and I remember him because he never returned my manuscriptseven though I wrote him many letters,
humble letters, sane letters, and, at last, violent letters;
I’m told he jumped off a roof
because a woman wouldn’t love him.
no matter. when I saw him again
he was in a wheelchair and carried a wine bottle to piss in;
he wrote very delicate poetry
that I, naturally, couldn’t understand;
he autographed his book for me
(which he said I wouldn’t like)
and once at a party I threatened to punch him and
I was drunk and he wept and
I took pity and instead hit the next poet who walked by
on the head with his piss bottle; so,
we had an understanding after all.
he had this very thin and intense woman
pushing him about, she was his arms and legs and
maybe for a while
his heart.
it was almost commonplace
at poetry readings where he was scheduled to read
to see her swiftly rolling him in,
sometimes stopping by me, saying,
“I don’t see how we are going to get him up on the stage!” sometimes she did. often she did.
then she began writing poetry, I didn’t see much of it, but, somehow, I was glad for her. then she injured her neck while doing her yoga and she went on disability, and again I was glad for her, all the poets wanted to get disability insurance it was better than immortality.
I met her in the market one day
in the bread section, and she held my hands and
trembled all over
and I wondered if they ever had sex
those two. well, they had the muse anyhow
and she told me she was writing poetry and articles
but really more poetry, she was really writing a lot,
and that’s the last I saw of her
until one night somebody told me she’d o.d.’d
and I said, no, not her
and they said, yes, her.
it was a day or so later
sometime in the afternoon
I had to go to the Los Feliz post office
to mail some dirty stories to a sex mag.
coming back
outside a church
I saw these smiling creatures
so many of them smiling
the men with beards and long hair and wearing,
blue jeans
and most of the women blonde
with sunken cheeks and tiny grins,
and I thought, ah, a wedding,
a nice old-fashioned wedding,
and then I saw him on the sidewalk
in his wheelchair
tragic yet somehow calm
looking grayer, a profile like a tamed hawk,
and I knew it was her funeral,
she had really o.d.’d
and he did look tragic out there.
I do have feelings, you know.
maybe tonight I’ll try to read his book.
at North Avenue 21 drunk tank you slept on the floor and at night
there was always some guy who would step on your face on his
way to the crapper
and then you would curse him good, set him straight, so that
he would know enough to either be more careful or to
just lay there and hold it.
there was a large hill in back dense with foliage
you could see it through the barred window
and a few of the guys after being released would not go back to
skid row, they’d just walk up into that green hill where
they lived like animals.
part of it was a campground and some lived out of the
trash cans while others trekked back to skid row for meals but then
returned
and they all sold their blood each week for
wine.
there must have been 18 or 20 of them up there and
they were more or less just as happy as corporate lawyers
stockbrokers or airline
pilots.
civilization is divided into parts, like an orange, and when you
peel the skin off, pull the sections apart, chew it, the
final result is a mouthful of pale pulp which you can either
swallow or spit
out.
some just swallow it
like the guys down at North Avenue
21.
luxury
