jota
"Places Where I Have Smoked Cigarettes"
i call jota my west coast
soul brother. i first met up with him on-line in the poetry section
of the legendary beat web site www.litkicks.com, which we bombed
with mad expansive poems, always instigating each other to do
more, go higher, fall faster. it was, and is, great fun. this
collection of his work contains a series of New York set pieces,
reflecting the days he spent exploring the big apple, and including
a piece written after september 11. this collection includes
a series of poems about some of the characters who have passed
through jota's life. you'll want to learn more about buddy the
wino, charles ridings jr. and arthur burrows. but my favorite
piece is "you america," a spectacular state of the
union report more accurate than anything you'll hear out of the
mouth of george dubya bush. read on. jota is a poet with a little
something to say to you. jotada999@hotmail.com
--markk
My father's funeral
I crept to the outside edge
of the
cemetary
washing dishes at 17 in a fucking no name truck stop
where Andrea, the road weary mother woman
gave blowjobs to disembodied truckers and
to me and my mexican polish sailor brothers
we washed the ditritus
of a meal unspent
the gent
punched
his woman
and left
she crying
bunched up on
the floor
that's how I met my
wife
she liked
I like to think
loved us all
underdog busboys
in an underdog
town
and anyone
lives
in an anyhow
town
You America
America
I awake to find your
Lawyers and taxmen
Have broken my nose
America
You the unfinished
Business the whistler
of wallets time keeper
invisible wands
lipstick and nylons
Walmart beauties chained
to the drugstores
liquor stores
video stores
Counting dollars
and holes left in the
cigarette carpet smoldering
At the diner by the
Side of the road
Your minimum slave wages
hysterical ants
masses crawling dependent
Cockroaches and rats
Yellow wallpapered
black basketball cats
The radio playing low
in the back
cosmic baserunners
stealing the show
In the kitchen the glow
of the bulb by the sink
and the stench of
toiletroom stalls
the walk-in freezer
ringed by the walls
floor slick the hobart
egg beater stops circling
The dishwasher the cook
The gangster, the cop
Gumsnapping waitress
Staring at tv footballs
Stabbing the uprights
hollared by the heart
Shot in the throat
Cuffed in the head
thumped in the wagon
A shot and a beer
for the empty dried stomach
the report of a drink
and the blow of a drunk
mingis trumpet
benzedrine kisses
feet, elbows locked
punched, throwing rocks
missing the windows
high the task of your kisses
on my knees, burning my sticks
shit this money so easy and now
you come for my taxes
meanwhile go now dogs growling low
in the yard down below
caught in the act
hurrying housewives
steal their way home
The insurance adjuster
snoopin banana cream pie
spooned by the mouthful
stuffed all alone,
waiting for grace
and the telephone brain
wailing ringing
for nobody home
In the middle of the night
So where is the mad money?
where did it go?
o but I peeked and I saw you
Stamping away, you wiping
the dust of the dawn, gone
Your stains in the morning
New and improved
Ready for day
America
Today is your day
Tonight is your chance
America, you the detective
Listen, look
all your talk shows talk of
Disappearing women and men
Full of cock, where do you swing
Your swaggering missiles now?
Where do you point them?
Where will they go?
When is tomorrow?
America, you the unfinished highway
Rivers and deltas of dreams
The sky is full of you coming
Back on earth down below
Your trucks rumble past
To make it to Safeway by dawn
Bringing toothpaste tomatoes and bras
To huddled by law a sea of your masses
black and white Yellow red all dying for love
You and your desolate angels
Desperate thumbing a ride
Crying by the side of the road
Who is it who knows
These serial clown killers
That roam every town
Teaching you patience
Uncle Sam
Is like rolling
A tree a star a bell
Up a mountain of marbles
Me the train coming
Round the bend
In a bad western film
Running off the tracks
again and again
A striped avalanche of trees
Stars and bells
Stunned, grim-jawed young
Jack Kerouac yells
Comes
Tumbling down
That book in his pocket
A brakeman's guide to braking
He never knew how
O America
You
the
Unfinished country
Of my soul
...will you ever grow up?
