Burning in Water, Drowing in Flame (14 page)

he spoke to mice and sparrows

and his hair was white at the age of 16.

his father beat him every day and his mother

lit candles in the church.

his grandmother came while the boy slept

and prayed for the devil to let loose his hold upon

him

while his mother listened and cried over the

bible.

he didn’t seem to notice young girls

he didn’t seem to notice the games boys played

there wasn’t much he seemed to notice

he just didn’t seem interested.

he had a very lárge, ugly mouth and the teeth

stuck out

and his eyes were small and lusterless.

his shoulders were slumped and his back was bent

like an old man’s.

he lived in our neighborhood.

we talked about him when we got bored and then

went on to more interesting things.

he seldom left his house. we would have liked to

torture him

but his father

who was a huge and terrible man

tortured him for

us.

one day the boy died. at 17 he was still a

boy. a death in a small neighborhood is noted with

alacrity, and then forgotten 3 or 4 days

later.

but the death of this boy seemed to stay with us

all. we kept talking about it

in our boy-men’s voices

at 6 p.m. just before dark

just before dinner.

and whenever I drive through that neighborhood now

decades later

I still think of his death

while having forgotten all the other deaths

and everything else that happened

then.

the soldiers march without guns

the graves are empty

peacocks glide in the rain

down stairways march great men smiling

there is food enough and rent enough and

time enough

our women will not grow old

I will not grow old

bums wear diamonds on their fingers

Hitler shakes hands with a Jew

the sky smells of roasted flesh

I am a burning curtain

I am steaming water

I am a snake I am an edge of glass that cuts

I am blood

I am this fiery snail

crawling home.

she left me 5 weeks ago and went to Utah.

that is, I think she left.

the other day I went out to mail her a letter

and I saw her sitting on the bus stop bench,

it was her hair there

from behind

and all the pounding started in me again

I walked up quickly and looked at the face—

it was somebody else. freckles, pugnose, greeneyes,

nothing, nothing.

then I was on Western Avenue going from bar to bar

and I saw her in front of me again.

I saw those tight pants, I knew that ass,

and there was the hair again,

and the way she walked,

I walked faster to catch her,

I got even with her and saw her face—

an Indian’s nose, blue eyes, a mouth like a frog—

nothing, nothing, nothing.

then there was a girl in a bar playing piano.

it wasn’t her but when the hair fell in a certain way,

for a moment, it was. and the hair was the same length

and the lips were similar but not the same, and

she saw me looking while she was singing, I was drunk,

of course, it helped the delusion, and she

said, is there anything special you want to hear?

Dolly, I said, and she sang—

Hey, Dolly
…

just now I looked up and she was across the street.

she walked out of the apartment across the street

with a young blond man and she stood there in sun glasses,

and I thought, what’s she doing across the street in

sun glasses, and she smiled at me through the window

but she didn’t wave and then she got in the car with the

young man, it was a new car, small and red, expensive,

and they drove away toward the west. I’m sure it was

her, this time.

you came out, she said,

and then you kicked this guy’s car

and then you threw yourself into a bush

you crushed the whole

bush,

I don’t know what your agony is all

about

but don’t you think you should see a shrink?

I’ve got an awful good shrink, you’d

like him.

answer me, she said,

I get worried about the police when you

act like that, I’m very paranoid about the

police.

answer me, she said, why do you

act like that?

listen, she said, do you want me to

leave?

after she left I picked up a chair and

threw it out the window, there was much

glass and the screen was broken

too.

how many dead beasts float and walk from Wales to

Los Angeles?

it was Philly and the bartender said

what and I said, gimme a draft, Jim,

got to get the nerves straight, I’m

going to look for a job. you, he said,

a job?

yeah, Jim, I saw something in the paper,

no experience necessary.

and he said, hell, you don’t want a job,

and I said, hell no, but I need money,

and I finished the beer

and got on the bus and I watched the numbers

and soon the numbers got closer

and then I was right there

and I pulled the cord and the bus stopped and

I got off.

it was a large building made of tin

the sliding door was stuck in the dirt

I pulled it back and went in

and there wasn’t any floor, just more ground,

lumpy, wet, and it stank

and there were sounds like things being sawed in half

and things drilled and it was dark

and men walked on girders overhead

and men pushed trucks across the ground

and men sat at machines doing things

and there were shots of lightning and thunder

and suddenly a bucket full of flame came swinging at

my head, it roared and boiled with flame

it hung from a loose chain and it came right at me

and somebody hollered, HEY, LOOK OUT!

and I just ducked under the bucket

feeling the heat go over me,

and somebody asked,

WHAT DO YOU WANT?

and I said, WHERE IS YOUR NEAREST CRAPPER?

and I was told

and I went inside

then came out and saw silhouettes of men

moving through flame and sound and

I walked to the door, got outside, and

took the bus back to the bar and sat down

and ordered another draft, and Jim asked,

what happened? I said, they didn’t want me, Jim.

then this whore came in and sat down and everybody

looked at her, she looked fine, and I remember it

was the first time in my life I almost wished I had a

vagina and clit instead of what I had, but in 2 or 3 days

I got over that and I was reading the

want ads again.

this one

always arrives at the wrong time

a basically good sort

I suppose

an honest man

but he doesn’t take the 8 count

well

we’re all beaten

but somehow

it’s the manner in which he takes the count

after a visit from him

I am sickened for 3 or 4 days

I give him board and shelter and sometimes

money

but how he snarls and bitches

sucking at my cans of beer

if he expects deliverance in return for what he gives

he isn’t going to get deliverance

because he doesn’t give anything

no light

no love

no laughter no learning

nothing to

remember

the way of this one sickens me

he brings me sorrow when I have sorrow

he brings me madness when I have madness

I am a selfish man

over his last sweaty handshake

I told him I could carry him no longer

now when my soul has to puke

it will puke of its own

volition

and not from a

knock upon the

door.

he’s a runt

he snarls and scratches

chases cars

groans in his sleep

and has a perfect star above each eyebrow

we hear it outside:

he’s ripping the shit out of something out there

5 times his

size

it’s the professor’s dog from across the street

that educated expensive bluebook dog

o, we’re all in trouble

I pull them apart

and we run inside with the runt

bolt the door

flick out the lights

and see them crossing the street

immaculate and concerned

it looks like 7 or 8 people

coming to get their

dog

that big bag of jelly with hair

he ought to know better than to cross

the railroad tracks.

she sits on the floor

going through a cardboard box

reading me love letters I have written her

while her 4 year old daughter lies on the floor

wrapped in a pink blanket and

three-quarters asleep

we have gotten together after a split

I sit in her house on a

Sunday night

the cars go up and down the hill outside

when we sleep together tonight

we will hear the crickets

where are the fools who don’t live as

well as I?

I love her walls

I love her children

I love her dog

we will listen to the crickets

my arm curled about her hip

my fingers against her belly

one night like this beats life,

the overflow takes care of death

I like my love letters

they are true

ah, she has such a beautiful ass!

ah, she has such a beautiful soul!

when God created love He didn’t help most

when God created dogs He didn’t help dogs

when God created plants that was average

when God created hate we had a standard utility

when God created me He created me

when God created the monkey He was asleep

when He created the giraffe He was drunk

when He created narcotics He was high

and when He created suicide He was low

when He created you lying in bed

He knew what He was doing

He was drunk and He was high

and He created the mountains and the sea and fire

at the same time

He made some mistakes

but when He created you lying in bed

He came all over His Blessed Universe.