I even hear the mountains
the way they laugh
up and down their blue sides
and down in the water
the fish cry

during my worst times
on the park benches
in the jails
or living with
whores

once
we were young
at this
machine. . .
drinking

you haven’t lived
until you’ve been in a
flophouse
with nothing but one
light bulb

the vultures at the zoo
(all three of them)
sit very quietly in their
caged tree
and below

O lord, he said, Japanese women,
real women, they have not forgotte
bowing and smiling
closing the wounds men have made;
but American women will kill you l

drunk again at 3 a.m. at the end o
of wine, I have typed from a dozen
poesy
an old man
maddened for the flesh of young gi

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.

I was fairly drunk when it
began and I took out my bottle and
along the way. I was reading a wee
Kandel and I did not look quite a
pretty but

there’s a bluebird in my heart tha
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I’m not goi
to let anybody see