What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire (16 page)

one collapses and surrenders

not out of choice

or lack of intelligence

or bad teeth

or bad diet

one surrenders

because that's the BEST MOVIE

around.

once I was so disgusted

with the working of things

that I dialed the time

and listened to the voice

over and over again:

“it's now 10:18 and 20 seconds

it's now 10:18 and 30 seconds…”

I didn't like the voice

and I didn't care what time it was

yet I listened.

satisfied now

I'm glad somebody stole my last watch

it was so difficult to read

satisfied now

I've got a new one

it has a black face and

white hands

and I sit there and watch

the second hand

the minute hand

the hour hand

as outside

caterpillars crawl my walls

and finally fall

like empires

like old dead loves

and new loves

fall.

night's best

with my black-faced watch

with white hands.

stupefied after a week's drinking and

gambling bout

I am in the tub at 10:30 in the morning

shaky

depressed

when the phone rings

and it's this young girl who sings

folk songs;

she's quit with her man

thrown his clothes out, she tells

me.

I tell her how those things work—

you're together then split

together then split

over and over

again.

yeh, she says, wanna hear my new

song? sure, I say, and she sings it to me

over the telephone.

now I am sitting on the edge of the couch

naked, wet,

listening, thinking, damn I'd like to stick it

into you, baby,

and I laugh, the song is funny,

and I say I like it, and she says,

I'm glad.

and I say, look, I've got to shape up and

make the track. keep in

touch.

I will, she says.

then I have a couple of Alka Seltzers

and an hour later

I leave, and 6 hours later

I have lost

five hundred dollars.

when I get in

I walk over to the phone

pick it up

then put it back

down.

nobody wants to hear your troubles,

I think, and that young girl doesn't want

an

old

man.

I turn on the radio

and the music is very gloomy.

I turn it off,

undress, go to the bedroom

pull down the shades and turn out all

the lights

and get into bed

and stare at the blackness,

stone cold crazy

once again.

she came out at 9:30 a.m. in the morning

and knocked at the manager's door:

“my husband is dead!”

they went to the back of the building together

and the process began:

first the fire dept. sent two men

in dark shirts and pants

in vehicle #27

and the manager and the lady and the

two men went inside as she

sobbed.

he had knifed her last April and

had done 6 months for that.

the two men in dark shirts came out

got in their vehicle

and drove away.

then two policemen came.

then a doctor (he probably was there to

sign the death certificate).

I became tired of looking out the

window and began to

read the latest issue of

The New Yorker
.

when I looked again there was a nice

sensitive-looking gray-haired gentleman

walking slowly up and down the

sidewalk in a dark suit.

then he waved in a black

hearse which

drove right up on the lawn and stopped

next to my porch.

two men got out of the hearse

opened up the back

and pulled out a gurney with 4

wheels. they rolled it to the back of the

building. when they came out again he was in a

black zipper bag and she was in

obvious distress.

they put him in the

hearse and then walked back to

her apartment and went inside

again.

I had to take out my laundry and

run some other errands.

Linda was coming to visit and

I was worried about her seeing that

hearse parked next to my porch.

so I left a note pinned to my door

that said:
Linda, don't worry
.

I'm ok
. and

then I took my dirty laundry to my car and

drove away.

when I got back the hearse was gone and

Linda hadn't arrived yet.

I took the note from the door and

went inside.

well, I thought, that old guy in back

he was about my age and

we saw each other every day but

we never spoke to one another.

now we wouldn't have to.

oftentimes I can't separate the

people from bright lights

and serpents.

in the supermarket

I see them standing and waiting

or pushing their carts.

I see rumps and ears and eyes

and skin and mouths, and

I feel curiously detached.

I suppose I fear them or

I fear their difference and

I step aside as they

pick up rolls of toilet paper,

apricots, heads of lettuce.

today I saw a man

less than 3 feet tall.

he was shorter than his

shopping basket as he

stood angrily in the aisle

looping steaks into his shopping

cart.

for a moment I felt like

touching him and saying,

“so you're different too?”

but I moved on as the

lights glared and

serpents abounded.

my total at the register

was $46.42

I paid the cashier whose

teeth kept watching me.

without warning

a bolt of lightning

flashed past my left ear

and flickered out in the fresh

egg section. then

I picked up my bag and

walked out to the parking

lot.

oh, we don't give enough parties,

I just love to dance,

we never see anybody,

where have we gone lately?:

to one poetry reading.

you go to the racetrack

and you only make love to me

when you feel like it

when you're not hung over

when you're not tired from the

track.

it's the same thing over and over

again.