New York Set Pieces:
Staten Island Ferry Blues
you ditched me for the coffee selling guy
the first time you rode the Staten Island Ferry
you and your visting brother taking a tour of the sister boroughs
when you came back you announced we were through and it was only
April
not that long since all the way from Des Moines you promised
me as we drove through January
when we got stuck in the snow in Ohio
outside of Cleveland
you yelled at me for slipping up, so I got out and pushed
the first day we moved into our apartment house in Queens
you blew up at me and threw my stuff out the window and on the
ground, next to the knocked over trash bins
our neighbors peeking through cracked doorways, smirking
at fools in love
you said you loved me and no other, I remember you promised me
that things would only get better
and I guess they did for you
but still, it was my apartment anyway, why should I be the one
to get out?
It was my deposit
It was my dream you stole
I was the big time writer in Manhatten
getting paid to be a mailboy for a large, let's leave it unsaid,
major publication
you were getting bored with me already I could tell
in the grocery aisle we argued over peas, you wanted lentils
we stopped taking the train together into the city
sometimes you never came home at night
so when you came back from the ferry I felt it already
I was going to leave
even though it was really my apartment
you busted up my insides like a crushed cardboard box
and shipped me out
the warning I was fragile upside down
and wounded in the rain
so I moved to the Upper West Side
way up high
118th & Claremont
Riverside drive
Grant's tomb
Harlem
where every morning
I would have to step over the homeless guy on the stoop
and the needles and the broken crack vials
where at night I would be lulled by the romantic echo of gunfire
I got used to the midnight siren wails
in June you called me up
and begged me to come over
so I took the N train and rode the rails to you
walking up to you, you smiled down at me from the second story
window
that bitter familiar streethouse
you were drinking wine and tears were falling down
you sweet-talked me into it again and we made mad love
and then you told me you had gotten pregnant and then aborted
that's when I started crying
and you started yelling
calling me stupid and telling me
the baby wasn't mine
it was the Staten Island Ferry guy's
and you kicked me out again
years later
you called me up in my new town
and coaxed me into my car
my fingers drumming on the steering wheel
you were at your mother's
come on up to Iowa, you said
you said I was the biggest regret
in your life
and you weren't going to lose me again
so I started up the car and started driving
the exact opposite direction from you
I'm still driving there today
New York Set Pieces:
My Last day in the city
you and Big Mike O'Reilly driving me to Little Odessa
a three-piece band there waiting and
wailing
shot through the heart
with a balalaika
and Heidi and Hollie
you're to blame
you tricked me
where we were going
and Mike blindfolded my eyes
so when we arrived
12 bottles of chilled vodka
and cheap caviar
and perogies
appeared on the table
after 12 more
we danced on the tables
the singer joined us
vodka breath, he explained
this is the closest you can be to Russia
and still be in America
I took a swig of the last bottle
and shook my head
bullshit
you jewish people are all mixed up
you should be in Juneau or Gnome
but the guy didn't get it
and he didn't look like Bon Jovi either
but man that band could play
they sang every cheesy song
we asked them
New York, New York
Red Red Wine
The Beatles
and the Rolling Stones
that night
my last night in New York
we got so tight
we rolled out of there
and 15 of us piled into three cabs
roared to Coney Island
It was May
and the rides were closed
so we all jumped into the ocean
while the prom kids on the promenade
laughed at us
drenched
you and Mike
took me to an all-night diner
you button nose crazy
both of you kissing me
and throwing your arms
around me
telling me how much you'd miss my ass
and my gap-toothed grin
how endearing
you said I was
and then
I awoke
my last day in the city
miles away
at Eric's place
I hit the boardwalk
the sky was grey
and
man
I was so young
and fucking happy
to be going to LA
New York Set pieces:
New York Yell
you chewed me up and you spat me out
a daydream king
constantly scanning your spiral towers
like a mixed up tourist clown
a monk on the run, i get these blues for you
whenever it rains
in vain for you
when i was once young and twenty five
you threw me down among
your hustlers and your pimps
down on 42nd street
your peep show grimace
showing your ass beneath your corporate
ladders
the do I? oh my?
