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backs to floor

and I look up

at the old calendar

hung from a nail

and touch

my wrinkled face

and smile

because

the secret

is beyond me.

peace

near the corner table in the

cafe

a middle-aged couple

sit.

they have finished their

meal

and they are each drinking a

beer.

it is 9 in the evening.

she is smoking a

cigarette.

then he says something.

she nods.

then she speaks.

he grins, moves his

hand.

then they are

quiet.

through the blinds next to

their table

flashing red neon

blinks on and

off.

there is no war.

there is no hell.

then he raises his beer

bottle.

it is green.

he lifts it to his lips,

tilts it.

it is a coronet.

her right elbow is

on the table

and in her hand

she holds the

cigarette

between her thumb and

forefinger

and

as she watches

him

the streets outside

flower

in the

night.

afternoons into night

looking out the window

smoking rolled cigarettes

drinking Sanka

and watching the workers

come on in

I wonder, how much longer

can I get away with this?

stories and poems and

paintings

surviving on that.

an insane girlfriend

years younger

who loves me

types at her novel

in the kitchen.

my stories, my poems…

what is a poem?

a book by Céline sits on

the edge of the bathtub.

I read it when I bathe

and laugh.

the workers come in now

I see their faces,

the insides scraped away,

the outsides

missing.

I’ve had their jobs,

their goldfish

security.

Segovia plays to me

so softly from the

radio, the daylight’s going.

look here—

the trip’s been worth it,

while the jetliners go to New York and

Georgia and Texas

I sit surrounded by hymns that

nobody can ever take away

as the workers bend over

hot soup and cold

wives.

(uncollected)

we ain’t got no money, honey, but we got rain

call it the green house effect or what ever

but it just doesn’t rain like it

used to.

I particularly remember the rains of the

depression era.

there wasn’t any money but there was

plenty of rain.

it wouldn’t rain for just a night or

a day,

it would RAIN for 7 days and 7

nights

and in Los Angeles the storm drains

weren’t built to carry off that much

water

and the rain came down THICK and

MEAN and

STEADY

and you HEARD it banging against

the roofs and into the ground

waterfalls of it came down

from the roofs

and often there was HAIL

big ROCKS OF ICE

bombing

exploding

smashing into things

and the rain

just wouldn’t

STOP

and all the roofs leaked—

cooking pots

were placed all about;

they dripped loudly

and had to be emptied

again and

again.

the rain came up over the street curbings,

across the lawns, climbed the steps and

entered the houses.

there were mops and bathroom towels,

and the rain often came up through the

toilets: bubbling, brown, crazy, whirling,

and the old cars stood in the streets,

cars that had problems starting on a

sunny day,

and the jobless men stood

looking out the windows

at the old machines dying

like living things

out there.

the jobless men,

failures in a failing time

were imprisoned in their houses with their

wives and children

and their

pets.

the pets refused to go out

and left their waste in

strange places.

the jobless men went mad

confined with

their once beautiful wives.

there were terrible arguments

as notices of foreclosure

fell into the mailbox.

rain and hail, cans of beans,

bread without butter; fried

eggs, boiled eggs, poached

eggs; peanut butter

sandwiches, and an invisible

chicken

in every pot.

my father, never a good man

at best, beat my mother

when it rained

as I threw myself

between them,

the legs, the knees, the

screams

until they

separated.

“I’ll kill you,” I screamed

at him. “You hit her again

and I’ll kill you!”

“Get that son-of-a-bitching

kid out of here!”

“no, Henry, you stay with

your mother!”

all the house holds were under

siege but I believe that ours

held more terror than the

average.

and at night

as we attempted to sleep