educated,
intelligent, snobbish, inbred,
formal, comfortable people
out there
they truly took their time to
say, no.
yes, in those dark beds
with the landladies rustling about
puttering and snooping, sharpening
utensils,
I often thought of those editors and
publishers out there
who didn’t recognize
what I was trying to say
in my special
way
and I thought, they must be
wrong.
then this would be followed
with a thought much worse
than that:
I could be a
fool:
almost every writer thinks
they are doing
exceptional work.
that’s
normal.
being a fool is
normal.
and then I’d
get out of bed
find a piece of
paper
and start
writing
again.
they don’t eat like us
my father eating.
his ears moved.
he munched with great vigor.
I wished him in hell.
I watched the fork in his hand.
I watched it put food into his mouth.
the food I ate was tasteless and deadly.
his small bits of conversation entered my head.
the words ran down my spine.
they spilled into my shoes.
“eat your food, Henry,” my mother said.
he said, “many people are starving and don’t eat as well as us!”
I wished him in hell.
I watched his fork.
it gathered more food and put it into his mouth.
he chewed in a dog-like fashion.
his ears moved.
the brutal beatings he gave me I was ready for.
but watching him eat brought on the darkness.
there at the tablecloth.
there with the green and blue wooden napkin holders.
“eat your food or I’ll strop your god damned ass,” he told me.
later in life I made him pay somewhat.
but he still owes me.
and I’ll never collect.
let me tell you
hell is built
piece by piece
brick by brick
around
you.
it’s a gradual,
not a rapid
process.
we build our
own
inferno,
blame
others.
but hell is
hell.
wordly hell is
hell.
my hell and
your
hell.
our
hell.
hell, hell,
hell.
the song of
hell.
putting your
shoes on
in the
morning.
hell.
blasted apart with the first breath
running out of days
as the banister glints
in the early morning sun.
there will be no rest
even in our dreams.
now, all there is to do is
reset
broken moments.
when even to exist seems a
victory
then surely our luck has
run thin
thinner than a bloody stream
toward death.
life is a sad song:
we have heard too many
voices
seen too many
faces
too many
bodies
worst have been the faces:
a dirty joke that no one
can understand.
barbaric, senseless days total
in your skull;
reality is a juiceless
orange.
there is no plan
no out
no divinity
no sparrow of
joy.
we can’t compare life to
anything—that’s
too dreary a
prospect.
relatively speaking,
we were never short on
courage
but, at best, the odds
remained long
and
at worst,
unchangeable.
and what was worst:
not that we wasted
it
but that it was
wasted
on us:
coming out of
the Womb
trapped
in light and
darkness
stricken and numbed
alone in the temperate zone of
dumb agony
now
running out of days
as the banister glints
in the early morning sun.
Elvis lives
the boy was going to take the bus out
to see the
Graceland Mansion
then
the Greyhound Lines went
on strike.
there were only two clerks
and two lines
at the station
and the lines were
50 to 65 people
long.
after two hours in line
one of the clerks told the
boy
that his bus
would leave
as soon as the substitute
driver arrived.
“when will that be?” the
boy asked.
“we can’t
be certain,” the
clerk answered.
the boy slept on the floor
that night
but by 9 a.m.
the next morning
the substitute driver
still had not
arrived.
the boy had to wait
in another line
to get to the
toilet.
he finally got a
stall, carefully
fitted the
sanitary toilet seat
paper cover,
pulled down his
pants,
his