good weather
is like
good women-
it doesn't always happen
and when it does
it doesn't
always last.
man is
more stable:
if he's bad
there's more chance
he'll stay that way,
or if he's good
he might hang
on,
but a woman
is changed
by
children
age
diet
conversation
***
the moon
the absence or
presence of sun
or good times.
a woman must be nursed
into subsistence
by love
where a man can become
stronger
by being hated.
I am drinking tonight in Spangler's Bar
and I remember the cows
I once painted in Art class
and they looked good
they looked better than anything
in here. I am drinking in Spangler's Bar
wondering which to love and which
to hate, but the rules are gone:
I love and hate only
myself-
they stand outside me
like an orange dropped from the table
and rolling away; it's what I've got to
decide:
**** myself or
love myself?
which is the treason?
where's the information
coming from?
books...like broken glass:
I wouldn't wipe my *** with 'em
yet, it's getting
darker, see?
(we drink here and speak to
each other and
seem knowing.)
buy the cow with the biggest
****
buy the cow with the biggest
****.
present arms.
the bartender slides me a beer
it runs down the bar
like an Olympic sprinter
and the pair of pliers that is my hand
stops it, lifts it,
golden **** of dull temptation,
I drink and
stand there
the weather bad for cows
but my brush is ready
to stroke up
the green grass straw eye
sadness takes me all over
and I drink the beer straight down
order a shot
fast
to give me the guts and the love to
go
on.
from "poems written before jumping out of an 8 story window" - 1966

the lady has me temporarily off the bottle
and now the pecker stands up
better.
however, things change overnight--
instead of listening to Shostakovich and
Mozart through a smeared haze of smoke
the nights change, new
complexities:
we drive to Baskin-Robbins,
31 flavors:
Rocky Road, Bubble Gum, Apricot Ice, Strawberry
Cheesecake, Chocolate Mint...

we park outside and look at icecream
people
a very healthy and satisfied people,
nary a potential suicide in sight
(they probably even vote)
and I tell her
"what if the boys saw me go in there? suppose they
find out I'm going in for a walnut peach sundae?"
"come on, chicken," she laughs and we go in
and stand with the icecream people.
none of them are cursing or threatening
the clerks.
there seem to be no hangovers or
grievances.
I am alarmed at the placid and calm wave
that flows about. I feel like a ***** in a
beauty contest. we finally get our sundaes and
sit in the car and eat them.

I must admit they are quite good. a curious new
world. (all my friends tell me I am looking
better. "you're looking good, man, we thought you
were going to die there for a while...")
--those 4,500 dark nights, the jails, the
hospitals...

and later that night
there is use for the pecker, use for
love, and it is glorious,
long and true,
and afterwards we speak of easy things;
our heads by the open window with the moonlight
looking through, we sleep in each other's
arms.

the icecream people make me feel good,
inside and out.

You say you are ugly
because you only ever see
yourself
in the mirror
that tells you what to think

You don't see you
when I make you laugh
when your eyes come alive
with joy

You don't see you
when your crush texts you
and you fail to hide
your smile

You don't see you
when your dad comes home
at the end of the day
and says he loves you
wrapping you
in his arms
you are so filled with glee

You don't see you
when you make us so happy
you cannot help
but beam like the sun

the mirror is not a person
it has no face or voice
it cannot tell you anything
it will never say
you are beautiful

but we have faces
and we have voices
and we can say
you are

I'm searching for intelligent life
not in outer space but here on earth.
I turn over a rock
and find congress, the president,
a couple used car salesman
and a worm.

the choice is obvious.

she had always said
her favorite color was yellow
for the girl with buttery skin and crystal eyes
it seemed rather fitting
yellow was the color of sunshine
and the color of her hair
after it had been bleached by summer
it was the color of the bumblebees
that drank from her favorite flowers
flowers that now
line her grave

she told you
her favorite color was yellow
because she knew you needed someone
radiant with light
to ease the depth
of your own darkness
so she said
when autumn arrived
you could watch the ground
become littered with yellow leaves
together

when you asked what color
lie beneath her skin
she told you it was yellow
she made herself believe
her body was freckled from stardust
and not from the amber glow
of cigarette burns
she still said
her favorite color was yellow
so she could continue being the light
in your colorless world

soon enough
your favorite color was yellow too
but not for the same reasons
she fell in love with it
you only saw yellow vaguely
in the form of teeth
stained from tobacco and too much coffee
smiling grimly through cracked lips
dripping poisoned honey
you guilded the word ¨love¨
with muted ochre lies

and now
she no longer feels the warmth
that once emanated
from her favorite color
she no longer tastes
the sweetness of butterscotch
and papaya on your lips
for you left her with nothing but
the sour residue of lemons and bile
as your gentle breath
extinguished her golden flames
and reduced her heart to ash

and now
she realizes that bumblebees
can also administer a piercing sting
and as she watches the sunset
with its amber hues
she no longer sees
the color yellow


x.