Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit Read Free

the other buses
    all the other wars
     
 
    he got off at Pasadena
    vainer than any woman
    he got off at Pasadena
    proud and
    dead
     
 
    the rest of the trainride—
    8 or 10 miles—
    was perfect.
     

I love you
     
     
    I opened the door of this shanty and there she lay
    there she lay
    my love
    across the back of a man in a dirty undershirt.
    I was rough tough easy-with-money-Charley (that’s me)
    and I awakened both of them
    like God
    and when she was awake
    she started screaming, “Hank, Hank!” (that’s my other name)
    “take me away from this son of a bitch!
    I hate him I love you!”
     
 
    of course, I was wise enough not to believe any of
    this and I sat down and said,
    “I need a drink, my head hurts and I need a
    drink.”
     
 
    this is the way love works, you see, and then we all sat there
    drinking the whiskey and I was
    perfectly satisfied
    and then he reached over and handed me a five,
    “that’s all that’s left of what she took, that’s all that’s left
    of what she took from you.”
     
 
    I was no golden-winged angel ripped up through
    boxtops
    I took the five and left them in there
    and I walked up the alley
    to Alvarado street
    and I turned in left
    at the first
    bar.
     

a little atomic bomb
     
     
    o, just give me a little atomic bomb
    not too much
    just a little
    enough to kill a horse in the street
    but there aren’t any horses in the street
     
 
    well, enough to knock the flowers from a bowl
    but I don’t see any
    flowers in a
    bowl
     
 
    enough then
    to frighten my love
    but I don’t have any
    love
     
 
    well
    give me an atomic bomb then
    to scrub in my bathtub
    like a dirty and lovable child
     
 
    (I’ve got a bathtub)
     
 
    just a little atomic bomb, general,
    with pugnose
    pink ears
    smelling like underclothes in
    July
     
 
    do you think I’m crazy?
    I think you’re crazy
    too
    so the way you think:
    send me one before somebody else
    does.
     

the egg
     
     
    he’s 17.
    mother, he said, how do I crack an
    egg?
     
 
    all right, she said to me, you don’t have to
    sit there looking like that.
     
 
    oh, mother, he said, you broke the yoke.
    I can’t eat a broken yoke.
     
 
    all right, she said to me, you’re so tough,
    you’ve been in the slaughterhouses, factories,
    the jails, you’re so god damned tough,
    but all people don’t have to be like you,
    that doesn’t make everybody else wrong and you
    right.
     
 
    mother, he said, can you bring me some cokes
    when you come home from work?
     
 
    look, Raleigh, she said, can’t you get the cokes
    on your bike, I’m tired after
    work.
     
 
    but, mama, there’s a hill.
     
 
    what hill, Raleigh?
     
 
    there’s a hill,
    it’s there and I have to peddle over
    it.
     
 
    all right, she said to me, you think you’re so
    god damned tough. you worked on a railroad track
    gang, I hear about it every time you get drunk:
    “I worked on a railroad track gang.”
    well, I said, I did.
     
 
    I mean, what difference does it make?
    everybody has to work somewhere.
     
 
    mama, said the kid, will you bring me those
    cokes?
     
 
    I really like the kid. I think he’s very
    gentle. and once he learns how to crack an
    egg he may do some
    unusual things. meanwhile
    I sleep with his mother
    and try to stay out of
    arguments.
     

the knifer
     
     
    you knifed me, he said, you told Pink Eagle
    not to publish me.
    oh hell, Manny, I said, get off it.
     
 
    these poets are very sensitive
    they have more sensitivity than talent,
    I don’t know what to do with them.
     
 
    just tonight the phone rang and
    it was Bagatelli and Bagatelli said
    Clarsten phoned and Clarsten was pissed
    because we hadn’t mailed him the
    anthology, and Clarsten blamed me
    for not mailing the anthology
    and furthermore Clarsten
    claimed I was trying to do him
    in, and he was very
    angry. so said
    Bagatelli.
     
 
    you know, I’m really beginning to feel like
    a literary power
    I just lean back in my chair and roll