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classical music

I was young I was so young it hurt like a knife

inside

because there was no alternative except to hide as long

as possible—

not in self-pity but with dismay at my limited chance:

trying to connect.

the old composers—Mozart, Bach, Beethoven,

Brahms were the only ones who spoke to me and

they were dead.

finally, starved and beaten, I had to go into

the streets to be interviewed for low-paying and

monotonous

jobs

by strange men behind desks

men without eyes men without faces

who would take my hours

break them

piss on them.

now I work for the editors the readers the

critics

but still hang around and drink with

Mozart, Bach, Brahms and the

Bee

some buddies

some men

sometimes all we need to be able to continue alone

are the dead

rattling the walls

that close us in.

death sat on my knee and cracked with laughter

I was writing three short stories a week

and sending them to the Atlantic Monthly

they would all come back.

my money went for stamps and envelopes

and paper and wine

and I got so thin I used to

suck my cheeks

together

and they’d meet over the top of my

tongue (that’s when I thought about

Hamsun’s Hunger—where he ate his own

flesh; I once took a bite of my wrist

but it was very salty).

anyhow, one night in Miami Beach (I

have no idea what I was doing in that

city) I had not eaten in 60 hours

and I took the last of my starving

pennies

went down to the corner grocery and

bought a loaf of bread.

I planned to chew each slice slowly—

as if each were a slice of turkey

or a luscious

steak

and I got back to my room and

opened the wrapper and the

slices of bread were green

and mouldy.

my party was not to be.

I just dumped the bread upon the

floor

and I sat on that bed wondering about

the green mould, the

decay.

my rent money was used up and

I listened to all the sounds

of all the people in that

roominghouse

and down on the floor were

the dozens of stories with the

dozens of Atlantic Monthly

rejection slips.

it was early evening and I

turned out the light and

went to bed and

it wasn’t long before I

heard the mice coming out,

I heard them creeping over my

immortal stories and

eating the

green mouldy bread.

and in the morning

when I awakened

I saw that

all that was left of the

bread

was the green

mould.

they had eaten right to the

edge of the mould

leaving chunks of

it

among the stories and

rejection slips

as I heard the sound of

my landlady’s vacuum

cleaner

bumping down the

hall

slowly approaching my

door.

oh yes

I’ve been so

down in the mouth

lately

that sometimes when I

bend over to

lace my shoes

there are

three

tongues.

O tempora! O mores!

I get these girly magazines in the mail because

I’m writing short stories for them again

and here in these pages are these ladies

exposing their jewel boxes—

it looks more like a gynecologist’s

journal—

everything boldly and clinically

exposed

beneath bland and bored physiognomies.

it’s a turn-off of gigantic

proportions:

the secret is in the

imagination—

take that away and you have dead

meat.

a century back

a man could be driven mad

by a well-turned

ankle, and

why not?

one could imagine

that the rest

would be

magical

indeed!

now they shove it at us like a

McDonald’s hamburger

on a platter.

there is hardly anything as beautiful as

a woman in a long dress

not even the sunrise

not even the geese flying south

in the long V formation

in the bright freshness

of early morning.

the passing of a great one

he was the only living writer I ever met who I truly

admired and he was dying when I met

him.

(we in this game are shy on praise even toward

those who do it very well, but I never had this

problem with J.F.)

I visited him several times at the

hospital (there was never anybody else

about) and upon entering his room

I was never sure if he was asleep

or?

“John?”

he was stretched there on that bed, blind

and amputated:

advanced

diabetes.

“John it’s

Hank…”

he would answer and then we would talk