the
big green screen?
I asked.
yeah. well, anyhow, I finally got on
the other day
picking tomatoes, and Jesus Christ,
I couldn’t get anywhere
it was too hot, too hot
and I couldn’t get anything in my sack
so I lay under the truck
in the shade and drank
wine. I didn’t make a
dime.
have a drink, I said.
sure, he said.
two big women came in and
I mean BIG
and they sat next to
us.
shot of red-eye, one of them
said to the bartender.
likewise, said the other.
they pulled their dresses up
around their hips and
swung their legs.
um, umm. I think I’m going mad, I told
my friend from the tomato fields.
Jesus, he said, Jesus and Mary, I can’t
believe what I see.
it’s all
there, I said.
you a fighter? the one next to me
asked.
no, I said.
what happened to your
face?
automobile accident on the San Berdoo
freeway. some drunk jumped the divider. I was
the drunk.
how old are you, daddy?
old enough to slice the melon, I said,
tapping my cigar ashes into my beer to give me
strength.
can you buy a melon? she asked.
have you ever been chased across the Mojave and
raped?
no, she said.
I pulled out my last 20 and with an old man’s
virile abandon ordered
four drinks.
both girls smiled and pulled their dresses
higher, if that was possible.
who’s your friend? they asked.
this is Lord Chesterfield, I told them.
pleased ta meetcha, they
said.
hello, bitches, he answered.
we walked through the 3rd street tunnel
to a green hotel. the girls had a
key.
there was one bed and we all got
in. I don’t know who got
who.
the next morning my friend and I
were down at the Farm Labor Market
on San Pedro Street
holding up and waving our social
security cards.
they couldn’t see
his.
I was the last one on the truck out. a big woman stood
up against me. she smelled like
port wine.
honey, she asked, whatever happened to your
face?
fair grounds, a dancing bear who
didn’t.
bullshit, she said.
maybe so, I said, but get your hand out
from around my
balls. everybody’s looking.
when we got to the
fields the sun was
really up
and the world
looked
terrible.
i met a genius
I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
it’s not pretty.
it was the first time I’d
realized
that.
poverty
it is the man you’ve never seen who
keeps you going,
the one who might arrive
someday.
he isn’t out on the streets or
in the buildings or in the
stadiums,
or if he’s there
I’ve missed him somehow.
he isn’t one of our presidents
or statesmen or actors.
I wonder if he’s there.
I walk down the streets
past drugstores and hospitals and
theatres and cafes
and I wonder if he is there.
I have looked almost half a century
and he has not been seen.
a living man, truly alive,
say when he brings his hands down
from lighting a cigarette
you see his eyes
like the eyes of a tiger staring past
into the wind.
but when the hands come down
it is always the
other eyes
that are there
always always.
and soon it will be too late for me
and I will have lived a life
with drugstores, cats, sheets, saliva,
newspapers, women, doors and other assortments,
but nowhere
a living man.
to kiss the worms goodnight
kool enough to die but not
kill I take my doctor’s green
pill
drink tea
as the sharks swim through vases of
flowers
ten times around they go
twenty
searching for my sissy
heart
in a freak May night in
Los Angeles
Sunday
somebody
big green screen?
I asked.
yeah. well, anyhow, I finally got on
the other day
picking tomatoes, and Jesus Christ,
I couldn’t get anywhere
it was too hot, too hot
and I couldn’t get anything in my sack
so I lay under the truck
in the shade and drank
wine. I didn’t make a
dime.
have a drink, I said.
sure, he said.
two big women came in and
I mean BIG
and they sat next to
us.
shot of red-eye, one of them
said to the bartender.
likewise, said the other.
they pulled their dresses up
around their hips and
swung their legs.
um, umm. I think I’m going mad, I told
my friend from the tomato fields.
Jesus, he said, Jesus and Mary, I can’t
believe what I see.
it’s all
there, I said.
you a fighter? the one next to me
asked.
no, I said.
what happened to your
face?
automobile accident on the San Berdoo
freeway. some drunk jumped the divider. I was
the drunk.
how old are you, daddy?
old enough to slice the melon, I said,
tapping my cigar ashes into my beer to give me
strength.
can you buy a melon? she asked.
have you ever been chased across the Mojave and
raped?
no, she said.
I pulled out my last 20 and with an old man’s
virile abandon ordered
four drinks.
both girls smiled and pulled their dresses
higher, if that was possible.
who’s your friend? they asked.
this is Lord Chesterfield, I told them.
pleased ta meetcha, they
said.
hello, bitches, he answered.
we walked through the 3rd street tunnel
to a green hotel. the girls had a
key.
there was one bed and we all got
in. I don’t know who got
who.
the next morning my friend and I
were down at the Farm Labor Market
on San Pedro Street
holding up and waving our social
security cards.
they couldn’t see
his.
I was the last one on the truck out. a big woman stood
up against me. she smelled like
port wine.
honey, she asked, whatever happened to your
face?
fair grounds, a dancing bear who
didn’t.
bullshit, she said.
maybe so, I said, but get your hand out
from around my
balls. everybody’s looking.
when we got to the
fields the sun was
really up
and the world
looked
terrible.
i met a genius
I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
it’s not pretty.
it was the first time I’d
realized
that.
poverty
it is the man you’ve never seen who
keeps you going,
the one who might arrive
someday.
he isn’t out on the streets or
in the buildings or in the
stadiums,
or if he’s there
I’ve missed him somehow.
he isn’t one of our presidents
or statesmen or actors.
I wonder if he’s there.
I walk down the streets
past drugstores and hospitals and
theatres and cafes
and I wonder if he is there.
I have looked almost half a century
and he has not been seen.
a living man, truly alive,
say when he brings his hands down
from lighting a cigarette
you see his eyes
like the eyes of a tiger staring past
into the wind.
but when the hands come down
it is always the
other eyes
that are there
always always.
and soon it will be too late for me
and I will have lived a life
with drugstores, cats, sheets, saliva,
newspapers, women, doors and other assortments,
but nowhere
a living man.
to kiss the worms goodnight
kool enough to die but not
kill I take my doctor’s green
pill
drink tea
as the sharks swim through vases of
flowers
ten times around they go
twenty
searching for my sissy
heart
in a freak May night in
Los Angeles
Sunday
somebody
Similar Books