conversation
grabbing me by my balls
directing my vagabond baby feet
upon your bitter path
to the sunny sides
in between your shadowew canyons
taking me where i laughed at strangers
and the awful empty anger
the hustling parade of a child in danger
what's in harlem?
where's the bronx?
a never ending melody
hanging over me in my sleep
you stole my singalong
brain fevering over you in june
stumbling down your boho streets
deep in the bowery sink
soho noho
past the village
the dew drop inn
on bleecker street
all the way to battery park
drunk in love
with your big bright lies
and your bottom line
riding your ferries
jumping turnstiles to the trains
where i clung for life, a single
sweet innocent boy of your masses
whom you ignored
but thass okay
new york
i never tire of your empire
or your story
even in my dreams of you i gaze
up at the blue breeze day
and i sneak back to those tower days
i remember the pissed off bartender down
at gough's tavern waving the early drunks away
with a shoo and a wand of his balled up fist
sipping that regular coffee
fetching the shitfaced editors
back up to the third floor machine
for the grey lady truth
to edit all the world
new yawk
you're killing me here
the best pieces of me tossed
like coins along the tombs
teamsters
and strippers charging $5oo
for a hollar
Attica and tom wicker
new york
you threw me out
i wasn't ready for your feast
the hum of the east
you chased my tail like an iron beast
all the way back through
the april snow
through the the new jersey turnpike
straight through to pennsylvania where i smoked
all the way nonstop to indiana
when i stopped to take a leak
in the bubble dark blue of night
standing beside a beat-up plymouth fury
staring at the ink of western sky
you were my unkissed smile
yeah, you had me down, a longing
looking over my shoulder back at you
in your crowning glory, you and your winking lights
my tea tea teacher
telling me
what to do
moving through mussourah!
back home and even beyond
i had to get away from you, new york
crossing the big great corny plains
your charms, your arms
tapping out the slow burn memory
i left kansas by the roadside flat
and colorado rose
to greet me in my coming dawn
i was so naive back then
when i crossed the continental divide
in utah my headlights dimmed out
and i drove as fast as i could
to get you out of my climbing sight
from what I and you together we might have been
still, new york
you were my wet dream, my pretend zen
you were my angry angel baby
an unkind heart
a tainted pearl
a fresh hot pretzel
whetting my appetite
when i was broke
there you were, new york
me and you, i can't get over you
somewhere in my youth
i couldn't hang on to you
but you fed me gershwin dreams
showers and show tunes
rich and happy eyes
sweet and not so gentle
yeah, so here i am
cursed and blessed by
so many aprils so far away from you
new york, you still wound me
slip through, knocking me off my feet
i got it bad for you, new yawk
and that ain't good for the both of us
thinking about you too often
i kissed your monuments goodbye
columbus circle and grant's tomb
i elected to delete you from my brain
the wonder of you, new york
i couldn't ever let go of you, though
i hear you calling
new york
even if i pretend that
me and ranger bob
we left you for the other coast
and here i am
new york
same old dream
i think of you
your story
new york, every day
i look up for your glory
the tall of your forever
you work so hard
the sun strikes hard
your riker's island rainbow
let me go, you did
so i peed on the railroad tracks
and then - time to blow
to the other side
still, i read about you new york
and my heart bursts for you
that same old dream, i can't believe
the dismal chance of our romance
one look at you and your staten island ferry
riverside drive and the upper east side
i still miss you new yawk
walking down amsterdam avenue
meeting myself again in my dreams
i hunger for your weather beaten
john gotti sidewalks
all that i hold sacred
like your
yom kippur rosh hashanna goodbye
someone told you, or maybe not
the story of my personal atonement
when i found you new york
you were so little
i met you jealous, smoking in my dreams
a dangling butt, me smiling
holding you in my hand
new york
i don't even have a chance
no matter if now someone else i met
can i be untrue from you when i am away
from you
though you
chewed me up and
you spat me out
and it's like this cat
but you don't hear it from me
i'm no longer scared, just scarred
from you new york
or am I just a self-deluded liar
i used to have it so bad for you
i miss your famous nathan hot dogs
and tad's fabulous steakhouse
and the whitehorse tavern
and brooklyn, aw shit, brooklyn
and coney island skinny dipping
in the dawn of a may in the ocean
you about to kick me out for
slamming too much wine at the tavern o' the green
drunk like a fuckass tourist
at central park
looking out for all the ducks
the cabbie tells me, nigerian he,
that i am fucked, still
i always tip you big, new york
watching wednesday september flyin back in
astoria queens
steinway and dittmars station
i took that A train uptown
N train downtown
smoked the herb at washington square
drinking brahmin bull and bushmills straight
starin down at gracie mansion
back in the day of davy dinkins
i came back to you
and i can't get you out
of my mouth or out of my head
you are too supreme
just the sight of you
new york
what good does it do?
