ceiling
when the phone rang
and I picked it up and said,
“listen, whatever your problem is or whatever it is you want,
I can’t help you.”
after a moment of silence
whoever it was hung up
and I felt like a man who had escaped.
I napped then, perhaps an hour, when the phone rang
again and I picked it up:
“whatever your problem is
I can’t help you!”
“is this Mr. Chinaski?”
“yes.”
“this is Helen at your dentist’s
office to remind you
that you have an appointment at
3:30 tomorrow
afternoon.”
I told her I’d be
there for her.
she died of alcoholism
wrapped in a blanket
on a deck chair
on an ocean
steamer.
all her books of
terrified loneliness
all her books about
the cruelty
of loveless love
were all that was left
of her
as the strolling vacationer
disthe ship
as everything
continued just
as
she had written it.
Mongolian coasts shining in light
Mongolian coasts shining in light,
I listen to the pulse of the sun,
the tiger is the same to all of us
and high oh
so high on the branch
our oriole
sings.
of late
I’ve had this thought
that this country
has gone backwards
4 or 5 decades
and that all the
social advancement
the good feeling of
person toward
person
has been washed
away
and replaced by the same
old
bigotries.
we have
more than ever
the selfish wants of power
the disregard for the
weak
the old
the impoverished
the
helpless.
we are replacing want with
war
salvation with
slavery.
we have wasted the
gains
we have become
rapidly
less.
we have our Bomb
it is our fear
our damnation
and our
shame.
now
something so sad
has hold of us
that
the breath
leaves
and we can’t even
cry.
one of the first actors to play Tarzan was living at the
Motion Picture Home.
he’d been there for years waiting to die.
he spent much of his time
running in and out of the wards
into the cafeteria and out into the yard where he’d yell,
“ME TARZAN!”
he never spoke to anyone or said anything else, it was always just
“ME TARZAN!”