Mockingbird Wish Me Luck (14 page)

 

was all set to write an immortal poem,

it was 9:30 p.m.,

had taken me all day to get the juices

properly aligned,

I sat down to the typewriter

reached for the keys and then

all the lights in the neighborhood went out.

she was working on her novel.

well, she said, we might as well go to

bed.

we went to bed.

since we had fucked 5 times in 2 nights

we decided it might be a better time to

tell eerie stories.

she told me one about the 2 sisters lost in the woods

who came upon the madman’s house, but it was

cold and dark and he was nowhere about

so they decided to go in, and one sister slept in

one bed and the other slept in the other,

and later in the night one sister was awakened by

this squeeking sound

and she looked up and here was the madman

rocking back and forth in this rocker

with her sister’s head in his lap,

and I told one

about how these two bums were in a skidrow room

and one bum sat on the floor and stuck his hand in his

mouth and ate his hand and then his arm and then ate the

other hand and soon ate himself up while the other bum

watched, and then the other bum sat on the floor and did

the same thing, and the story ends with this neon sign

blinking color off and on across the vacant floor…

well, we went to sleep

and then we were awakened when all the lights came on

plus the radio and the t.v.,

and I said, oh god, life is back again,

and she said, well, we might as well sleep now,

and so I got up and turned everything off

and we closed our eyes

and she thought, there goes my immortal novel,

and I thought, there goes my immortal poem,

everything depends upon some type of electricity,

the street lights kept me awake for 30 minutes,

then I dreamed that I ate matchsticks and lightbulbs

for a living and I was the best in my trade.

 

 

we french kissed in the bathtub

then got up and rode the merrygoround

I fell over backwards in the chair

then we ate 2 cheese sandwiches

watered the plants and

read the
New York Times
.

the essence is in the action

the action is the essence,

between the moon and the sea and the ring

in the bathtub

the tame rats become more beautiful

than long red hair,

my father’s hands cut steak again

I roller skate before pygmies with green eyes,

the snake in the watermelon shakes the shopping cart,

we entered between the sheets which were as

delicious as miracles and walks in the park,

the hawk smiled daylight and nighttime,

we rode past frogs and elephants

past mines in mountains

past cripples working ouija boards,

she had toes on her feet

I had toes on my feet

we rode up and down and away

around,

it was sensible and pliable and holy

and felt very good

very very good,

the red lights blinked

the zepplin flew away

the war ended,

we stretched out then

and looked at the ceiling

a calm sea of a ceiling,

it was all right,

then we got back in the bathtub together

and french kissed

some more.

 

 

style is the answer to everything—

a fresh way to approach a dull or a

dangerous thing.

to do a dull thing with style

is preferable to doing a dangerous thing

without it.

 

 

Joan of Arc had style

John the Baptist

Christ

Socrates

Caesar,

Garcia Lorca.

 

 

style is the difference,

a way of doing,

a way of being done.

 

 

6 herons standing quietly in a pool of water

or you walking out of the bathroom naked

without seeing

me.

 

 

we like to shower afterwards

(I like the water hotter than she)

and her face is always soft and peaceful

and she’ll wash me first

spread the soap over my balls

lift the balls

squeeze them,

then wash the cock:

“hey, this thing is still hard!”

then get all the hair down there,—

the belly, the back, the neck, the legs,

I grin grin grin,

and then I wash her…

first the cunt, I

stand behind her, my cock in the cheeks of her ass

I gently soap up the cunt hairs,

wash there with a soothing motion,

I linger perhaps longer than necessary,

then I get the backs of the legs, the ass,

the back, the neck, I turn her, kiss her,

soap up the breasts, get them and the belly, the neck,

the fronts of the legs, the ankles, the feet,

and then the cunt, once more, for luck…

another kiss, and she gets out first,

toweling, sometimes singing while I stay in

turn the water on hotter

feeling the good times of love’s miracle

I then get out…

it is usually mid-afternoon and quiet,

and getting dressed we talk about what else

there might be to do,

but being together solves most of it,

in fact, solves all of it

for as long as those things stay solved

in the history of woman and

man, it’s different for each

better and worse for each—

for me, it’s splendid enough to remember

past the marching of armies

and the horses that walk the streets outside

past the memories of pain and defeat and unhappiness:

Linda, you brought it to me,

when you take it away

do it slowly and easily

make it as if I were dying in my sleep instead of in

my life, amen.

 

 

if we take what we can see—

the engines driving us mad,

lovers finally hating;

this fish in the market

staring upward into our minds;

flowers rotting, flies web-caught;

riots, roars of caged lions,

clowns in love with dollar bills,

nations moving people like pawns;

daylight thieves with beautiful

nighttime wives and wines;

the crowded jails,

the commonplace unemployed,

dying grass, 2-bit fires;

men old enough to love the grave.

 

 

These things, and others, in content

show life swinging on a rotten axis.

 

 

But they’ve left us a bit of music

and a spiked show in the corner,

a jigger of scotch, a blue necktie,

a small volume of poems by Rimbaud,

a horse running as if the devil were

twisting his tail

over bluegrass and screaming, and then,

love again

like a streetcar turning the corner

on time,

the city waiting,

the wine and the flowers,

the water walking across the lake

and summer and winter and summer and summer

and winter again.