when i am near to you
i see a face in every
window of your towers
the very thought of you
new york
when i come back
to yellville
will you revile
me
leave me downhearted
beat my downtrodden ass
cause i can't get started
i am so still
in love with you
new york
but you don't care
about one more hick clown
like me
in love
with the big
big town
New York Set pieces:
Burning Airplanes
American skies burn today full of fire falling burning planes
The sky's on fire today and rubbing out the ruins
From our eyes we ask these little questions of bigger lies
What ruined the sparkling morning of that place?
Airplanes falling from angry skies
I have been to New York City
Once I even took a trip to the top of skyswept towers
Gone now, two shining flowers in the morning
I have boho jokered smoked myself Washington Park square before
I know right where those two planes hit,
two towers fell from our American sky, an evil angry sky
Jets patrol the skies today
No more planes will fall today I pray
When the sirens come
What to tell my children?
What does the new century hold for them
except that they are targets?
What is the fate of the earth for them?
All I see are burning planes
Falling from an American sky
Other Stories, Other Suns
My Feet Grow Words
My feet grow words
Sprout trees and worlds
Flying inside them
Shining birds and eggs
Cracking open in the sun
Baby smiling birds
Cheeping in the sun
My legs grow feet
Growing longer every day
If I stand here any longer
I'll bump the sun and clouds
Look out, ouch, that smarts
My hands grow hearts
Popping out finger hearts
Ten and smiling on each finger
Beating breathing smiling singing
Finger hearts
My arms grow cartwheel feet
Spin me down the mountain top
Round and round
I see Buddha
I see Jack
Spinning with me
Round and Round
My heart grows eyes
A million zany popeyed eyes
We see you We see you
They cheep like
Baby smiling birds
My skin a blanket
Tossed on trees
To make the daylight night
Please come in
My lips your skin
A kiss to be
Given
Given again
Lighthouse Lover
the beast that rose from the sea and wailed
wailed even more when it breached the shore
with two lighthouse eyes it spied the object
of its desire, a roller coaster dinosaur
and the roar that came from a train behind
the wreck of the amusement park
in its blinded heat of rage, the ocean beast
coiled up and thrashed the inland metal beast
mad savage twisted sex the sea and shore
flesh and iron ore, the water returned
from where it came, and the roller coaster
rolled no more
I Sold My Summer
Short as the wind
in the end the sheets
of businessmen caked
and taped above my grave
time, a fortune given away
hours into minutes
three months to a day
where went June? it ticked off
waving away like July
summer burning earth and rain
that never came but was
halfway gone already
and me, again
grim in the duties
of my office
the tick of the clock
the walls, cloaked and grey
the hall lights off
no light comes in there now
I was the last to leave
I sold my summer
short as it were
traded away all the
kid things, bikes and
baseball gloves
easy daylong games
monopoly and risk
every summer day
is Saturday
I sold my summer
short, blowing out
July a candle
burning bliss
blessed like
August just as
brief and gone again
like cartoon cats
chased by cartoon dogs
I sold my summer days
running the other way
I remember yesterday
a dutiful daddy coming home
it's Friday night
the neighborhood kids
running in their shouting
one bumped into me
standing by my car
my suitcoat heavy trenched
the briefcase in my hand
my old man July face
drenched and drooping like
the bottlebush trees
shrugging in the heat-filled wind
some kid bumped into me
he screaming and laughing
lets out a "zipppppeeee"
and tears away in freckled shrieks
doo dah disappearing
like the bending light
turning summer into night
