feel like the German troops
whipped by snow and the communists
walking bent
with newspapers stuffed into
worn boots.
my plight is just as terrible.
maybe more so.
victory was so close
victory was there.
as she stood before my mirror
younger and more beautiful than
any woman I had ever known
combing yards and yards of red hair
as I watched her.
and when she came to bed
she was more beautiful than ever
and the love was very very good.
eleven months.
now she’s gone
gone as they go.
this time has finished me.
it’s a long road back
and back to where?
the guy ahead of me
falls.
I step over him.
did she get him too?
I made a mistake
I reached up into the top of the closet
and took out a pair of blue panties
and showed them to her and
asked “are these yours?”
and she looked and said,
“no, those belong to a dog.”
she left after that and I haven’t seen
her since. she’s not at her place.
I keep going there, leaving notes stuck
into the door. I go back and the notes
are still there. I take the Maltese cross
cut it down from my car mirror, tie it
to her doorknob with a shoelace, leave
a book of poems.
when I go back the next night everything
is still there.
I keep searching the streets for that
blood-wine battleship she drives
with a weak battery, and the doors
hanging from broken hinges.
I drive around the streets
an inch away from weeping,
ashamed of my sentimentality and
possible love.
a confused old man driving in the rain
wondering where the good luck
went.
popular melodies
in the last of
your mind
girls in pantyhose
schoolgirls in pantyhose
sitting on bus stop benches
looking tired at 13
with their raspberry lipstick.
it’s hot in the sun
and the day at school has been
dull, and going home is
dull, and
I drive by in my car
peering at their warm legs.
their eyes look
away—
they’ve been warned
about ruthless and horny old
studs; they’re just not going
to give it away like that.
and yet it’s dull
waiting out the minutes on
the bench and the years at
home, and the books they
carry are dull and the food
they eat is dull, and even
the ruthless, horny old studs
are dull.
the girls in pantyhose wait,
they await the proper time and
moment, and then they will move
and then they will conquer.
I drive around in my car
peeking up their legs
pleased that I will never be
part of their heaven and
their hell. but that scarlet
lipstick on those sad waiting
mouths! it would be nice to
kiss each of them once, fully,
then give them back.
but the bus will
get them first.
up your yellow river
a woman told a man
when he got off a plane
that I was dead.
a magazine printed
the fact that I was dead
and somebody else said
that they’d heard that I
was dead, and then somebody
wrote an article and said
our Rimbaud our Villon is
dead. at the same time an old
drinking buddy published
a piece stating that I
could no longer write. a
real Judas job. they can’t
wait for me to go, these
farts. well, I’m listening
to Tchaikovsky’s piano
concerto number one and
the announcer said Mahler’s
5th and 10th symphonies
are coming up via
Amsterdam,
and the beerbottles are
on the floor and ash
from my cigarettes
covers my cotton underwear
and my gut, I’ve
told all my girlfriends to
go to hell, and even this
is a better poem than any
of those gravediggers
could write.
artists :
she wrote me for years.
“I’m drinking wine in the kitchen.
it’s raining outside. the children
are in school.”
she was an average citizen
worried about her soul, her typewriter
and her
underground poetry reputation.
she wrote fairly well and with honesty
but only long after others had
broken the road ahead.
she’d phone me drunk at 2 a.m.
at 3 a.m.
while her husband slept.
“it’s good to hear your voice,”
whipped by snow and the communists
walking bent
with newspapers stuffed into
worn boots.
my plight is just as terrible.
maybe more so.
victory was so close
victory was there.
as she stood before my mirror
younger and more beautiful than
any woman I had ever known
combing yards and yards of red hair
as I watched her.
and when she came to bed
she was more beautiful than ever
and the love was very very good.
eleven months.
now she’s gone
gone as they go.
this time has finished me.
it’s a long road back
and back to where?
the guy ahead of me
falls.
I step over him.
did she get him too?
I made a mistake
I reached up into the top of the closet
and took out a pair of blue panties
and showed them to her and
asked “are these yours?”
and she looked and said,
“no, those belong to a dog.”
she left after that and I haven’t seen
her since. she’s not at her place.
I keep going there, leaving notes stuck
into the door. I go back and the notes
are still there. I take the Maltese cross
cut it down from my car mirror, tie it
to her doorknob with a shoelace, leave
a book of poems.
when I go back the next night everything
is still there.
I keep searching the streets for that
blood-wine battleship she drives
with a weak battery, and the doors
hanging from broken hinges.
I drive around the streets
an inch away from weeping,
ashamed of my sentimentality and
possible love.
a confused old man driving in the rain
wondering where the good luck
went.
popular melodies
in the last of
your mind
girls in pantyhose
schoolgirls in pantyhose
sitting on bus stop benches
looking tired at 13
with their raspberry lipstick.
it’s hot in the sun
and the day at school has been
dull, and going home is
dull, and
I drive by in my car
peering at their warm legs.
their eyes look
away—
they’ve been warned
about ruthless and horny old
studs; they’re just not going
to give it away like that.
and yet it’s dull
waiting out the minutes on
the bench and the years at
home, and the books they
carry are dull and the food
they eat is dull, and even
the ruthless, horny old studs
are dull.
the girls in pantyhose wait,
they await the proper time and
moment, and then they will move
and then they will conquer.
I drive around in my car
peeking up their legs
pleased that I will never be
part of their heaven and
their hell. but that scarlet
lipstick on those sad waiting
mouths! it would be nice to
kiss each of them once, fully,
then give them back.
but the bus will
get them first.
up your yellow river
a woman told a man
when he got off a plane
that I was dead.
a magazine printed
the fact that I was dead
and somebody else said
that they’d heard that I
was dead, and then somebody
wrote an article and said
our Rimbaud our Villon is
dead. at the same time an old
drinking buddy published
a piece stating that I
could no longer write. a
real Judas job. they can’t
wait for me to go, these
farts. well, I’m listening
to Tchaikovsky’s piano
concerto number one and
the announcer said Mahler’s
5th and 10th symphonies
are coming up via
Amsterdam,
and the beerbottles are
on the floor and ash
from my cigarettes
covers my cotton underwear
and my gut, I’ve
told all my girlfriends to
go to hell, and even this
is a better poem than any
of those gravediggers
could write.
artists :
she wrote me for years.
“I’m drinking wine in the kitchen.
it’s raining outside. the children
are in school.”
she was an average citizen
worried about her soul, her typewriter
and her
underground poetry reputation.
she wrote fairly well and with honesty
but only long after others had
broken the road ahead.
she’d phone me drunk at 2 a.m.
at 3 a.m.
while her husband slept.
“it’s good to hear your voice,”
Similar Books
