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my left tit and try to smile like George Raft sizing up a French

tart. I play

the field, I pull out dollars like turnips from the good earth, the lights

blaze and nobody says stop.

Hank, says my whore, for Christ’s sake you’re losing everything except me,

and I say don’t forget, baby, I’m a shipping clerk. what’ve I got to lose

but a ball of string?

the gentlemen in the corner who look like Russians get up, knock

their plates and cups on the floor and wipe their mouths on the tablecloth.

some belch (and one farts). they laugh evilly and leave without anyone bothering

them. a ribbed and moiled cat comes out of somewhere,

begins licking the plates on the floor and then jumps up on the

table and walks around like his feet are wet.

I try black. the croupier’s eyes dart like beetles. he makes futile

almost habitual movements to brush them away.

I switch back to red. I look around for George Raft and spill my drink

against my chest. Hank, says my whore, let’s get out of here!

well, at least,

I say, I ought to get a blow job out of this. you needn’t get filthy,

the whore

says. I say, baby, I was born filthy. I try #14.

DEATH COMES SLOWLY LIKE ANTS TO A FALLEN FIG.

mirrors enclose us, I say to the croupier, ignoring the scenery of our despair.

I slap away a filthy thing that runs across my mouth. the cat

leaps and snatches it up as it spins upon its back kicking its

thousand legs.

then George Raft walks in. hello kid, he says, back again? I place

my last few coins on the chest of a dead elephant.

the lightning flares, they are stabbing grapefruit in the backroom, somebody

drops a glove and the place, the whole place, goes up in smoke.

we walk back to the car and fall asleep.

I am eaten by butterflies

maybe I’ll win the Irish Sweepstakes

maybe I’ll go nuts

maybe Harcourt Brace will call

or maybe unemployment insurance or

a rich lesbian at the top of a hill.

maybe reincarnation as a frog…

or $70,000 found floating in a plastic sack

in the bathtub.

I need help

I am a thin man being eaten by

green trees

butterflies and

you.

turn turn

light the lamp

my teeth ache the teeth of my soul ache

I can’t sleep I

pray for the dead

the white mice

engines on fire

blood on a green gown in an operating room

and I am caught

ow ow

wild: my body being there filled with nothing but

me

me caught halfway between suicide and

old age

hustling in factories next to the

young boys

keeping pace

burning my blood like gasoline and

making the foreman

grin.

my poems are only bits of scratchings

on the floor of a

cage.

(uncollected)

the veryest

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 voice

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 machine gun singing

here comes bacon burning in the pan

here comes a voice saying something dull with authority

here comes a newspaper stuffed with small red birds

with flat brown beaks

here comes a woman carrying a torch

a grenade

a deathly love

here comes victory carrying one bucket of guts

and one bucket of blood

while stumbling over the berry bush

and here comes a little lamb

and here comes Mary at last

and the sheet hangs out the window

and the bombers head east west north south

get lost

get tossed like salad

all the fish in the sea line up and form

one line

one long line

one very long long line

the veryest longest line you could ever imagine

and we get lost

walking past purple mountains.

we walk lost

bare at last like the knife blade

or the electric shock

having given

having spit it out like an unexpected olive seed

as the girl at the call ser vice

screams over the phone:

“don’t call back! you sound like a jerk!”

(uncollected)

man mowing the lawn across the way from me

I watch you walking