i watched him run away
that kid was me
no, he was not me, no
i am someone else now
summer, you shorted me
Le Ciel a Nuit
so brief the nightfall
shower
the flowers drank
and so did we
lying on the grass
wet
the clouds that smiled
grey-like, floating
while we watched
hand in hand
i trembled
when you raised up
drew your finger
across the corners
of my mouth
my eyes closed
lips drawn
opened up in awe
waiting for your spell
to cover me and sail
me the cloud
you the rain
that came
and, came again
American Midnight Walking
I have seen the stranded faces of the night
Shambling along rain slicked streets
Soldier ghosts
Blackened faces
Empty streets and cardboard boxes
I have seen the armies of the night
The endless plodding, the search to eat
Madmen barking
Hair gone white
What they eat they drink with fright
I have fed the armies of the night
Stalks of corn turned into shining water
crusted fingers
toothless grins
Where the water rises they drown in sleep
If you shield your eyes from the armies of the night
They will rise upon your ears
scraping shuffling
face no more
Covered ears can't stop the din they roar
The armies of the night
They trod upon the dying grass of my heart
and stalk me in my sleep
Niles Canyon Road, Highway 84
your rock ribboned ring
railroad tracks sing to the first stars
spangling above the redwoods and the pines
arching exalted green the hills the shadows
sundown left spilling rays of what is left
touches the waving wild mustard grass
blending in with the rushes bending
in the wind, warm the breeze that whispers past
the holy pebbles in the stream
the dace, the trout tracing rainbows
reflected pools of water bright yet turning dark
all that's left of day life flight
to the dusking of the coming night
your one tree hill,
the oak that brings the wandering in
to wooded crags and mountain views
to shield the sparks
of a one-car train, an engine on a siding
silent, stills - the night wakes up
firelies blink their message glow of insect love
the ricks, the jars, moonbeam owls and crickets
the nighttime world looks out from glowing eyes playing tricks
to kiss the fog that rises up and slides along the rails and
up the hills
to disappear in hidden limestone caves
from the west come shadow clouds of the night
sailing on a nimbus crest
a tidal sweeping hues of lilac blues lavendar soft like
a pillow for the hungry pilgrim's head
drink and sup and lay your self to rest
you've come this far and you are greeted here a friend
how I have longed to see your face
it's summertime again
Untitled
Iturbide falls down a line of emperors
Zapata just wants the people to wear shoes
horny boys and half-made men nothing more
than happy sacks of hormones
watching an angel, nude descend
y tu mama tambien
a flower grows from seeds of disappointment
it is sweet but it won't last
driving along the dusty road we pass
two cops beating a guy to death
you're like a kid with unbearable wants
the reek of teeth in carnal flesh
the kiss that came with wet stained looks
the dry wit of a private joke
the slipping between your knees
a hand on a buckle the thirst of a mouth
the hardcore unsmiling stallion
stalking afterwards gloomy
the boring success of sex in a motel bed
versus the farce and fumble in the backseat car
driving rainbows the sideway cafe
kicked in the face by the red hot sauce
alone, we dig, entombed in our hot sticky ruins
Untitled
I have stuffed
cash do wads of it
in my mattress
I'm not going to buy a house
I have a gun in my refrigerator
and butter in the chamber
shit
now the russians are our friends
again, like World War II
the freaken sector elite
say it's allright
but stolen elections
and factories spitting out bombs
and workers
what's around the corner
something deadly in the mail
i aint answering my door
or the phone anymore
screw that
i'll drink beer at 4 a.m.
