I was close
enough to start to be streaking when Chris
At Biff’s every booth has its own
private
phone, no dial tone. Nothing ivory works, you can’t
call what it
does work. Someone busted into your compact
truck, took
my backpack and threw it on the parking lot. I
was drawing
smokestacks and you were painting silhouettes
of surgery on
napkins. Your rat phobia, what can I say about it?
Live in
this attic.
My knight is entangled in low-rent
pawns.
It started so
great, a rehearsal space where even
drinking from
an implied cup was supposed to be attached
to your
character. My partner was stilted,
the war got sick of watching, there were termites
in the king.
Crack addicts took over my car because I
couldn’t
break a 20. Let me tell you
something.
Between the cafe, my car, your rats and diner
way, I had to
be a lover, I blame society.
I got in the
way of a plant. No one sits with it
while it’s
dying. People are too concerned with their shoes
to see the
miracle. A shock
to the head
wipes out your image
in the lens,
even the shoreline. So when you see those roller-
skaters ride
into the tide, no mystery they appear
to be
levitating. Meanwhile the old lady is sick
but her
brilliance is governing the honeysuckle—
Why don’t you draw me
a picture of
your mom? How many times
can I turn
over the same leaf? My nights were energetic
rebounds I
lost your head above.
Bird
A bird is the
fruition of a fish, yet so much more
secretive a
bird’s death.
Fish falls to floor, bird
flies out
door. Floor keeps secrets, door keeps more.
Why don’t
bird bones rust on our roof? People tell me
they die, but
I see no proof of death.
If the
throat
turned to
chalk, and the wing to bark, and the song
to the
moonless night,
I would still
look for the heart
of the
hummingbird in a satellite.
You say
they must,
but you’re
all talk. I see no proof.
I see no
bones.
You’d think
sharp man, with his fancy phone,
could at
least produce one bloody stone.
Heavy Losses, Boss
I am the sole
owner of a long brass fence in
this life. I
don’t pretend to own men, I let
them pretend.
My riches extend to bottlecap
mines, I tune
the pine tree ruby. Gold stomachers
and white
doubloons, my initials dance on a gold spittoon.
Dungeness
claws leaf my crude for the secret,
I pay them to
keep it. This is my will. When I
die recycle
me in Chinatown, I want to come back
a Chinaman in
a long silk gown, but fat as ever, fat
as ever.
Dissembled in the ground the tourists
glaze—the
sheep are on the highway in the haze,
my yacht is
on the harbour. My kingdom for a
link of
ardour, I loved a girl, she had great legs.
Skeleton
bonanzas sipping dregs, my speculations
rendered by
spiders—would that
the chaste
dancer would kiss my neck. Despair became
regret, a
half-ounce note on the pony express,
last ditches
for the west. I ran the room in
empty flesh,
they said they could taste the kid on my
breath. My
cummerbund was satin Lethe, the chandelier
of horse’s
tears—often challenged me to remember where
I’d got it.
But on fishing trips I drank canned beer,
keeping real,
keeping real. White flies on auto wrecks,
silver
pudding from broken necks, I gazed upon the
slow decay of
fire trucks in ocean spray, gawked
at slums, the
whorls on their hard-won thumbs
and
conditions. To be a squid in a shipwreck’s
kitchen, to
glow at the head like a miner! I
would have
closed my shoe factory in China, moved it
to Missouri,
twin of the impossible. My lynching
days are
over, I steel queens on gallows
and catch
their haloes—I’ve got a knack for
horseshoes, I
catch the dollar jumping
and burn it
in a pumpkin. For this I’m honcho
hollow, I
grin and caterpillars follow. I keep
a man to shine
my fence, Eliot’s his name,
shining
fences is his game. But when the Big One
hit he
vanished down a water main. I was
standing
there like a sucker holding the broken chain,
—I watched my
mansion fall, my heir bum
change,
Enrico sang to Teddy in a bath house
on the cliff,
he sang ‘My favorite soldier has no
brain’ with a
wet towel round his neck. I found it
sick, but I
was too late. Sturm and Drang skipped naked
through the
trees, twin sisters with nipples
bit raw. The
stars in the sky were comprehensively
detached, the
sheep went Ba, Ba. And my wife
couldn’t pull
the snails off her eyes, we went native in
the Big Lie
like spies on the Peninsula—I had my
elephant gun,
and a map of Bombay with gutters
that moved. I
shot on sight, brought down a kite
with a fiver
for a tail. And I rebuilt my fortune on that
snail, rung
up Eliot in a leaking pail—went
to see the
elephant with Jack London and Ishmael,
I dropped my
pants at the mouth of Hell. Neons
burned like
incense in the rain, and my boy came
home in uniform
with a bandaged face and a plastic
leg. I
ordered a keg. Here’s my will. There’s
nothing left
on the chicken but a farm. Fine crystal
equilibrium
on the Holdings, tune it in the
dark. I
vaguely recall being drunk in a park, and
sleeping
under the news I made. The pain sets in
when you
remove the blade. To be a printer’s ap-
prentice by
trade! or a scantily-clad kickboxer
in a video
game arcade, I would have gambled,
I would have
paid.
Treasure
Island
The largest manmade
island on earth is in San Fran-
cisco. Cisco,
my friend, went out with Rose. Those were
wet years
between Oakland and the forgotten side of town.
I preferred
my computer then to the one I have now. When
I got back
from Ithaca all the furniture collided under a
bright lamp
in the center of the room. The shade was on
the floor and
Ben was freebasing speed with a homeless
prophet
(minor) who was wearing the flag. I wore the flag
as I fried on
microdots after handing Naomi my disease.
