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my atomic stockpile

I cleaned my place the other day

first time in ten years

and found 100 rejected poems:

I fastened them all to a clipboard

(much bad reading).

now I will clean their teeth

fill their cavities

give them eye and ear examinations

weigh them

offer blood transfusions

then send them out again into the

sick world of posey.

either that

or I must burn down your cities,

rape your women,

murder your men,

enslave your children.

every time I clean my room

the world trembles in the balance.

that’s why I only do it once every

ten years.

(uncollected)

Bruckner (2)

Bruckner wasn’t bad

even though he got down

on his knees

and proclaimed Wagner

the master.

it saddens me, I guess,

in a small way

because while Wagner was

hitting all those homers

Bruckner was sacrificing

the runners to second

and he knew it.

and I know that

mixing baseball metaphors with classical

music

will not please the purists

either.

I prefer Ruth to most of his teammates

but I appreciate those others who did

the best they could

and kept on doing it

even when they knew they

were second best.

this is your club fighter

your back-up quarterback

the unknown jock who sometimes

brings one in

at 40-to-one.

this was Bruckner.

there are times when we should

remember

the strange courage

of the second-rate

who refuse to quit

when the nights

are black and long and sleepless

and the days are without

end.

hello, how are you?

this fear of being what they are:

dead.

at least they are not out on the street, they

are careful to stay indoors, those

pasty mad who sit alone before their TV sets,

their lives full of canned, mutilated laughter.

their ideal neighborhood

of parked cars

of little green lawns

of little homes

the little doors that open and close

as their relatives visit

throughout the holidays

the doors closing

behind the dying who die so slowly

behind the dead who are still alive

in your quiet average neighborhood

of winding streets

of agony

of confusion

of horror

of fear

of ignorance.

a dog standing behind a fence.

a man silent at the window.

vacancy

sun-stroked women

without men

on a Santa Monica Monday;

the men are working or in jail

or insane;

one girl floats in a rubber suit,

waiting…

houses slide off the edges of cliffs

and down into the sea.

the bars are empty

the lobster eating houses are empty;

it’s a recession, they say,

the good days are

over.

you can’t tell an unemployed man

from an artist any more,

they all look alike

and the women look the same,

only a little more desperate.

we stop at a hippie hole

in Topanga Canyon…

and wait, wait, wait;

the whole area of the canyon and the beach

is listless

useless

VACANCY, it says, PEOPLE WANTED.

the wood has no fire

the sea is dirty

the hills are dry

the temples have no bells

love has no bed

sun-stroked women without men

one sailboat

life drowned.

batting slump

the sun slides down through the shades.

I have a pair of black shoes and a pair of

brown shoes.

I can hardly remember the girls of my youth.

there is numb blood pulsing through the

falcon and the hyena and the pimp

and there’s no escaping this unreasonable

sorrow.

there’s crabgrass and razor wire and the snoring

of my cat.

there are lifeguards sitting in canvas-back chairs

with salt rotting under their toenails.

there’s the hunter with eyes like rose

petals.

sorrow, yes, it pulls at me

I don’t know why.

avenues of despair slide into my ears.

the worms won’t sing.

the Babe swings again

missing a 3-and-2 pitch

twisting around himself

leaning over his

whiskey gut.

cows give milk

dentists pull teeth

thermometers work.

I can sing the blues

it doesn’t cost a dime and

when I lay down to night

pull up the covers

there’s the dark factor

there’s the unknown factor

there’s this manufactured

staggering

black

empty

space.

I got to hit one out of here

pretty soon.

bang bang

absolutely