decades,
I still never considered
mailing my work to
another writer
hoping that this other
writer might help me
get published.
and although I have
read some of what you
have mailed me
I return the work without
comment
except to ask
how did you get my
address?
and the effrontery
to mail me such
obvious
crap?
if you think me unkind,
fine.
and thank you for telling
me that I am a
great writer.
now you will have a
chance to re-evaluate
that opinion
and to choose another
victim.
it’s unholy.
I appear to be
lost. I walk from room to room and
there aren’t many (2 or 3)
and she is in the dark room
snoring, I can’t see her but her
mouth is open and her hair is gray
poor thing
and she doesn’t mean me harm
least of all
does she mean me
harm,
and in the other room are
pink lips pink ears
on a head like a cabbage
and a child’s blocks on the floor like
leprosy
and she also doesn’t mean me any harm at
all,
but I cannot sleep and I sit in the kitchen
with a big black fly
that goes around and around and around
like a piece of snot grown a
heart,
and I am puzzled and not given to
cruelty (I’d like to think)
and I sit with the fly
under this yellow light
and we smoke a cigar and drink beer
and share the calendar with a frightened cat:
“ katzen-unsere hausfrende: 1965.”
I am a poor father because I want to stay alive as a
man but perhaps I never was a
man.
I suck on the cigar and suddenly the fly is gone
and there are just
the 3 of us
here.
I put the book down and ask:
why are they always writing about
the bulls, the bullfighters?
those who have never seen
them?
and as I break the web of the
spider reaching for my wine,
the hum of bombers
breaking the solace, I decide
I must write an impatient letter to my
priest about some 3rd St.
whore
who keeps calling me up at 3 in
the morning.
ass full of
splinters,
thinking of pocketbook poets
and the priest,
I go over to the typewriter
next to the window
to see to my letter
and look look
the sky’s black as ink
and my wife says Brock, for
Christ’s sake,
the typewriter all night,
how can I sleep? and I crawl quickly
into bed and
kiss her hair and say
sorry sorry sorry
sometimes I get excited
I don’t know why …
a friend of mine has
written a book about
Manolete …
who’s that? nobody, kid,
somebody dead
like Chopin or our old mailman
or a dog,
go to sleep, go to sleep,
and I kiss her and rub her
head,
a good woman,
and soon she sleeps as I wait
for morning.
unsaid, said the snail.
untold, said the tortoise.
doesn’t matter, said the tiger.
obey me, said the father.
be loyal, said the country.
watch me climb, said the vine.
doesn’t matter, said the tiger.
untold, said the tortoise,
unsaid, said the snail.
I’ll run, said the mouse.
I’ll hide, said the cat.
I’ll fly, said the sparrow.
I’ll swim, said the whale.
obey and be loyal, said the
father and
everybody shut up! roared the
Queen.
the night came and all
the lights went out
as the cities
burned.
now, go to
sleep.