and howl at the black helicopters
hovering overhead
telling me
to disperse or else
no more showers, the bath
plugged up for drinking
water
and my manhatten breakfast
a cup of coffee and tequila
and ten marlboro red cigarettes
hello dawn
Tok of OY!
today
the clock on the wall says 3 o'clock
and the phone man came yesterday
when I was not home
today the taxman is supposed to come
and the eggman and the assman both got laid
I heard my neighbor say
by the leggy woman down the street
don't laugh
I forgot to change the litter box
and now the cats in my house are going in the plants
my coffee went up my nose and running down my shirt
bossman is meanwhile waiting with the ice cream man
for the neon zing! of my words to fill his
memo dots and cryptic dashes
(that I never understand)
I stashed fudgicles and bomb pops dripping in my drawers
the crash outside my door appears to be
the iceman racing down the street who collided with the milkman
- and the junkman, knocking him off the wagon again, tokay running
in the street -
imagine all that milk and wine
mixed like blood
with ice
man
what a sight
beat kats and alley cats from miles around ñtwo of
mine - poured out the doors to lick the curbs
hello walls and fences jumping dogs to scatter winos lurking
in the streets and in the trees and yards the cats all disappeared
but I hear them crying
now I'll have to clean up all those frozen claret shards
I hear the sirens of the policeman
looking for the mailman
the paper boy, bless his soul, arrived on time
with the morning world of the news and daily scores of
guns and butter and ozone holes grinning at me from a cobalt
sky
I hear the doorbell ring
but I ain't getting up for that
I'm sure that when the deathman makes his rounds today
he won't be late
oy vey
I better fix that clock
Characters
Buddy the Wino
We discovered Buddy the Wino deep in the Bowery
Brought him along with us up to Allen's place
Jack unrolled Mexico City Blues
one long scroll of shelving paper
Allen would read a poem and Buddy,
who was drinking wine, would say
"Yeah, that's pretty nice. I can dig that.
That's nice. That's all right."
Then, when Jack would read his poems
Buddy, slapping his knees would scream with laughter
wigged out, cracking up, rolling on the floor
the misery, the suffering, the torture of it all
drinking, trying to stay sober
Buddy the Wino was bombed
beatified
and Jack knew it
knew he was drinking himself to death
but, still Jack was a ball
except for all the Colonel Blimps in the world
hating Jack and carping: "That shit isn't writing"
"Where is that moron" "I want to meet that
fuck"
and that was Jack's trip
Women wanted to fuck him
Men wanted to fight him
Me and Buddy, we just liked listening to him
singing his Mexico City Blues on the floor
man, I'm telling you, that roll of Jack's
that fucker must have been thirty six feet long
so here I am
rolling along in the angelheaded dawn
the evil angry city shining, softened under a new day sun
the kind that only garbagemen and whiskey bums
and guys like Buddy the Wino
ever see and truly understand
That day on the bridge
Mama calls me today and says
Secondo, she says, I tell you I ask you now
that day on the bridge, me will you ever forgive?
Ma, I say, whatta u talking 'bout?
Your brother Sid, she says, I already talka to him
bout this day on the bridge
Ma, that was thirty-two years ago
I know I know, she says to the receiver
and I hear her comin' outta the phone at the other end
two thousand miles and thirty-two years later
I told Primo that I was sorry, the little phone voice says
Ma, you didn't do it, it's okay
no no no
Ma
You know I never asked you to forgive me
Ma
You know how mixed up I was
Ma
You know you and Primo were just little kids
Ma, stop it
And now I gotta tell you, I am sorry for what I did...
For what you did?
