HAVE YOU EVER LIVED...


		
		in a room as big
		as a single bed...
		where at night,
		your bladder full,
		you lean against
		a yellowish wall,
		shaded by a yellowish light,
		bare feet upon cold and cracked linoleum
		you blindly navigate
		to a john
		used by who knows
		how many people that day
		for escape, for peace, for insanities,
		for quiet...perhaps inspiration...
		to pee?
		And you,
		holding onto the curtain rod
		like a beaten and tired commuter,
		watch
		as a part of you
		empties yourself wondering
		how the body works and
		whether or not
		you remembered to take
		those cigarettes off the bar
		and home.


		
		
		YOU MIGHT THINK


		
		that I've learned something---
		after putting Porsches
		with Volkswagen souls, silk
		suits and ties and Egyptian cotton shirts,
		cashmere socks, friends, promises,
		ghosts, Kleenex hours
		as thick as bouillabaisse
		in my arm---
		I would have come away
		wiser.

		
		But here I am
		still loving
		with my dick
		still sucking
		the needle
		replaced with the green tit
		of a Heineken bottle backed
		by scotch, later cognac;
		a head full of lush
		looking up, yeah
		it's time, finally
		time to go and not
		a minute too soon;
		stumbling into Saturday night's morning;
		a route home; how much
		to tip; are my cells saturated
		enough; is there anybody
		who might also hear whispers
		of desperation
		and cowardice...Last Call,
		shit, it's
		time.

		
		They come slower
		and not as sure
		they do. Struggling to sip
		radiator fluid; nickel lives
		rusted by 10 cent memories
		of making it. Women
		and money
		like horse shit. Pockets thick
		for spending. Cars loaded
		with laughter speeding crazy
		towards Idon'tgiveashitwhere,
		underthetable, whenhe'snothome,
		aslongasit'sgood, you know
		it'sgottabegood.

		
		You might think
		that after the streets
		and rooftops; eager
		to please 20 year olds,
		and more eager 40 year olds,
		whiteandblackandbrownandyellow
		with thighs like mars bars;
		the nights of cancer,
		and suicide days; three quick holes
		in the chest; more scared
		I'd have to do this again.
		But then there were the nights
		that sweat
		energy; snapping our fingers
		knowing we'd found it,
		for a second...but still
		a second...privileged,
		above the cut,
		not even angry,
		the gut filled, the eye
		frozen, the brain connecting,
		you might think
		I'd had enough. Wrong,
		and right, right
		and wrong;
		nana nana nananananana;
		a kid, huh,
		with orange-red cheeks
		big as basketballs;
		wanting the sugar;
		wanting the rush; wanting
		to eat it all...
		and that would not be enough;
		and nothing
		would not be enough.

		
		You might think
		the letter that God sent
		would have something more
		than a rent due notice;
		I'm daring you,
		I'm double daring you:
		your mother's Tralala;
		you suck wind and dress funny.
		Well, c'mon.
		You know where the fuck I am.
		This all wouldn't matter
		if you didn't.


		
		
		WE FINALLY COME TOGETHER IN THE REVERIE OF LOVE


			
		burnt rubber; masks. flesh OR steel(!)
		blood
		        (and cylinders).
		lungs, pistons.
		arteries.
		and a
		        broken
		                fuel pump.


		
		
		
		A CHRISTMAS GREETING TO MY FELLOW HUMANS


		
		There are those
		who seem to be
		happy; never knowing
		accidents of any kind.
		They have been winners
		at genetic roulette, and
		hardly ate a bone cooked
		more than once.  Usually
		they smile, if not laugh
		at the postman's legs,
		on the street, in supermarkets
		only if in the company of others.
		Perhaps they were prepared well
		for life's catastrophes, or have a faith
		that transcends them. I've never seen them
		in clinics, in gin
		of Medicaid mills,
		foraging for food
		thrown out, for money disappeared
		from a hole in the pocket
		or head; stolen
		without warning
		or retribution.
		Usually these are the ones whose bodies are at war
		against themselves:  acne, tumors, diverticulitis,
		dementia, boils, warts, madness; their lives also at war:
		landlords, and bosses, and politicians
		who possess the trait of power:  indifference.

		
		I've not drank, nor written a poem, in ten years.
		I've not been missed. The word matters
		to those who own the presses. Tribal chiefs
		and The Medicis have understood this well. Those writing
		control only their demons; they only matter,
		if lucky, as commodity.

		
		I've just come from the supermarket. I do not need
		a basket. They watch me, as I watch them.
		I saw a couple holding hands as they debated
		salsa; too hot for him, too mild for her.
		He whispered something in her ear, and they laughed.
		She leaned in closer, and rested her head
		on his shoulder. I moved
		on.

