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“who can belt-buckle a guy

without coming out with all

this Christian moral bullshit

afterwards.”

“Hawley’s leaving town,”

I tell Sam.

“where’s the Shoe?”

he asks.

“back east,” says an old man

who’s standing there.

he has a white plastic shield

over his left eye

with little holes

punched into it.

“that leaves it all to Pinky,”

says dark brown.

we all stand looking at each

other.

then

a silent signal given

we turn away

and start walking,

each

in a different direction:

north south east west.

we know something.

an unkind poem

they go on writing

pumping out poems—

young boys and college professors

wives who drink wine all afternoon

while their husbands work,

they go on writing

the same names in the same magazines

everybody writing a little worse each year,

getting out a poetry collection

and pumping out more poems

it’s like a contest

it is a contest

but the prize is invisible.

they won’t write short stories or articles

or novels

they just go on

pumping out poems

each sounding more and more like the others

and less and less like themselves,

and some of the young boys weary and quit

but the professors never quit

and the wives who drink wine in the afternoons

never ever ever quit

and new young boys arrive with new magazines

and there is some correspondence with lady or men poets

and some fucking

and everything is exaggerated and dull.

when the poems come back

they retype them

and send them off to the next magazine on the list,

and they give readings

all the readings they can

for free most of the time

hoping that somebody will finally know

finally applaud them

finally congratulate and recognize their

talent

they are all so sure of their genius

there is so little self-doubt,

and most of them live in North Beach or New York City,

and their faces are like their poems:

alike,

and they know each other and

gather and hate and admire and choose and discard

and keep pumping out more poems

more poems

more poems

the contest of the dullards:

tap tap tap, tap tap, tap tap tap, tap tap…

the bee

I suppose like any other boy

I had one best friend in the neighborhood.

his name was Eugene and he was bigger

than I was and one year older.

Eugene used to whip me pretty good.

we fought all the time.

I kept trying him but without much

success.

once we leaped off a garage roof together

to prove our guts.

I twisted my ankle and he came up clean

as freshly-wrapped butter.

I guess the only good thing he ever did for me

was when the bee stung me while I was barefoot

and while I sat down and pulled the stinger out

he said,

“I’ll get the son of a bitch!”

and he did

with a tennis racket

plus a rubber hammer.

it was all right

they say they die

anyway.

my foot swelled up double-size

and I stayed in bed

praying for death

and Eugene went on to become an

Admiral or a Commander

or something large in the United States Navy

and he passed through one or two wars

without injury.

I imagine him an old man now

in a rocking chair

with his false teeth

and glass of buttermilk…

while drunk

I fingerfuck this 19 year old groupie

in bed with me.

but the worst part is

(like jumping off the garage roof)

Eugene wins again

because he’s not even thinking

about me.

the most

here comes the fishhead singing

here comes the baked potato in drag

here comes nothing to do all day long

here comes another night of no sleep

here comes the phone ringing the wrong tone

here comes a termite with a banjo

here comes a flagpole with blank eyes

here comes a cat and a dog wearing nylons

here comes a machinegun singing

here comes bacon burning in the pan

here comes a voice saying something dull

here comes a newspaper stuffed with small red birds

with flat brown beaks

here comes a cunt carrying a torch

a grenade

a deathly love

here comes victory carrying

one bucket of blood

and stumbling over the berrybush

and the sheets hang out the windows

and the bombers head east west north south

get lost

get tossed like salad

as all the fish