I'm afraid to invite people

here because you'll insult them.

you're supposed to be the greatest

poet in East Hollywood

but you're mean and stingy,

you claim we have a great relationship

you claim you like my kids,

but when I lost $75 at the track

you didn't reimburse me.

you give me very little.

we don't see anybody

it's just the same thing over and

over again,

don't you
know
that life can be

interesting? I'm so bored, bored,

bored, bored, I'm about to go

crazy!

o.k., I say, and hang up.

now she can get un-bored.

I wonder who will un-bore her

first?

probably a bore. an unemployed actor

with asthma who likes the

3 Stooges.

what she doesn't realize is

that—usually—only boring people

get bored.

and before you do

I'll hang up this

poem.

the old woman with the dog

on the rope leash

asked me about the

room

her dress was shapeless,

filthy and ragged at the hem

and her dog was frightened

stunned

shocked

quivering.

I told her the landlord was

not home

and that the room was

in the back on the

2nd floor, and was

$100.

$100? she asked

yes

I

said.

she said

oh…

can I pet your

dog?

I asked.

she said

yes.

the dog would not

trust me

it ducked and pulled away and I stepped

back.

they walked away together down between the

bungalows

down the steps and

off

toward

Western

Avenue.

her dog's

eyes

were more lovely

than those of any woman I have

ever known.

gutted:

sunk like the German navy

the Japanese fleet

gutted:

no air power

no reserves

no recourse

gutted:

as a mouse runs across the floor

gutted:

as I watch a useless blue telephone

cord

25 feet long

gutted:

again

the roads are muddied

banked with dirty snow

as everything continues:

fry-cooks

traffic signals

somebody now pounding a nail

into a wall.

gutted:

the whole thing no more than a decimal point

as she now sings her old song to her

new lover.

I had lost the last race big

somebody had stolen my coat

I could feel the flu coming on

and my tires were

low. I went in to get a

beer at the German bar

but the waitress was having a fit

her heart strangled by disappointment

grief and loss.

women get troubled all at once,

you know. I left a tip

and got out.

nobody wins.

ask Caesar.

she has a new apartment

and I stretch out on the couch

smoking

while she scrubs the floor

kneeling in her blue jeans

I see that beautiful big ass

and her long hair falls almost to the floor.

I have been in that body a few times

never enough times, of course,

but I consider my luck sufficient.

I no longer want to make her totally mine,

just my share will do

and it's a far more comfortable arrangement:

I have no need for exclusive possession.

let her have others

then she'll know who's best at heart.

otherwise she'll likely consider herself

unduly trapped.

but what a show now:

those blue jeans so tight

there's nothing so magical as a woman's ass

(unless it be some other part).

I don't want to die just yet

so now and then I look away

at a curtain or down into the

ashtray or at a dresser.

then I look back

and all the parts

are still there.

I hear soft sounds from the night outside

and I am happy.

the lady has me temporarily off the bottle

and now the pecker stands up

better.

however, things change overnight—

instead of listening to Shostakovitch and

Mozart through a smeared haze of smoke

the nights change, new

complexities:

we drive to Baskin-Robbins,

31 flavors:

Rocky Road, Bubble Gum, Apricot Ice, Strawberry

Cheesecake, Chocolate Mint…

we park outside and look at the icecream

people

a very healthy and satisfied people,

nary a potential suicide in sight

(they probably even vote)

and I tell her

“what if the boys saw me go in there? suppose they

find out I'm going in for a walnut peach sundae?”

“come on, chicken,” she laughs and we go in

and stand with the icecream people.

none of them are cursing or threatening

the clerks.

there seem to be no hangovers or

grievances.

I am alarmed at the placid and calm wave

that flows about. I feel like a leper in a

beauty contest. we finally get our sundaes and

sit in the car and eat them.

I must admit they are quite good. a curious new

world. (all my friends tell me I am looking

better. “you're looking good, man, we thought you

were going to die there for a while…”)

—those 4,500 dark nights, the jails, the

hospitals…

and later that night

there is use for the pecker, use for

love, and it is glorious,

long and true,

and afterwards we speak of easy things;

our heads by the open window with the moonlight

looking through, we sleep in each other's

arms.

the icecream people make me feel good,

inside and out.