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mole on your butt.

she walked into the other room

and got dressed and then ran past me

slammed the door

and was

gone.

and to think,

she’d read all my books of

poetry too.

I just hoped she wouldn’t tell

anybody that

I wasn’t pretty.

my telephone

the telephone has not been kind of late,

of late there have been more and more calls

from people who want to come over and talk

from people who are depressed

from people who are lonely

from people who just don’t know what to do

with their time;

I’m no snob, I try to help, try to suggest something that

might be of assistance

but there have been more calls

more and more calls

and what the callers don’t realize is that

I too have

problems

and even when I don’t

it’s

necessary for me

sometimes

just to be alone and quiet and

doing nothing.

so the other day

after many days of listening to depressed and lonely people

wanting me to assuage their grief,

I was lying there

enjoying looking at the ceiling

when the phone rang

and I picked it up and said,

“listen, what ever your problem is or what ever it is you want,

I can’t help you.”

after a moment of silence

whoever it was hung up

and I felt like a man who had escaped.

I napped then, perhaps an hour, when the phone rang

again and I picked it up:

“what ever your problem is

I can’t help you!”

“is this Mr. Chinaski?”

“yes.”

“this is Helen at your dentist’s

office to remind you

that you have an appointment at

3:30 tomorrow

afternoon.”

I told her I’d be

there for her.

Carson McCullers

she died of alcoholism

wrapped in a blanket

on a deck chair

on an ocean

steamer.

all her books of

terrified loneliness

all her books about

the cruelty

of loveless love

were all that was left

of her

as the strolling vacationer

discovered her body

notified the captain

and she was quickly dispatched

to somewhere else

on the ship

as everything

continued just

as

she had written it.

Mongolian coasts shining in light

Mongolian coasts shining in light,

I listen to the pulse of the sun,

the tiger is the same to all of us

and high oh

so high on the branch

our oriole

sings.

putrefaction

of late

I’ve had this thought

that this country

has gone backwards

4 or 5 de cades

and that all the

social advancement

the good feeling of

person toward

person

has been washed

away

and replaced by the same

old

bigotries.

we have

more than ever

the selfish wants of power

the disregard for the

weak

the old

the impoverished

the

helpless.

we are replacing want with

war

salvation with

slavery.

we have wasted the

gains

we have become

rapidly

less.

we have our Bomb

it is our fear

our damnation

and our

shame.

now

something so sad

has hold of us

that

the breath

leaves

and we can’t even

cry.

where was Jane?

one of the first actors to play Tarzan was living at the

Motion Picture Home.

he’d been there for years waiting to die.

he spent much of his time

running in and out of the wards

into the cafeteria and out into the yard where he’d yell,

“ME TARZAN!”

he never spoke to anyone or said anything else, it was always just

“ME TARZAN!”

everybody liked him: the old actors, the retired directors,

the ancient script writers, the aged cameramen, the prop men, stunt men, the old

actresses, all of whom were also there

waiting to die; they enjoyed his verve,

his antics, he was harmless and he took them back to the time when they

were still in the business.

then the doctors in authority decided that Tarzan was possibly dangerous

and one day he was shipped off to a mental institution.

he vanished as suddenly as if he’d been eaten by a

lion.

and the other patients were outraged, they instituted legal proceedings

to have him returned at once but

it took some months.

when Tarzan returned he was changed.

he would not leave his room.

he just sat by the window as if he had

forgotten

his old role

and the other patients missed

his