New Poems Book Three

I watch the old ladies

in the supermarket,

angry and alone.

being the German kid in the 20’s in Los Angeles

was difficult.

there was much anti-German feeling then,

a carry-over from World War I.

gangs of kids chased me through the neighborhood

yelling, “Hienie! Hienie! Hienie!”

they never caught me.

I was like a cat.

I knew all the paths through brush and alleys.

I scaled 6-foot back fences in a flash and was off through

backyards and around blocks

and onto garage roofs and other hiding places.

then too, they didn’t really want to catch me.

they were afraid I might bayonet them

or gouge out their eyes.

this went on for about 18 months

then all of a sudden it seemed to stop.

I was more or less accepted (but never really)

which was all right with me.

those sons-of-bitches were Americans,

they and their parents had been born here.

they had names like Jones and Sullivan and

Baker.

they were pale and often fat with runny

noses and big belt buckles.

I decided never to become an American.

my hero was Baron Manfred von Richthofen

the German air ace;

he’d shot down 80 of their best

and there was nothing they could do about

that now.

their parents didn’t like my parents

(I didn’t either) and

I decided when I got big I’d go live in some place

like Iceland,

never open my door to anybody and live on my

luck, live with a beautiful wife and a bunch of wild

animals:

which is, more or less, what

happened.

she was very thin, gray, bent, and each day she

waited at the door of the

First Interstate Bank in San Pedro,

and as the people came and went she

approached them

one by one

and asked for money.

about 75% of the time

I respond to those who ask but with

the other 25% I am instinctively put off

and just don’t have the will to

give.

the frail old woman at the bank put me off, she had

put me off for some time and we had a silent

understanding: I would lift my hand in a

gesture of protest and she would turn quickly

away, this had happened so often

that now she remembers and doesn’t

approach me.

one noon I sat in my car and watched

her

and after 20 attempts she scored

17 times.

I drove off as she was approaching yet another

soft touch, and even so I

suddenly felt real guilt for my unfeeling habit of

refusing the old

girl.

later in the clubhouse at Hollywood

park

between the 6th and 7th races

I saw her again as she was going up the

aisle

frail and bent, a large wad of

paper money clutched tight in a bony hand

clearly on her way to

bet the next race.

of course, she had every right to

be there,

to place her bets with the rest of us,

she only wanted and needed

what most people want and need:

a chance.

I watched as she

reached the top of the aisle and

I saw her stop and speak to a young man

who smiled and then

handed her a

bill.

not to be distracted I

rose and went to the betting window

to place my own

wager.

and, going back to my seat

as I was

walking down the aisle she was

coming up and we saw one another

and without thinking

I held my hand up,

gently, in that familiar

gesture

she’d seen so often

in front of the bank.

she looked at me with

unblinking blue eyes and said,

“fuck you!”

as we passed on the stairs.

she was right, of course, it’s

a matter of survival—General Motors does

it, you do it, the cat does it, so

does the bird, nations do it,

families do it, I do it,

the boxer sometimes does it,

it’s done when you

buy a loaf of bread, it’s done sometimes

out of madness and fear, it’s

done in the doctor’s office and

in the back alley,

it’s done everywhere

all the time

over and over again:

we all want to survive.

it is the inevitable way

the familiar way

the way things

work.

I went back to my seat to

ponder all that but I

couldn’t come up with anything useful at

all …

as the horses broke from the

gate

hustled by the crouching jocks

in their silks—

orange, blue, yellow, shocking pink,

green, chartreuse, a

stampeding rainbow of controlled

fury,

the sun shot through the

screaming

and I suddenly knew that

we are all caught forever in the

self-same trap

and I instantly forgave that old

girl

for belonging.

the acute and terrible air hangs with murder

as summer birds mingle in the branches

and warble

and mystify the clamour of the mind;

an old parrot

who never talks,

sits thinking in a Chinese laundry,

disgruntled

forsaken

celibate;

there is red on his wing

where there should be green,

and between us

the recognition of

an immense and wasted life.

… my 2nd wife left me

because I set our birds free:

one yellow, with crippled wing

quickly going down and to the left,

cat-meat,

cackling like an organ;

and the other,

mean green,

of empty thimble head,

popping up like a rocket

high into the hollow sky,

disappearing like sour love

and yesterday’s desire

and leaving me

forever.

and when my wife

returned that night

with her bags and plans,

her tricks and shining greeds,

she found me

glittering over a yellow feather

seeking out the music

which she,

oddly,

failed to

hear.