Ma, listen to me, now, don't you remember? You walked off
that bridge - and lived...and so did we
Charles Ridings, Jr.
he was only ten
thin
with asthma
he bore no grudge
and like the king of the turtles
peered out through ancient eyes
commanding the neighborhood
much too wise for ten
he was my best friend
or, he let me be his friend
it was as if he clasped a golden cane
shuffling past my house
Mr. Ridings Sr. said he couldn't play
but he could watch
so he would sit there in a broken lawn chair
right behind the fence behind third base watching from his turtle
eyes
the dust the squabble commotion over
who was out or not
or he would sit on the stoop
knees rigid
head straight
his neck erect
for long stretches of a time
slightly wheezing in the summer sun
till dusk arrived and threw a carpet
on the night
he'd stay there
watching us run shrieking around him
playing kick the can
and then, not very often, but if
you sat next to him for very long
you might see it
a curl, edging from both sides of his mouth
turning that turtle smile into a grin
when he laughed
he couldn't stop
and Mrs. Ridings
forever peering out the window
running down the stairs
whenever she heard the laughter
turning into labored breathing
shouting "hep him up, hep him up"
and we'd grip his arms and rush him
to his door
once I went all the way in
and we laid him on his bed
a mask and a tank of oxygen and
big plastic sheets around his bed
from then on
we tried not to make him laugh
ever again
Charles Ridings, Jr.
he was the youngest oldest man
I ever met
Fast Eddie
Bert: You got talent.
Eddie: So I got talent? So what beat me?
Bert: Character.
"--The Hustler" (1961)
I turned grey midway through
the forest not dark not gloom
just dusking in the window
see? there looking outside my room
the girth of my father's shirt
given weight by the defeat of hurt
by life, the lack of life
the great surrender to sloppy meat
surrender a seedy game
a bluff of self-confidence
money management is all that remains
bars, bus stations, games, all insane
the test of a good story told
fully as Felson's own; fuck the macho
mamo nano in between the fat and filth
the uh oh, oh no contest of the boydy's soul
woman yes and you the man the kingdom of the cruel
played out and over, again and again
whispered bent, cold the world you rule
broken thumbs where a nose should have been
get up and call your shots
your sad concise and weary face
a man a king a fool, words, apart
falling from grace in your sweaty thoughts
body dreams and wasted moves
your cronies leaning in the room
a compromise, a bet, a look
hastening you to your hustling crazy ass doom
make waves and be the best,
call your shots, purify your lust
puff a crooked cigarette
pursed between your lips
long ago you emerged unnamed
time after time so dependable
the best and yet you move today
crippled and elegant in your shame
ruler of your shabby barlit kingdom
where mercy weeps, sitting on the floor
not listening to what she heard
about the witch winking outside the door
what price did you pay, to work
to play, to shadow your days not bright
not brave, but alive even in black and white
that stygian belated gloom, your midnight room
yeah, you hustled, you cheated life
now death won't lose easily like that
lame, waiting for the bus, drunk
turning a weary face away like that
"Maybe it'd be better if we just leave each other alone."
No, you went for the big-money match
fleecing millionaires pretending
you had tears, their rivals hatched
caving in to see your thumbs and watch
i put my money on a cripple
leaning against the wall at a party
he approached her, said something in her ear
she threw her drink, we all watched in fear
death can be such superficial haste
of a good time when the pyscho party ends
the match of a mark, the taste that it sends
down along the silvery tongue
the longest ever famous coda showdown:
"Fat Man, you shoot a great game of pool."
"So do you, Fast Eddie."
Not old, not weathered, not even seemingly halfway looking
cruel.
He doesn't look like a hustler, but then the best ones never
do.
The Easy Ballad of Arthur Burrows
Where did you find it Arthur Burrows?
