Love is a Dog from Hell (16 page)

 

schoolgirls in pantyhose

sitting on bus stop benches

looking tired at 13

with their raspberry lipstick.

it’s hot in the sun

and the day at school has been

dull, and going home is

dull, and

I drive by in my car

peering at their warm legs.

their eyes look

away—

they’ve been warned

about ruthless and horny old

studs; they’re just not going

to give it away like that.

and yet it’s dull

waiting out the minutes on

the bench and the years at

home, and the books they

carry are dull and the food

they eat is dull, and even

the ruthless, horny old studs

are dull.

 

the girls in pantyhose wait,

they await the proper time and

moment, and then they will move

and then they will conquer.

 

I drive around in my car

peeking up their legs

pleased that I will never be

part of their heaven and

their hell. but that scarlet

lipstick on those sad waiting

mouths! it would be nice to

kiss each of them once, fully,

then give them back.

but the bus will

get them first.

 

a woman told a man

when he got off a plane

that I was dead.

a magazine printed

the fact that I was dead

and somebody else said

that they’d heard that I

was dead, and then somebody

wrote an article and said

our Rimbaud our Villon is

dead. at the same time an old

drinking buddy published

a piece stating that I

could no longer write. a

real Judas job. they can’t

wait for me to go, these

farts. well, I’m listening

to Tchaikovsky’s piano

concerto number one and

the announcer said Mahler’s

5th and 10th symphonies

are coming up via

Amsterdam,

and the beerbottles are

on the floor and ash

from my cigarettes

covers my cotton underwear

and my gut, I’ve

told all my girlfriends to

go to hell, and even this

is a better poem than any

of those gravediggers

could write.

 

she wrote me for years.

“I’m drinking wine in the kitchen.

it’s raining outside. the children

are in school.”

 

she was an average citizen

worried about her soul, her typewriter

and her

underground poetry reputation.

 

she wrote fairly well and with honesty

but only long after others had

broken the road ahead.

 

she’d phone me drunk at 2 a.m.

at 3 a.m.

while her husband slept.

 

“it’s good to hear your voice,” she’d

say.

 

“it’s good to hear your voice too,” I’d

say.

 

what the hell, you

know.

 

she finally came down. I think it had

something to do with

The Chapparal Poets Society of California.

they had to elect officers. she phoned me

from their hotel.

 

“I’m here,” she said, “we’re going to elect

officers.”

“o.k., fine,” I said, “get some good ones.”

I hung up.

 

the phone rang again.

“hey, don’t you want to see me?”

 

“sure,” I said, “what’s the address?”

 

after she said goodbye I jacked-off

changed my stockings

drank a half bottle of wine and

drove on out.

 

they were all drunk and trying to

fuck each other.

 

I drove her back to my place.

 

she had on pink panties with

ribbons.

 

we drank some beer and

smoked and talked about

Ezra Pound, then we

slept.

 

it’s no longer clear to

me whether I drove her to

the airport or

not.

 

she still writes letters

and I answer each one

viciously

hoping to make her

stop.

 

someday she may luck into

fame like Erica

Jong. (her face is not as good

but her body is better)

and I’ll think,

my God, what have I done?

I blew it.

or rather: I didn’t blow

it.

 

meanwhile I have her box number

and I’d better inform her

that my second novel will be out

in September.

that ought to keep her nipples hard

while I consider the possibility of

Francine du Plessix Gray.

 

I hear them outside:

“does he always type this

late?”

“no, it’s very unusual.”

“he shouldn’t type this

late.”

“he hardly ever does.”

“does he drink?”

“I think he does.”

“he went to the mailbox in

his underwear yesterday.”

“I saw him too.”

“he doesn’t have any friends.”

“he’s old.”

“he shouldn’t type this late.”

 

they go inside and it begins

to rain as

3 gun shots sound half a block

away and

one of the skyscrapers in

downtown L.A. begins

burning

25 foot flames licking toward

doom.

 

this guy

he’s got a crazy eye

and he’s brown

a dark brown from the sun

the Hollywood and Western sun

the racetrack sun

he sees me and he says,

“hey, Hawley’s leaving town

for a week. he messes up

my handicapping. now

I’ve got a chance.”

 

he’s grinning, he means it:

with Hawley out of town

he’s going to move toward

that castle in the Hollywood Hills;

dancing girls

six German Shepherds

a drawbridge,

ten year old

wine.

 

Sam the Whorehouse Man

walks up and I tell Sam that

I am clearing $150 a day

at the track.

“I work right off the

toteboard,” I tell him.

“I need a girl,” he tells me,

“who can belt-buckle a guy

without coming out with all

this Christian moral bullshit

afterwards.”

 

“Hawley’s leaving town,”

I tell Sam.

 

“where’s the Shoe?”

he asks.

“back east,” says an old man

who’s standing there.

he has a white plastic shield

over his left eye

with little holes

punched into it.

 

“that leaves it all to Pinky,”

says dark brown.

 

we all stand looking at each

other.

then

a silent signal given

we turn away

and start walking,

each

in a different direction:

north south east west.

 

we know something.

 

they go on writing

pumping out poems—

young boys and college professors

wives who drink wine all afternoon

while their husbands work,

they go on writing

the same names in the same magazines

everybody writing a little worse each year,

getting out a poetry collection

and pumping out more poems

it’s like a contest

it is a contest

but the prize is invisible.

 

they won’t write short stories or articles

or novels

they just go on

pumping out poems

each sounding more and more like the others

and less and less like themselves,

and some of the young boys weary and quit

but the professors never quit

and the wives who drink wine in the afternoons

never ever ever quit

and new young boys arrive with new magazines

and there is some correspondence with lady or men poets

and some fucking

and everything is exaggerated and dull.

 

when the poems come back

they retype them

and send them off to the next magazine on the list,

and they give
readings

all the readings they can

for free most of the time

hoping that somebody will finally know

finally applaud them

finally congratulate and recognize their

talent

they are all so sure of their genius

there is so little self-doubt,

and most of them live in North Beach or New York City,

and their faces are like their poems:

alike,

and they know each other and

gather and hate and admire and choose and discard

and keep pumping out more poems

more poems

more poems

the contest of the dullards:

tap tap tap, tap tap, tap tap tap, tap tap…

 

I suppose like any other boy

I had one best friend in the neighborhood.

his name was Eugene and he was bigger

than I was and one year older.

Eugene used to whip me pretty good.

we fought all the time.

I kept trying him but without much

success.

 

once we leaped off a garage roof together

to prove our guts.

I twisted my ankle and he came up clean

as freshly-wrapped butter.

 

I guess the only good thing he ever did for me

was when the bee stung me while I was barefoot

and while I sat down and pulled the stinger out

he said,

“I’ll get the son of a bitch!”

 

and he did

with a tennis racket

plus a rubber hammer.

 

it was all right

they say they die

anyway.

 

my foot swelled up double-size

and I stayed in bed

praying for death

 

and Eugene went on to become an

Admiral or a Commander

or something large in the United States Navy

and he passed through one or two wars

without injury.

 

I imagine him an old man now

in a rocking chair

with his false teeth

and glass of buttermilk…

 

while drunk

I fingerfuck this 19 year old groupie

in bed with me.

 

but the worst part is

(like jumping off the garage roof)

Eugene wins again

because he’s not even thinking

about me.