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paintings after I have

made love to her,

and if she can’t paint

she can leave me

a couple of golden earrings

or maybe a slice of ear

in memory of one who

could.

my old man

16 years old

during the depression

I’d come home drunk

and all my clothing—

shorts, shirts, stockings—

suitcase, and pages of

short stories

would be thrown out on the

front lawn and about the

street.

my mother would be

waiting behind a tree:

“Henry, Henry, don’t

go in…he’ll

kill you, he’s read

your stories…”

“I can whip his

ass…”

“Henry, please take

this…and

find yourself a room.”

but it worried him

that I might not

finish high school

so I’d be back

again.

one evening he walked in

with the pages of

one of my short stories

(which I had never submitted

to him)

and he said, “this is

a great short story.”

I said, “o.k.,”

and he handed it to me

and I read it.

it was a story about

a rich man

who had a fight with

his wife and had

gone out into the night

for a cup of coffee

and had observed

the waitress and the spoons

and forks and the

salt and pepper shakers

and the neon sign

in the window

and then had gone back

to his stable

to see and touch his

favorite horse

who then

kicked him in the head

and killed him.

somehow

the story held

meaning for him

though

when I had written it

I had no idea

of what I was

writing about.

so I told him,

“o.k., old man, you can

have it.”

and he took it

and walked out

and closed the door.

I guess that’s

as close

as we ever got.

fear

he walks up to my Volks

after I have parked

and rocks it back and

forth

grinning around his

cigar.

“hey, Hank, I notice

all the women around your

place lately…good looking

stuff; you’re doing all

right.”

“Sam,” I say, “that’s not

true; I am one of God’s most

lonely men.”

“we got some nice girls at

the parlor, you oughta try

some of them.”

“I’m afraid of those places,

Sam, I can’t walk into them.”

“I’ll send you a girl then,

real nice stuff.”

“Sam, don’t send me a whore,

I always fall in love with

whores.”

“o.k., friend,” he says,

“let me know if you change

your mind.”

I watch him walk away.

some men are always on

top of their game.

I am mostly always

confused.

he can break a man

in half

and doesn’t know who

Mozart is.

who wants to listen

to music

anyhow

on a rainy Wednesday

night?

little tigers everywhere

Sam the whorehouse man

has squeaky shoes

and he walks up and down

the court

squeaking and talking to

the cats.

he’s 310 pounds,

a killer

and he talks to the cats.

he sees the women at the massage

parlor and has no girlfriends

no automobile

he doesn’t drink or dope

his biggest vices are

chewing on a cigar and

feeding all the cats in

the neighborhood.

some of the cats get

pregnant

and so finally there are

more and more cats and

everytime I open my door

one or two cats will

run in and sometimes I’ll

forget they are there and

they’ll shit under the bed

or I’ll awaken at night

hearing sounds

leap up with my blade

sneak into the kitchen and

find one of Sam the whorehouse

man’s cats walking around on

the sink or sitting on top

of the refrigerator.

Sam runs the love parlor

around the corner

and his girls stand in the

doorway in the sun

and the traffic signals go

red and green and red and green

and all of Sam’s cats

possess some of the meaning

as do the days and the nights.

after the reading:

“…I’ve seen people in front of

their typewriters in such a bind

that it would blow their intestines

right out of their assholes if they

were trying to shit.”

“ah hahaha hahaha!”

“…it’s a shame to work that

hard to try to write.”

“ah hahaha hahaha!”

“ambition rarely has anything to

do with talent. luck is best, and

talent limps along a little

bit behind luck.”

“ah haha.”

he rose and left with an 18 year old virgin, the most

beautiful co-ed of them

all.

I closed my notebook

got up and limped a

little bit behind

them.

about cranes

sometimes after you get your ass

kicked real good by the