• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

tray

for all the wise white boys who laugh at

us.

no matter. no matter,

as long as your shoes are tied and

nobody is walking too close

behind.

just being able to scratch yourself and

be nonchalant is victory

enough.

those constipated minds that seek

larger meaning

will be dispatched with the other

garbage.

back off.

if there is light

it will find

you.

the lady in red

people went into vacant lots and pulled up greens to cook and the men rolled Bull Durham or smoked Wings (10¢ a pack) and the dogs were thin and the cats were thin and the cats learned how to catch mice and rats and the dogs caught and killed the cats (some of the cats), and gophers tore up the earth and people killed them by attaching garden hoses to the exhaust pipes of their cars and sticking the hoses into the gopher holes and when the gophers came out the cats and the dogs and the people were afraid of them, they circled and showed their long thin teeth, then they stopped and shivered and as they did the cats rushed in followed by the dogs. people raised chickens in their back yards and the roosters were weak and the hens were thin and the people ate them if they didn’t lay eggs fast enough, and the best time of all was when John Dillinger escaped from jail, and one of the saddest times of all was when the Lady in Red fingered him and he was gunned down coming out of that movie.

Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, Machine Gun Kelly, Ma Barker, Alvin Karpis, we loved them all. and there were always wars starting in China and they never lasted long but the newspapers had big black headlines: WAR IN CHINA! the ’30s were a time when people had very little and there was nothing to hide behind, and that Bull Durham tag dangling from the string coming out of your pocket—that showed you had it, you could roll with one hand—plenty of time to practice and if somebody looked at you wrong or said something you didn’t like you cracked him one right in the mouth. it was a glorious non-bullshit time, especially after we got rid of Herbert Hoover.

the shower

we like to shower afterwards

(I like the water hotter than she)

and her face is always soft and peaceful

and she’ll wash me first

spread the soap over my balls

lift the balls

squeeze them,

then wash the cock:

“hey, this thing is still hard!”

then get all the hair down there,—

the belly, the back, the neck, the legs,

I grin grin grin,

and then I wash her…

first the cunt, I

stand behind her, my cock in the cheeks of her ass

I gently soap up the cunt hairs,

wash there with a soothing motion,

I linger perhaps longer than necessary,

then I get the backs of the legs, the ass,

the back, the neck, I turn her, kiss her,

soap up the breasts, get them and the belly, the neck,

the fronts of the legs, the ankles, the feet,

and then the cunt, once more, for luck…

another kiss, and she gets out first,

toweling, sometimes singing while I stay in

turn the water on hotter

feeling the good times of love’s miracle

I then get out…

it is usually mid-afternoon and quiet,

and getting dressed we talk about what else

there might be to do,

but being together solves most of it,

in fact, solves all of it

for as long as those things stay solved

in the history of woman and

man, it’s different for each

better and worse for each—

for me, it’s splendid enough to remember

past the marching of armies

and the horses that walk the streets outside

past the memories of pain and defeat and unhappiness:

Linda, you brought it to me,

when you take it away

do it slowly and easily

make it as if I were dying in my sleep instead of in

my life, amen.

i was glad

I was glad I had money in the Savings and Loan

Friday afternoon hungover

I didn’t have a job

I was glad I had money in the Savings and Loan

I didn’t know how to play a guitar

Friday afternoon hungover

Friday afternoon hungover

across the street from Norm’s

across the street from The Red Fez

I was glad I had money in the Savings and Loan

split with my girlfriend and blue