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he’ll be famous

and they’ll bury him in the rain, but right now

I wish he’d shut

up that god damned screaming—for my money he’s

a silly pansy jackass

and when they move him out of here, I hope they

move in a good solid fisherman

or a hangman

or a seller of

biblical tracts.

in a neighborhood of murder

murder

the roaches spit out

paper clips

and the helicopter circles and circles

smelling for blood

searchlights leering down into our

bedroom

5 guys in this court have pistols

another a

machete

we are all murderers and

alcoholics

but there are worse in the hotel

across the street

they sit in the green and white doorway

banal and depraved

waiting to be institutionalized

here we each have a small green plant

in the window

and when we fight with our women at 3 a.m.

we speak

softly

and on each porch

is a small dish of food

always eaten by morning

we presume

by the

cats.

the strangest sight you ever did see—

I had this room in front on DeLongpre

and I used to sit for hours

in the daytime

looking out the front

window.

there were any number of girls who would

walk by

swaying;

it helped my afternoons,

added something to the beer and the

cigarettes.

one day I saw something

extra.

I heard the sound of it first.

“come on, push!” he said.

there was a long board

about 2½ feet wide and

8 feet long;

nailed to the ends and in the middle

were roller skates.

he was pulling in front

two long ropes attached to the board

and she was in back

guiding and also pushing.

all their possessions were tied to the

board:

pots, pans, bed quilts, and so forth

were roped to the board

tied down;

and the skate wheels were grinding.

he was white, red-necked, a

southerner—

thin, slumped, his pants about to

fall from his

ass—

his face pinked by the sun and

cheap wine,

and she was black

and walked upright

pushing;

she was simply beautiful

in turban

long green earrings

yellow dress

from

neck to

ankle.

her face was gloriously

indifferent.

“don’t worry!” he shouted, looking back

at her, “somebody will

rent us a place!”

she didn’t answer.

then they were gone

although I still heard the

skate wheels.

they’re going to make it,

I thought.

I’m sure they

did.

the 2nd novel

they’d come around and

they’d ask

“you finished your

2nd novel yet?”

“no.”

“whatsamatta? whatsamatta

that you can’t

finish it?”

“hemorrhoids and

insomnia.”

“maybe you’ve lost

it?”

“lost what?”

“you know.”

now when they come

around I tell them,

“yeh. I finished

it. be out in Sept.”

“you finished it?”

“yeh.”

“well, listen, I gotta

go.”

even the cat

here in the courtyard

won’t come to my door

anymore.

it’s nice.

junk

sitting in a dark bedroom with 3 junkies,

female.

brown paper bags filled with trash are

everywhere.

it is one-thirty in the afternoon.

they talk about mad houses,

hospitals.

they are waiting for a fix.

none of them work.

it’s relief and food stamps and

Medi-Cal.

men are usable objects

toward the fix.

it is one-thirty in the afternoon

and outside small plants grow.

their children are still in school.

the females smoke cigarettes

and suck listlessly on beer and

tequila

which I have purchased.

I sit with them.

I wait on my fix:

I am a poetry junkie.

they pulled Ezra through the streets

in a wooden cage.

Blake was sure of God.

Villon was a mugger.

Lorca sucked cock.

T. S. Eliot worked a teller’s cage.

most poets are swans,

egrets.

I sit with 3 junkies

at one-thirty in the afternoon.

the smoke pisses upward.

I wait.

death is a nothing jumbo.

one of the females says that she likes my yellow shirt.

I believe in a simple violence.

this is

some of it.

Mademoiselle from Armentières

if you gotta have wars

I suppose World War One was the best.

really, you know, both sides were much more enthusiastic,

they really had something to fight for,

they really thought they