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

death wants more death, and its we
I remember my father’s garage, how
I would brush the corpses of flies
from the windows they thought were
their sticky, ugly, vibrant bodies

I got in the shower
and burned my balls
last Wednesday.
met this painter called Spain,
no, he was a cartoonist,

225 days under grass
and you know more than I.
they have long taken your blood,
you are a dry stick in a basket.
is this how it works?

I’ll settle for the 6 horse
on a rainy afternoon
a paper cup of coffee
in my hand
a little way to go,

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

I was standing in line at the bank
when the old fellow in front of me
dropped his glasses (luckily, with
case)
and as he bent over

I awakened to dryness and the fern
the potted plants yellow as corn;
my woman was gone
and the empty bottles like bled co
surrounded me with their uselessne

in the hospitals and jails
it’s the worst
in madhouses
it’s the worst
in penthouses

the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break