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.
I taste the ashes of your death
the blossoms shake
sudden water
down my sleeve,
sudden water
cool and clean
as snow—
as the stem-sharp
swords
go in
against your breast
and the sweet wild
rocks
leap over
and
lock us in.
love is a piece of paper torn to bits
all the beer was poisoned and the capt. went down
and the mate and the cook
and we had nobody to grab sail
and the N.wester ripped the sheets like toenails
and we pitched like crazy
the bull tearing its sides
and all the time in the corner
some punk had a drunken slut (my wife)
and was pumping away
like nothing was happening
and the cat kept looking at me
and crawling in the pantry
amongst the clanking dishes
with flowers and vines painted on them
until I couldn’t stand it anymore
and took the thing
and heaved it
over
the side.
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.
shoes
shoes in the closet like Easter lilies,