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spill some hash from a soft

can, it is almost cooked

already

and I sit

eating, looking at my

fingernails.

the sweat comes down behind my

ears and I hear the

shooting in the streets and

I chew and wait

without wonder.

dreaming

I live alone in a small room

and read the newspapers

and sleep alone in the dark

dreaming of crowds.

(uncollected)

my special craving

what is it about lobsters and crabs?

those white-pink shells

that always make me hungry just

looking at them there

in the butcher’s display case

tossed casually one upon the other

so kind and pink and waiting.

even alive they make me hungry.

I used to unload them from trucks

for the kitchen at the Biltmore Hotel,

and they looked dangerous

moving about in their slatted boxes

but still they made me

hungry. there is something about

crabs and lobsters

they deserve to be eaten,

they go so well with

french fries, french bread, radishes

and beer. they tell me that they boil them

alive, and this does

cause some minor sense of disturbance within

me, but outside of that

lobsters and crabs are one of the few things

that make the earth a happy place.

I suppose that this is my special

craving. when driving along the beachfront

and I see a sign,

LOBSTER HOUSE, my car turns in of its own

accord. (if a man can’t allow himself a

few luxuries

he just isn’t going to last very

long.) crabs, beer, lobsters,

an occasional lady,

2 or 3 days a week at the track,

my small daughter bringing me a bottle of beer

from the refrigerator while

grinning proudly,

there are some wonderful things in life,

(let each man find his own)

I say lighting my cigar,

thinking about Sunday night lobster dinner,

love love love

running wild,

it feels good sometimes just to be living

with something so nice

in store.

(uncollected)

A Love Poem

all the women

all their kisses the

different ways they love and

talk and need.

their ears they all have

ears and

throats and dresses

and shoes and

automobiles and ex-

husbands.

mostly

the women are very

warm they remind me of

buttered toast with the butter

melted

in.

there is a look in the

eye: they have been

taken they have been

fooled. I don’t quite know what to

do for

them.

I am

a fair cook a good

listener

but I never learned to

dance—I was busy

then with larger things.

but I’ve enjoyed their different

beds

smoking cigarettes

staring at the

ceilings. I was neither vicious nor

unfair. only

a student.

I know they all have these

feet and barefoot they go across the floor as

I watch their bashful buttocks in the

dark. I know that they like me, some even

love me

but I love very

few.

some give me oranges and vitamin pills;

others talk quietly of

childhood and fathers and

landscapes; some are almost

crazy but none of them are without

meaning; some love

well, others not

so; the best at sex are not always the

best in other

ways; each has limits as I have

limits and we learn

each other

quickly.

all the women all the

women all the

bedrooms

the rugs the

photos the

curtains, it’s

something like a church only

at times there’s

laughter.

those ears those

arms those

elbows those eyes

looking, the fondness and

the wanting I have been

held I have been

held.

one writer’s funeral

there was a rock-and-mud slide

on the Pacific Coast Highway and we had to take a

detour and they directed us up into the Malibu hills

and traffic was slow and it was hot, and then

we were lost.

but I spotted a hearse and said, “there’s the

hearse, we’ll follow it,” and my woman said,

“that’s not the hearse,” and I said, “yes, that’s the

hearse.”

the hearse took a left and I followed

it as it went up

a narrow dirt road and then pulled over and I

thought, “he’s lost too.” there was a truck and a man

selling strawberries parked there

and I pulled over

and asked

where the church was and he gave me directions and

my woman told the strawberry man, “we’ll buy some

strawberries on