I never thought
possible…
when I won the medal for Manual of Arms in the
R.O.T.C.
I wasn’t interested in
winning.
I wasn’t much interested in anything, even the
girls seemed a bad game
to chase: all too much for all too
little
at night before sleeping I often considered what I
would do, what I would be:
bank robber, drunk, beggar, idiot, common
laborer.
I settled on idiot and common laborer, it
seemed more comfortable than any of the
alternatives…
the best thing about near-starvation and hunger is
that when you finally
eat
it is such a beautiful and delicious and
magical thing.
people who eat 3 meals a day throughout life
have never really
tasted
food…
people are strange: they are constantly angered by
trivial things,
but on a major matter
like
totally wasting their lives,
they hardly seem to
notice…
on writers: I found out that most of them
swam together.
there were schools, establishments,
theories.
groups gathered and fought each
other.
there was literary politics.
there was game-playing and
bitterness.
I always thought writing was a
solitary profession.
still do…
animals never worry about
Heaven or Hell.
neither do
I.
maybe that’s why
we
get along…
when lonely people come around
I soon can understand why
other people leave them
alone.
and that which would be a
blessing to
me
is a horror to
them…
poor poor Celine.
he only wrote one book.
forget the others.
but what a book it was:
Voyage au bout de la nuit .
it took everything out of
him.
it left him a hopscotch
odd-ball
skittering through the
fog of
eventuality…
the United States is a very strange
place: it reached its apex in
1970
and since then
for every year
it has regressed
3 years,
until now
in 1989
it is 1930
in the way of
doing things.
you don’t have to go to the movies
to see a horror
show.
there is a madhouse near the post office
where I mail my works
out.
I never park in front of the post office,
I park in front of the madhouse
and walk down.
I walk past the madhouse.
some of the lesser mad are allowed
out on the porch.
they sit like
pigeons.
I feel a brotherhood with
them.
but I don’t sit with them.
I walk down and drop my works
in the first class slot.
I am supposed to know what I am
doing.
I walk back, look at them and
don’t look at
them.
I get in my car and drive
off.
I am allowed to drive a
car.
I drive it all the way back to my
house.
I drive my car up the driveway,
thinking,
what am I doing?
I get out of my car
and one of my 5 cats walks up to
me, he is a very fine
fellow.
I reach down and touch
him.
then I feel all right.
I am exactly what I am supposed to
be.
the pack
the dogs are at it again; they leap and
tear, back off, circle, then
attack again.
and I had thought this was over, I had
thought that they had
forgotten; now there are only
more of them.
and I am older,
now
but the dogs are
ageless
and as always they tear not only at
the flesh but also at
the mind and the spirit.
now
they are circling me
in this room.
they are not
beautiful; they are the dogs
from hell
and they will find you
too
even though you are one
of them
now.
question and answer
he sat naked and drunk in a room of summer
night, running the blade of the knife
under his fingernails, smiling, thinking
of all the letters he had received
telling him that
the way he lived and wrote about
that—
it had kept them going when
all seemed
truly
hopeless.
putting the blade on the table, he
flicked it with a finger
and it whirled
in a flashing circle
under the light.
who the hell is going to save
me? he
thought.
as the knife stopped spinning
the answer came:
you’re going to have to
save yourself.
still smiling,
a: he lit a
cigarette
b: he
possible…
when I won the medal for Manual of Arms in the
R.O.T.C.
I wasn’t interested in
winning.
I wasn’t much interested in anything, even the
girls seemed a bad game
to chase: all too much for all too
little
at night before sleeping I often considered what I
would do, what I would be:
bank robber, drunk, beggar, idiot, common
laborer.
I settled on idiot and common laborer, it
seemed more comfortable than any of the
alternatives…
the best thing about near-starvation and hunger is
that when you finally
eat
it is such a beautiful and delicious and
magical thing.
people who eat 3 meals a day throughout life
have never really
tasted
food…
people are strange: they are constantly angered by
trivial things,
but on a major matter
like
totally wasting their lives,
they hardly seem to
notice…
on writers: I found out that most of them
swam together.
there were schools, establishments,
theories.
groups gathered and fought each
other.
there was literary politics.
there was game-playing and
bitterness.
I always thought writing was a
solitary profession.
still do…
animals never worry about
Heaven or Hell.
neither do
I.
maybe that’s why
we
get along…
when lonely people come around
I soon can understand why
other people leave them
alone.
and that which would be a
blessing to
me
is a horror to
them…
poor poor Celine.
he only wrote one book.
forget the others.
but what a book it was:
Voyage au bout de la nuit .
it took everything out of
him.
it left him a hopscotch
odd-ball
skittering through the
fog of
eventuality…
the United States is a very strange
place: it reached its apex in
1970
and since then
for every year
it has regressed
3 years,
until now
in 1989
it is 1930
in the way of
doing things.
you don’t have to go to the movies
to see a horror
show.
there is a madhouse near the post office
where I mail my works
out.
I never park in front of the post office,
I park in front of the madhouse
and walk down.
I walk past the madhouse.
some of the lesser mad are allowed
out on the porch.
they sit like
pigeons.
I feel a brotherhood with
them.
but I don’t sit with them.
I walk down and drop my works
in the first class slot.
I am supposed to know what I am
doing.
I walk back, look at them and
don’t look at
them.
I get in my car and drive
off.
I am allowed to drive a
car.
I drive it all the way back to my
house.
I drive my car up the driveway,
thinking,
what am I doing?
I get out of my car
and one of my 5 cats walks up to
me, he is a very fine
fellow.
I reach down and touch
him.
then I feel all right.
I am exactly what I am supposed to
be.
the pack
the dogs are at it again; they leap and
tear, back off, circle, then
attack again.
and I had thought this was over, I had
thought that they had
forgotten; now there are only
more of them.
and I am older,
now
but the dogs are
ageless
and as always they tear not only at
the flesh but also at
the mind and the spirit.
now
they are circling me
in this room.
they are not
beautiful; they are the dogs
from hell
and they will find you
too
even though you are one
of them
now.
question and answer
he sat naked and drunk in a room of summer
night, running the blade of the knife
under his fingernails, smiling, thinking
of all the letters he had received
telling him that
the way he lived and wrote about
that—
it had kept them going when
all seemed
truly
hopeless.
putting the blade on the table, he
flicked it with a finger
and it whirled
in a flashing circle
under the light.
who the hell is going to save
me? he
thought.
as the knife stopped spinning
the answer came:
you’re going to have to
save yourself.
still smiling,
a: he lit a
cigarette
b: he
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