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Racing Form

on the way

out.

poor Al

I don’t know how he does it

but every woman he meets is

crazy.

he will get rid of one

crazy woman

but he never gets any

relief—

another crazy moves right in

with him.

it’s only after they move in

and begin acting

more than strange

that they admit to him

that they’ve done madhouse

time

or that their families have

a long history of mental

illness.

his last one

he sent to a shrink

once a week:

$75 for 45 minutes.

after 7 months

she walked out on the

shrink

and said to Al,

“that god damned fag doesn’t know

anything.”

I don’t know how they all find

Al.

he says you can’t tell at the first

meeting

they have their guard up

but after 2 or 3 months the

guard comes down

and there’s Al with

another one.

It got so bad that Al thought

maybe it was

him

so he went to a shrink

and asked

and the shrink said,

“you’re one of the sanest men

I’ve ever met.”

poor Al.

that made him feel

worse

than ever.

for my ivy league friends:

many of those I met on the reading circuit or heard about on the reading

circuit in the old days are now either teaching or poets-in-residence

and have garnered Guggenheims and N.E.A.’s and sundry other grants.

well, I tried for a Gugg once myself, even got an N.E.A. so I can’t

knock the act

but

you should have seen them back then: raggedy-ass, wild-eyed, raving

against the order

now

they have been ingested, digested, rested

they write reviews for the journals

they write well-worked, quiet, inoffensive poesy

they edit so many of the magazines that I have no idea where I should send this

poem

since they attack my work with alarming regularity

and

I can’t read theirs

yet their attacks upon me have been effective in this country

and

if it weren’t for Europe I’d probably still be a starving writer

or down at the row

or diggin weeds out of your garden

or…?

well

you know the old saying: it’s all a matter of

taste

and

either they’re right and I’m wrong or I’m right and they’re all

wrong

or

maybe it’s some place in between.

most of the people in the world could care less

and

I often feel the same

way.

helping the old

I was standing in line at the bank today

when the old fellow in front of me

dropped his glasses (luckily, within the

case)

and as he bent over

I saw how difficult it was for

him

and I said, “wait, let me get

them…”

but as I picked them up

he dropped his cane

a beautiful, black polished

cane

and I got the glasses back to him

then went for the cane

steadying the old boy

as I handed him his cane.

he didn’t speak,

he just smiled at me.

then he turned

forward.

I stood behind him waiting

my turn.

bad times at the 3rd and Vermont hotel

Alabam was a sneak and a thief and he came to my

room when I was drunk and

each time I got up he shoved me back

down.

you prick, I told him, you know I can

take you!

he just shoved me down

again.

when I sober up, I said, I’m going to kick you

all the way to hell!

he just kept pushing me

around.

I finally caught him a good one, right over the

temple

and he backed off and

left.

it was a couple of days later

I got even: I fucked his

girl.

then I went down and knocked on his

door.

well, Alabam, I fucked your woman and now I’m going to

kick you all the way to

hell!

the poor guy started crying, he put his hands over his

face and just cried

I stood there and watched

him.

I said, I’m sorry,

Alabam.

then I left him there, I went back to

my room.

we were all alkies and none of us had jobs, all we had

was each other.

even then, my so-called woman was in some bar or

somewhere, I hadn’t seen her in a couple of

days.

I had a bottle of port

left.

I uncorked it and took it down to Alabam’s

room.

said, how about a drink,

Rebel?

he looked up, stood up, went for two

glasses.

the Master Plan

starving in a Philadelphia winter

trying to be a writer

I wrote and wrote and drank and drank and

drank

and then stopped writing and concentrated on

the drinking.

it was