Arthur he found it somewhere not too deep in Korea burrowed
And buried in 1951 soaking wet in a mudded hole in the ground
A shooting war not too hot they said and yet
Spheres of fear and fire flew past his daily head
He found nirvana, he did
His ass parked six feet deep
In chinese mud yankee blood
Crouching there
Deciphering clues from
Dante Ovid Virgil Vico
Books from home his mother shipped to his head spinning
Straight to the line -- with cookies and a note
"Artie, be sure to keep your head down low"
Clutching, clawing chewing up those books
Tattered pages torn and tossed
Words and visions and endless weeks of cold meals from a can
Drinking snow for water
Still Dante had his fingers pointing crooked in that place
Arthur on bended knee would say his thank you prayers
And burn those papers and stacks of joss and sticks
no one there ever seemed to bother you
Not even
Stray bullets
The NCO or the hungry Joes
In this chinese korean space
And there
Where nothing ever happened
There
Arthur spied the atomic secret of his soul
He prayed devotion to a world tossed
His message lost
Sticks burnt and tossed
Until he crossed the decades and found me reading
A book
In longing shy he asked and told me in confession
Those were the brightest moments in his life
Sitting there reading in the grey dawnís cold and angry
light
Shrouded from sight
Halfway around the world
Hiding his ass in a mudded hole in the ground
Arthur he came home unsoiled
Only missed by his mother's hand unspoiled
Arthur, he never married remained unchained
No, surrendered, just stood still
Never did I in my anger-trembling
I watched him pass the parade of streaming teachers
Hatless men and thickened ankles of my english teacher Mrs. Frazier
A daily joust
Battled and toiled
Moving through the high school waves
Teaching historyís endless fate to boys like me and Martin
Nelson
But let me tell you something:
It wasnít all those screaming yellow hordes
Or Uncle Sam and all his bombs
But us who
Did him in
It was me and
The kids in my snot nose school
We killed Arthur Burrows
Tall and gangly, balding stooping Arthur Burrows
An easy mark for torturing goofs and goons
No one on his side
Arthur still
Trapped by korean spheres that split and then divide
His ears stuck out like two hands waving at you from behind
his head
All five suits the same ochre color
If you smelled his breath you’d smell the musty stench
Of a desperate trench dug six feet deep down somewhere halfway
across the world
Korea
Those kids to him like dodging bullets every day he made his
way back to
A place he dug out six feet in his head when he came back to
duck
And cover from the incoming screaming hordes
America's youth in all their hope and glory
Theyíd cut out paper ears three feet wide
Tape them up to the schoolroom clock
Slide shows upside down
Tacks on his wooden, tilting chair
Stacks of book their textbook pages glued
Records played at hamster speeds
Sing out
April Fools!
Rolled around would roll around
His desk shoved out into the hall
Arthur dying to sit down to read those books of his
Dante and Vico and Virgil and all the rest
Stay warm beside the fire and read some more
After lunch he’d go home to Homer and retire
Hunching his shoulders and trying to hide his ears behind his
head and thinking of a hole in the ground
Forget the frozen lake where Johnny fell
I never knew until much later all about that place
But even I couldnít help but notice
All those fucking liars
Athur Burrows had come back and
Douglas Macarthur returned
A corn cob up his arse
I spied him once in the teacherís lounge
They were just as bad as us
Mostly asshole coaches more so than the rest
Gary Dwyer and Gus LaFave, stretched versions of the dwarves
that ruled the school like football kings and homecoming queens
The years they came and soon they went like too many
April dramas teased and August wheezed and laughed its dharma
drum beat roll
Each season brought back the tide of pupil reams of them
On stage tossed off the battle lines from the high school
play and the little ones
No longer scared but all grown up
The worst being hyper smart and insecure
Arthur Burrows
Lost across the ocean
Kissed by Asiaís lips
She laughs at him, murmurs
Something soft and warm against his hips
The smell of windsong in the air
That blows his tousled hair
One lone shot cracks an echo
Past his ears whizzing past a bony
White guyís ass
Into the hills and then comes back
And drops a question on his lap
His cheeks sunk deep six feet down
In a muddy hole in the ground
A week of beauty bliss
Behind the battle lines
Looking up now at then
Munching on a chocolate bar
Squinting up at the gun blue sky
He shrugs and sighs
sees Dante staring down from paradise
Arthur Burrows born to wear a selfmade suit of ochre insults
Lost in a country not his own
Tired and stooped at twenty-two and doubled over by forty-three
Sometimes when the evening drops upon my lap
I stare out and think about
Arthur Burrows and my old school
I stop and wonder
What in the hell did history ever teach Arthur Burrows
That I don't know?
Except that hell is a hole in the ground
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