Burning in Water, Drowing in Flame Read Free Page B

home
    together.
     
     
    in fact, he said, this is as far
    as we go.
    so I let him have it; old withered whore of time
    your breasts taste the sour cream of dreaming…
    he let me out
    in the middle of the desert;
    to die is to die is to die,
     
     
    old phonographs in cellars,
    joe di maggio,
    magazines in with the onions…
     
     
    an old Ford picked me up
    45 minutes later
    and, this time,
    I kept my mouth
    shut.
     

the house
     
     
    they are building a house
    half a block down
    and I sit up here
    with the shades down
    listening to the sounds,
    the hammers pounding in nails,
    thack thack thack thack,
    and then I hear birds, and
    thack thack thack
    and I go to bed,
    I pull the covers to my throat;
    they have been building this house
    for a month, and soon it will have
    its people…sleeping, eating,
    loving, moving around,
    but somehow
    now
    it is not right,
    there seems a madness,
    men walk on its top with nails in their mouths
    and I read about Castro and Cuba,
    and at night I walk by
    and the ribs of house show
    and inside I can see cats walking
    the way cats walk,
    and then a boy rides by on a bicycle,
    and still the house is not done
    and in the morning the men
    will be back
    walking around on the house
    with their hammers,
    and it seems people should not build houses
    anymore,
    it seems people should stop working
    and sit in small rooms
    on second floors
    under electric lights without shades;
    it seems there is a lot to forget
    and a lot not to do
    and in drugstores, markets, bars,
    the people are tired, they do not want
    to move, and I stand there at night
    and look through this house and the
    house does not want to be built;
    through its sides I can see the purple hills
    and the first lights of evening,
    and it is cold
    and I button my coat
    and I stand there looking through the house
    and the cats stop and look at me
    until I am embarrassed
    and move North up the sidewalk
    where I will buy
    cigarettes and beer
    and return to my room.
     

side of the sun
     
     
    the bulls are grand as the side of the sun
    and although they kill them for the stale crowds,
    it is the bull that burns the fire,
    and although there are cowardly bulls as
    there are cowardly matadors and cowardly men,
    generally the bull stands pure
    and dies pure
    untouched by symbols or cliques or false loves,
    and when they drag him out
    nothing has died
    something has passed
    and the eventual stench
    is the world.
     

the talkers
     
     
    the boy walks with his muddy feet across my
    soul
    talking about recitals, virtuosi, conductors,
    the lesser known novels of Dostoevsky;
    talking about how he corrected a waitress,
    a hasher who didn’t know that French dressing
    was composed of so and so;
    he gabbles about the Arts until
    I hate the Arts,
    and there is nothing cleaner
    than getting back to a bar or
    back to the track and watching them run,
    watching things go without this
    clamor and chatter,
    talk, talk, talk,
    the small mouth going, the eyes blinking,
    a boy, a child, sick with the Arts,
    grabbing at it like the skirt of a mother,
    and I wonder how many tens of thousands
    there are like him across the land
    on rainy nights
    on sunny mornings
    on evenings meant for peace
    in concert halls
    in cafes
    at poetry recitals
    talking, soiling, arguing.
     
     
    it’s like a pig going to bed
    with a good woman
    and you don’t want
    the woman any more.
     

a pleasant afternoon in bed
     
     
    red summers and black satin
    charcoal and blood
    ringing the sheets
    while snails are stepped on
    and moths go batty
    trying to put on the eyes
    of lightbulbs in
    artificial cities;
    I light her a cigarette
    and she blows up a plasma
    of relaxation
    to prove we’ve both been
    good lovers—
    white on black, and in black;
    and her toes strike dark
    intersections
    in my beefy sheets
    she says, that elevator boy…
    y’know him?
    I say yes.
    a bastard…beats his wife.
    I put my hand
    flat to the surface
    where the curve goes down.
    damn for an OLD man,
    you