wife, she was nice,
she was tired of bombs under the pillow and hissing the Pope,
and she had a very nice figure, very good legs,
but I guess she felt as I: that the weakness was not Government
but Man, one at a time, that men were never as strong as
their ideas
and that ideas were governments turned into men;
and so it began on a couch with a spilled martini
and it ended in the bedroom: desire, revolution,
nonsense ended, and the shades rattled in the wind,
rattled like sabres, cracked like cannon,
and 30 dogs, 20 men on 20 horses chased one fox
across the fields under the sun,
and I got out of bed and yawned and scratched my belly
and knew that soon very soon I would have to get
very drunk again.
the girls
I have been looking at
the same
lampshade
for
5 years
and it has gathered
a bachelor’s dust
and
the girls who enter here
are too
busy
to clean it
but I don’t mind
I have been too
busy
to notice
until now
that the light
shines
badly
through
5 years’
worth.
a note on rejection slips
it is not very good
to not get through
whether it’s the
wall
the human mind
sleep
wakefulness
sex
excretion
or most anything
you can name
or
can’t name.
when a chicken
catches its worm
the chicken gets through
and when the worm
catches you
(dead or alive)
I’d have to say,
even through its lack
of sensibility,
that it enjoys
it.
it’s like when you
send this poem
back
I’ll figure
it just didn’t get
through.
either there were
fatter worms
or the chicken
couldn’t
see.
the next time
I break an egg
I’ll think of
you.
scramble with
fork
and then turn up
the flame
if I
have
one.
true story
they found him walking along the freeway
all red in
front
he had taken a rusty tin can
and cut off his sexual
machinery
as if to say—
see what you’ve done to
me? you might as well have the
rest.
and he put part of him
in one pocket and
part of him in
another
and that’s how they found him,
walking
along.
they gave him over to the
doctors
who tried to sew the parts
back
on
but the parts were
quite contented
they way they
were.
I think sometimes of all the good
ass
turned over to the
monsters of the
world.
maybe it was his protest against
this or
his protest
against
everything.
a one man
Freedom March
that never squeezed in
between
the concert reviews and the
baseball
scores.
God, or somebody,
bless
him.
x-pug
he hooked to the body hard
took it well
and loved to fight
had seven in a row and a small fleck
over one eye,
and then he met a kid from Camden
with arms thin as wires—
it was a good one,
the safe lions roared and threw money;
they were both up and down many times,
but he lost that one
and he lost the rematch
in which neither of them fought at all,
hanging on to each other like lovers through the boos,
and now he’s over at Mike’s
changing tires and oil and batteries,
the fleck over the eye
still young,
but you don’t ask him,
you don’t ask him anything
except maybe
you think it’s going to rain?
or
you think the sun’s gonna come out?
to which he’ll usually answer
hell no,
but you’ll have your important tank of gas
and drive off.
class
these boys have got class
they ought to make kings
out of old men
rolling cigarettes
in rooms small enough
to recognize
a single shadow;
for them
all has gone away
like a light under the
door
yet
they recognize and
bear the absence;
tricked and slugged to
zero
they wait on death
with the temperate patience of
a mother teaching her child
to eat;
for them, everything has
run away
like a rose in the mouth
of a hog;
the burning of cities
must have been
like this.
but like trucks of garbage
shaking with love
these boys
might
rise
she was tired of bombs under the pillow and hissing the Pope,
and she had a very nice figure, very good legs,
but I guess she felt as I: that the weakness was not Government
but Man, one at a time, that men were never as strong as
their ideas
and that ideas were governments turned into men;
and so it began on a couch with a spilled martini
and it ended in the bedroom: desire, revolution,
nonsense ended, and the shades rattled in the wind,
rattled like sabres, cracked like cannon,
and 30 dogs, 20 men on 20 horses chased one fox
across the fields under the sun,
and I got out of bed and yawned and scratched my belly
and knew that soon very soon I would have to get
very drunk again.
the girls
I have been looking at
the same
lampshade
for
5 years
and it has gathered
a bachelor’s dust
and
the girls who enter here
are too
busy
to clean it
but I don’t mind
I have been too
busy
to notice
until now
that the light
shines
badly
through
5 years’
worth.
a note on rejection slips
it is not very good
to not get through
whether it’s the
wall
the human mind
sleep
wakefulness
sex
excretion
or most anything
you can name
or
can’t name.
when a chicken
catches its worm
the chicken gets through
and when the worm
catches you
(dead or alive)
I’d have to say,
even through its lack
of sensibility,
that it enjoys
it.
it’s like when you
send this poem
back
I’ll figure
it just didn’t get
through.
either there were
fatter worms
or the chicken
couldn’t
see.
the next time
I break an egg
I’ll think of
you.
scramble with
fork
and then turn up
the flame
if I
have
one.
true story
they found him walking along the freeway
all red in
front
he had taken a rusty tin can
and cut off his sexual
machinery
as if to say—
see what you’ve done to
me? you might as well have the
rest.
and he put part of him
in one pocket and
part of him in
another
and that’s how they found him,
walking
along.
they gave him over to the
doctors
who tried to sew the parts
back
on
but the parts were
quite contented
they way they
were.
I think sometimes of all the good
ass
turned over to the
monsters of the
world.
maybe it was his protest against
this or
his protest
against
everything.
a one man
Freedom March
that never squeezed in
between
the concert reviews and the
baseball
scores.
God, or somebody,
bless
him.
x-pug
he hooked to the body hard
took it well
and loved to fight
had seven in a row and a small fleck
over one eye,
and then he met a kid from Camden
with arms thin as wires—
it was a good one,
the safe lions roared and threw money;
they were both up and down many times,
but he lost that one
and he lost the rematch
in which neither of them fought at all,
hanging on to each other like lovers through the boos,
and now he’s over at Mike’s
changing tires and oil and batteries,
the fleck over the eye
still young,
but you don’t ask him,
you don’t ask him anything
except maybe
you think it’s going to rain?
or
you think the sun’s gonna come out?
to which he’ll usually answer
hell no,
but you’ll have your important tank of gas
and drive off.
class
these boys have got class
they ought to make kings
out of old men
rolling cigarettes
in rooms small enough
to recognize
a single shadow;
for them
all has gone away
like a light under the
door
yet
they recognize and
bear the absence;
tricked and slugged to
zero
they wait on death
with the temperate patience of
a mother teaching her child
to eat;
for them, everything has
run away
like a rose in the mouth
of a hog;
the burning of cities
must have been
like this.
but like trucks of garbage
shaking with love
these boys
might
rise
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