What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire (14 page)

he comes by unexpectedly

long black beard and hair and barefeet

or in cheap heavy boots

and he tells me he is going to save

society from—

those bastards putting oil into the ocean

those bastards putting smoke into the sky—

and it's true

we are in a bad way

and not much is being done

and we could finally be nearing the end,

so I listen,

well, he wants to shut down the sewers.

ah, shit, man, I say, don't do that. or at least give me

30 days' notice.

well, he comes back at 2:30 in the morning

rings me out of bed. luckily there is some beer

in the refrig.

he has a better plan

he tells me.

he's going to blow up all the dams. the people will be

without water.

The Man will be forced to do

something.

he will write The Man a letter

full of his demands,

or the next dam will go,

the next city.

look, baby, don't do that.

there must be a better way of solving things,

I tell

him.

one of the brothers has deserted us, he tells

me. (the brother is suddenly more interested in

raising a child than in

saving the world).

us? he's including me?

I'm not writing another poem until

the U.S. gets out of

Vietnam, he

says.

well, to my way of looking at it, he hasn't

written a poem yet.

then I catch his eyes as I put down my beer.

I am looking at a madman.

care for another beer? I

ask.

sure, he

says.

now I haven't studied all of the dams, he says, taking a

drink of beer;

it may not be feasible in certain areas. might drown some

people. we don't want to hurt the

people.

oh, hell

no.

he hands me a mimeo pamphlet—

The American Revolution, Part II,

5 cents.

(since all this is discussed in there

I don't feel as if I were betraying a

confidence,

and I'm for saving the world

too).

we drink more beer

and I try to tell him why blowing up the dams

isn't going to

work. at least I finally get him not to shut off our

shit. but he still wants the

dams.

you can't ignore the madmen. it has been tried too

often.

have another beer,

kid.

the sun is coming up when he leaves.

he still wants the dams. he drives off in

his truck.

I open the phone book. there it is:

Sparkletts Water Co.

at 8 o'clock I am going to phone them

for a bottle to keep in the

closet.

forget my brother.

I am my own

keeper.

once a fine poetess

we see her photo now

and know

now

why she hasn't

written

lately.

my beast comes in the afternoon

he gnaws at my gut

he paws my head

he growls

spits out part of me

my beast comes in the afternoon

while other people are taking pictures

while other people are at picnics

my beast comes in the afternoon

across a dirty kitchen floor

leering at me

while other people are employed at jobs

that stop their thinking

my beast allows me to think

about him,

about graveyards and dementia and fear

and stale flowers and decay

and the stink of ruined thunder.

my beast will not let me be

he comes to me in the afternoons

and gnaws and claws

and I tell him

as I double over, hands gripping my gut,

jesus, how will I ever explain you to

them? they think I am a coward

but they are the cowards because they refuse to

feel, their bravery is the bravery of

snails.

my beast is not interested in my unhappy

theory—he rips, chews, spits out

another piece of

me.

I walk out the door and he follows me

down the street.

we pass the lovely laughing schoolgirls

the bakery trucks

and the sun opens and closes like an oyster

swallowing my beast for a moment

as I cross at a green light

pretending that I have escaped,

pretending that I need a loaf of bread or

a newspaper,

pretending that the beast is gone forever

and that the torn parts of me are

still there

under a blue shirt and green pants

as all the faces become walls

and all the walls become impossible.

what's genius?

I don't know

but I do know that

the difference between a madman and a

professional is

that

a pro does as well as he can within what

he has set out to do

and a madman

does exceptionally well at what

he can't help

doing.

now I am looking

into this unshaded lightbulb

at 11:37 p.m. on a Monday night

thinking

tiny names

like

Van Gogh

Chatterton

Plath

Crane

Artaud

Chinaski.

115 degrees

not even a turkey could be happy in this heat

but it beats burning at the stake,

and like my uncle once said

(when I asked him how things were going)

he said, well, I had breakfast, I had lunch and

I think I'm going to have

dinner;

well, that's us Chinaskis,

we don't ask for much and

we don't get much,

except I have an awful good-looking girlfriend

who seems to accept my madness,

but still, it's

115 degrees.

I've got an air-cooler

a foot from my head

blowing hard

but I'm not delivering the

goods, as they say, but most people

don't like my poetry anyway.

but that's all right, because

it's 115 degrees and my girlfriend's boys

are playing outside

on their bicycles

and diving into the wading pool

while waiting to grow up.

for me,

it's too hot to fuck

too hot to paint

too hot to complain,

those horses across the road don't even

brush off the flies,

the flies are too tired and too hot to bite,

115 degrees,

and if I'm going to conquer the literary world

maybe we can get it down to

85 degrees first?

right now I can't write poetry,

I'm panting and lazy and ineffectual,

there's a fly on the roller of my typer

and he rides back and forth, back and forth,

my literary fly,

you son-of-a-bitch, get busy,

seek ye out another poet and bite
him

on his ass.