		
		Greenwich Village
		12/10/95


		
		
		
		GOD AND ME


		
		She was married
		10 years to a guy
		she never loved,
		(and 5 years before that
		to an alcoholic
		or something,)
		neither of them
		deserved her, my friend
		told me.
		There's no God,
		he went on,
		for someone like her
		to be so good
		and so unlucky;
		she's heard about you...
		wants to meet you...
		just don't act like an asshole.
		It's no act, I said.
		Anyways, women have a hard time
		being with me for a full day...
		let alone for 15
		consecutive passes.
		Don't make fun,
		he said, she isn't one
		of your ordinary whores.
		I kept my mouth shut...
		there was no point in debating
		"ordinary" as opposed to "virtuous"
		so we went.

		
		In less than 2 weeks
		it was all over;
		she couldn't stand it
		if I closed the door
		to the bathroom, let alone
		what was left
		of my mind; had trouble
		with silences
		of any kind; chose
		not to "share", a calling of men
		in this new age
		of caring.

		
		About a week later
		I ran into my former friend.
		He had given up
		                on me
		and God.
		For once,
		I was in
		good company.

		
		Greenwich Village
		June, 1976

		
		
		
		MY CHOPPERS
		


		are negotiating
		with what remains
		of my mouth: chew ths
		slowly, you fool; too sticky,
		idiot; asshole,
		that side no longer exists...and so on.
		Sugar has eaten parts of me whole.
		The ride of word passion bloodied sanity.
		I've fucked with the odds; they have rendered me
		a chalk horse, scratch, even money
		to be turned into glue
		anytime soon.

		
		This coat hanger of flesh is closer to seventy
		than fifty: half a foot, intricate plumbing
		and rewiring on my pump, a mouth
		full of rot, fingers fattened, gnarled and bent,
		eyes blurred with cataracts thick
		with sugar, liquor, and dope hued saturation.

		
		I've had a long continuous fist-fight
		with death. People were merely pre-lims.
		Usually outclassed and not very interesting.
		I've stuck words
		up deaths' ass more than once.
		He was with every woman I've ever slept with;
		he was between the sheets of every institution
		I fell asleep in; every tooth that was pulled
		he yanked on; every drunk I've ever been on
		he found money for; all the senseless mornings
		of going to be fired from a job
		I didn't want anyway he waited
		at a gin mill or dope spot
		to put my rage into my fist
		or vein. A wise and patient man,
		death is. He'll have to be.
		I'll fool with him some more.
		Death hates Life.
		Words are Life. They leap around
		like ballerinas in the brain. They make fun
		of teeth, and hearts, and pricks, and cunts, and balls, and beerbellys,
		crooked fingers and phantom limbs; they laugh
		at the silly ravings and meanderings of ants;
		they are the final hedge against inflation
		of the soul; they are the salt edged tit;
		they provide power
		as the game works
		on.

		
		Greenwich Village
		April 9, 1998


		
		
		
		MY BODY IS BLOATED
		


		with poems
		lately...as well as
		deep angry pustules
		on my back.
		For the last three years
		I had to squeeze one
		to get a poem out. Now,
		all I have to do
		is breath.

		
		What a lucky,lucky man
		I am.


		

			
	Turned 50 October last.  Have not sent out a poem for a quarter of a
	century. Published in the mid-60's in a magazine started by Charles Mingus'
	wife, Susan Graham, "Changes", a competitor at the time to The Village
	Voice, (which I also published in later,) and then smaller rags around the
	country.  Lived in Coney Island as a kid but began hanging around Greenwich
	Village early and fell in with an older crowd that were called "Bohemains";
	now they say "avant-garde" while looking for NEA grants couched in
	everybody elses free speech but mine.Lived for awhile with a black poet and
	his wife who encouraged me to stop listening to them and begin trusting my
	own ideas and voice. We listened to Trane, who lived around the corner,
	practicing scales in the morning while I thought, this was gonna be
	forever.  Paul Blackburn introduced me to Ginsberg who helped edit my stuff
	and finally, after going to six or seven undergraduate schools, graduated
	from The New School with a diploma in my hands and a needle in my arm.
	Read at coffee houses and universities, slept with many women who thought
	they were getting the language not the product; drank myself silly until the
	body betrayed it's diabetic owner.  After some limbs were hacked off
	decided to cool it with the writing.  The reading was enough.  The old dogs
	continued to bite, and that filled me. A few years ago my bladder started
	to fill. I figured I better piss, or go blind.