Don't worry, spiders,
I keep house
casually.

during my worst times
on the park benches
in the jails
or living with
******
I always had this certain
contentment-
I wouldn't call it
happiness-
it was more of an inner
balance
that settled for
whatever was occuring
and it helped in the
factories
and when relationships
went wrong
with the
girls.
it helped
through the
wars and the
hangovers
the backalley fights
the
hospitals.
to awaken in a cheap room
in a strange city and
pull up the shade-
this was the craziest kind of
contentment

and to walk across the floor
to an old dresser with a
cracked mirror-
see myself, ugly,
grinning at it all.
what matters most is
how well you
walk through the
fire.

"--you know, I've either had a family, a job, something
has always been in the
way
but now
I've sold my house, I've found this
place, a large studio, you should see the space and
the light.
for the first time in my life I'm going to have a place and
the time to
create."
no baby, if you're going to create
you're going to create whether you work
16 hours a day in a coal mine
or
you're going to create in a small room with 3 children
while you're on
welfare,
you're going to create with part of your mind and your
body blown
away,
you're going to create blind
crippled
demented,
you're going to create with a cat crawling up your
back while
the whole city trembles in earthquakes, bombardment,
flood and fire.
baby, air and light and time and space
have nothing to do with it
and don't create anything
except maybe a longer life to find
new excuses
for.

the women of the past keep
phoning.
there was another yesterday
arrived from out of
state.
she wanted to see
me.
I told her
"no."

I don't want to see
them,
I won't see them.
it would be
awkward
gruesome and
useless.

I know some people who can
watch the same movie
more than
once.

not me.
once I know the
plot
once I know the
ending
whether it's happy or
unhappy or
just plain
dumb,
then

for me
that movie is
finished
forever
and that's why
I refuse
to let
any of my
old movies play
over and over again
for
years.

ignore all possible concepts and possibilities ---
ignore Beethoven, the spider, the damnation of Faust ---
just make it, babe, make it:
a house  a car   a belly full of beans
pay your taxes
****
and if you can't ****
copulate.
make money but don't work too
hard --- make somebody else pay to
make it --- and
don't smoke too much but drink enough to
relax, and
stay off the streets
wipe your *** real good
use a lot of toilet paper
it's bad manners to let people know you **** or
could smell like it
if you weren't
careful

watch as the year dies
its bizarre, satisfied death
for all the times it took us
downhill, farther and farther
from the finer tale
of ourselves

watch as the moon skies in
with the huge ball of fire
necks crane heavenward
will it ever be likely
for us to witness
both beauty at once?
in one part shines the
pure, radiant glow of the moon
in the other, the golden
hue of the sun
and all the blue, yellow, pink
purple, gray and black
in the background?

watch me as i
take steps towards something
i still don’t know
see me fall, sob on the floor,
and get back up
with no other hands but mine
to pull me up

Far from the tormented city I go,
under a black sky
that shivers. Alone
I watch it pass by.
Far from the tormented city I go

Past the faceless women I wander.
the muses at noon
are crying. Wonder
makes them laugh too soon.
Past the faceless women I wander.

High up there is the forgotten men's dreams.
the balcony's warm.
Smoke makes you see things:
Girls with open arms.
High up there is the forgotten men's dreams

At the square, I see guards in position.
Giants with pistols,
Knives. Ask permission
if you speak at all.
At the square, I see guards in position.

In uniform, the boys all stand in rows.
It's nothing. I care
little for their clothes.
But they do, they stare.
In uniform, the boys all stand in rows.

From the tallest building, I watch the world.
It is all the same;
lines in plastic pearls,
signed with the king's name.
From the tallest building, I watch the world.

Far from the tormented city I go,
under a black sky
that shivers. Alone
I watch it pass by.
Far from the tormented city I go

She eats her spaghetti

with a fork like a shovel,

ignoring the etiquette lessons

from her mother so many years ago.

You can tell her there’s

tomato sauce staining

her mouth like lipstick

smeared from the night before,

but she’ll just laugh

and wipe it away with her sleeve

when she’s finished.

You would think

such a messy eater would

leave bits of her meal

all over the table

but when she’s done,

there’s no trace of

her haphazard manners

and she disappears

again.