She was
incredibly good-looking and my teeth hadn’t started
to fall out.
I must have thought I was Robin Hood. We
made fires on
the beach and swam drunk in water that would
ice a shark.
We broke up at the duck pond and didn’t
even know it
since we weren’t going out. The ducks were
raping each
other and it was disturbing. I fucked you up
12 years ago
and it’s as if no time has passed, but you’re
gaunt and
married and my teeth, my teeth.
Auteuil
I don’t know
where the banana peel I’m sliding on started
I’ve torn up
my picture of the river and thrown the pieces
Onto the
river. Marisol do you know what I’m doing? Nothing
is happening
and where nothing is happening, find me
Look at my
hands what am I becoming? To be clean eggplant
The port
memorizes its single line. The whole human world
Hangs on a
hole and the rude clanging of getting it right
I thought.
And the best art in the museums played along
I’m already
living in the last place to go, will you
Ever catch
me? The tree let me wash my hands in its roots
So I let it wash
its hands in my roots. A red
Window
affords a view of earth for these ultimate peeping toms
The universe
is in mint condition but this was an off year
I need you to
finish this, warm in old blankets piled in
At the last.
Pigeon in the dark airshaft of the maternity ward
A boneless
tent dashes over our crop
To Artie
Murnau,
Memory is a
thing I’m very curious to know more about, and I found your excellent book on
the subject inspiring, and read several passages twice. I like how you said,
‘Because the boy in the deli is God, which means we’re all going to eat
tonight.’ I underlined that sentence along with a few others:
‘I am
searching for the weird word.’
‘Los Angeles
is a parking lot for used cities.’
‘I love lemon
meringue pie.’
‘All poets
fall in love with my girlfriend if they’re any good.’
‘NICE PLACES
STILL EXIST’
I have a few
questions. ‘To direct air upon,’ you write, ‘as if upon a fire, the nutcracker
which creeps on tree trunks in search of small nuts, is really not a good idea,
since the nutcracker (i.e. the nose) has developed a hypersensitivity to
persuasive or desperate tactics which memory employs in the interest of
‘hedging hogs,’ and will very likely desert the face if pressed.’ I follow, up
to the point that you mention the nutcracker. Elsewhere, in Chapter 3 you refer
to the ‘rust on the nutcracker’ and then cryptically to the ‘poppy in the
rust.’ I’m lost.
Tonight I ate
a ham and cheese crepe at a restaurant. I haven’t had a good cup of clam
chowder for 5 or 6 years. I like the white, creamy chowder with chewy pink
clams in it, and I love those gamey crackers.
My girlfriend
and I went through a very rough phase but things have gotten much better and I’m
happy with my new writing. Did you know that Nosferatu endorsed cashews on
late-nite radio? I bet you didn’t, or maybe you forgot.
Just kidding.
I went to see
Andre Breton’s study, reconstructed in the Beaubourg Museum. They’ve got it
behind a glass wall with a comfortable bench in front for a good long look. Two
lovers were sitting on the bench and necking in the dim light. Breton had a
diorama of tiny stuffed birds; it looks almost like a cake rack on a diner
counter. But if you were to remove the glass hood from Breton’s cake it would
smell like sawdust and iodine. No coconut cream for this surrealist! You should
go and see this place if you get a chance. Very inspiring.
‘Mirrory LP
the color of fern, vulture infested with lady bugs. Men of birds with hearts of
glue, Ronsard, the hairs in your nostrils tingle, we are near a stream. Mutton,
Pierre, mutton and bees, the nuclear blast bleaches the 15th-century wolves!’
Thank you for
writing these words.
Sincerely,
Drinking
At 9 in the
morning drinking
beer from a
tall bottle
the
caterpillar
has left my
leaf
I could be
both lovers
and never
break up
Herbs
collectible
stamps
and blue
sheet lightning
I am the
water
the people on
the bank
came to be
near
I saw the
most beautiful film tonight but I forget its name. What was it about? It was
about everything, friendship first! The people in the film were so funny I
couldn’t stop laughing---it was embarrassing, a little. But my embarrassment
only enhanced the pleasure. The film was in black and white but the dissection
scenes were in color. They dissected a poisonous red Peruvian frog on a silver
table with very sharp scalpels next to a loaf of Italian bread. One scene
featured a foxy lady doing nothing but reading John Steinbeck in an empty
restaurant. She wasn’t so funny but I couldn’t get over how foxy she was and I
was wondering what it would be like to be in bed with her when suddenly the
next scene started and there we were in bed together, and it was an excellent
scene. Death is an experiment. Radishes. How are you going to symbolize death?
You could tell the tricycle was green even in black and white. And in this
suburb there was no room for paranoia, only for schnauzers. I loved this film
more than I can say, and afterwards, on the street in the red light district
all of the sick things in the world suddenly struck me as very funny-sad. I
couldn’t believe I was alive in such a beautiful, terrifying place as this and
I almost started to cry and, I think, to wonder what would happen when I was
gone.
Silver to
Silver
Why are you
writing a book?
they ask me.
My book discusses courage and
tells a
story. It is about friendship. What else can I do?
I’ve stopped
looking for perfection, now I’m looking
for Russian
epaulets. I want naked bodies
that trust
each other. Here, I’m turning my moods
into images.
I’m not exemplary since to be exemplary
would be to
be consistent. Well, I’m not.
I’m in love.