I can't understand anything

except that it's hot, that's what it is,

hot, it's hot today, that's what it is, it's hot, and

that guy from Canada I drank with 3 weeks ago,

he's probably rolling in the snow right now

with Eskimo women and writing all kinds of

immortal stuff, but it's just too hot for me.

let him.

I've memorized all the fish in the sea

I've memorized each opportunity strangled

and

I remember awakening one morning

and finding everything smeared with the color of

forgotten love

and I've memorized

that too.

I've memorized green rooms in

St. Louis and New Orleans

where I wept because I knew that by myself I

could not overcome

the terror of them and it.

I've memorized all the unfaithful years

(and the faithful ones too)

I've memorized each cigarette that I've rolled.

I've memorized Beethoven and New York City

I've memorized

riding up escalators, I've memorized

Chicago and cottage cheese, and the mouths of

some of the ladies and the legs of

some of the ladies

I've known

and the way the rain came down hard.

I've memorized the face of my father in his coffin,

I've memorized all the cars I have driven

and each of their sad deaths,

I've memorized each jail cell,

the face of each new president

and the faces of some of the assassins;

I've even memorized the arguments I've had with

some of the women

I've loved.

best of all

I've memorized tonight and now and the way the

light falls across my fingers,

specks and smears on the wall,

shades down behind orange curtains;

I light a rolled cigarette and then laugh a little,

yes, I've memorized it all.

the courage of my memory.

while the rents go up elsewhere

this is where the poor people

come to live

the people on
AFDC
and relief

the large families with bad jobs

the strange lonely men

on old age pensions

waiting to die.

here among the massage parlors

the pawn shops

the liquor stores

caught in the smog and the squalor

even the dogs look

inept

don't bark or

chase cats,

and the cats walk up and down the

streets

and never catch a bird

but the birds are there

but you can't see them

you only hear them

sometimes in the night

at 3:30 a.m.

after the last streetwalker has made her

last score.

the rents go up here too

but compared to most others

we are living for free

because nobody wants to live with the

likes of us.

none of us have new cars

most of us walk

and we don't care who wins the

election.

but we have wife-beaters

here too

just like the others

and child-beaters

just like the others

and sex freaks

and TV sets

just like the others

and we'll die

just like the others

only a little earlier and we'll eat

just like the others

only cheaper stuff

and lie

just like the others

only with a little less

imagination.

and even though our streetwalkers don't

look as good as your wives

I think our cats and our birds and dogs

are better

and don't forget the low

rents.

here's a male giraffe

he wants it

but the female's not ready

and male leans against her

he wants it

he pushes against her

follows her around

those tiny heads up in the sky

their eyes are pools of brown

the necks rock

they bump

walk about

2 ungainly forms

stretching up in the air

those stupid legs

those stupid necks

he wants it

she doesn't care

this is the way the gods have arranged it

for the moment:

one caring

one not caring

and the people watch

and throw peanuts and candy wrappers

and chunks of green and blue popsicles

they don't care either.

that's the way the gods have

arranged it

for now.

if you think some women want only your love

try giving them some coke

they won't remember the

color of your eyes

or what you whispered in their

ear.

but lay out some lines

and give them a matchstick

(to prove they are professional)

and

unlike a woman in love

they will return

faithfully.

and one must admit

that faith in any

form

is

probably

better than the

indifference of deserted

sidewalks.

and then one

wonders

again.

I live in this nice

place

but I'm seldom there

day or night,

all the shades down

I'm not in

there.

sometimes I think I'd like

to bake a cake

but I'm never there long enough for

the oven to get

warm.

I'm not there to answer the

phone.

I get the mail and

leave.

290 bucks rent plus

utilities.

I used to be a hermit.

a hot woman can pull a man

right out of his

shell. right out of his skin

if she wants

to.

if I ever get that cake baked

you're going to see some

fine

work.

you can see the mountains from my window

it's a block from Sunset Boulevard.

most interesting cracks in the ceiling from

the last earthquake.

and when you knock

the broken screen will sometimes fall

and dogs will run by like the Hollywood wind.

the note you leave will be read, then

forgotten.

when a hot woman meets a hermit

one of them is going to

change.