Six Poems

First Grilling

.........This is the first grilling.
.........I phone Aunt Miriam from a gas station interstate near Pittsburgh, and she picks me up.
.........I've been on the spot in much of every conversation.
.........She wants to know what's going on and did my mother's dependence on me during her divorce drive me away to California the way her mother's dependence on my Uncle Lorry caused him to flee to L.A.?
.........How fast she hits it on the head yet I don't want to admit my behavior is aberrant.
.........I say grilling because when I first arrive in Monroeville my values are being charged at particularly by Uncle Saul who owns a big store Levine Furniture, and everyone knows he has worked very hard all his life and is a bit resentful of those who don't.
.........At the symphony last night they get me a ticket at the walk-up window.
.........I have a mass of emotions pouring through me.
.........One thing I keep thinking about is my desire to be a poet which I think I dismissed a couple of weeks ago at Ludwig's conceding that if I am to be a really great artist I would be writing which I'm not, and I would never settle for being a second-rate artist. Ludwig's theory. I'm still wondering if that's true or not. In a way yes, in a way no.
.........Second-rate artists have all the pain and none of the pleasure of their field. Pleasure to me means satisfaction and I don't think I'd ever feel good about what I am doing if I didn't think I could do it really well. That I'm not to be a poet because I'm not one now is not all that sound a reason, I sometimes think. It (writing) is what compels me.
.........I'm also afraid of writing. Not necessarily because I'm afraid of trying and failing and seeing my dream of becoming a poet fail-that's a separate fear. Just spilling out my guts scares me, and that's what you have to do. Be willing to put it down on paper.
.........I feel tied up.
.........I confide my doubts to a girl with long auburn hair, her face in the shadow, sitting next to me. She is a violin student starting to perform. In that dark upper deck she whispers in my ear, "Follow your dream!"

The Guy That Drives Me Here

The guy that drives me here exit 4, 7:30 a.m.
works in a mill.
"I leave my brain in the car when I go in there,"
he says. A beautiful ride through
green Alleghenies
clocking 85 miles per. "This car was
meant to drive fast," he says, "fuck yeah!"
To everything that makes him
enthusiastic he says, "Fuck yeah!"
Agreeing with me on anything makes him
enthusiastic.
"Going to California? Sounds good,
sounds good. It does look like a nice day,
fuck yeah!"

...................................................14 June 76

Untitled

Pop whacked sis
Not much more to say

Sick broke jaw Quick
..........the belt buckle way

a two-year-old toddler
got very old
that day

Go Ahead

One morning I went to meditate
at the Hartford Street Zendo
and woke at 5 a.m. to be on time
having slept the night before
on my friend Warren's floor nearby.
I trudged through the dark
industrial side streets but still
I arrived late—
everybody was already downstairs
in the lotus position.
Two Black women kitchen workers
showed me the bathroom
but then I forgot and flushed the toilet anyway
failing to observe a sign:
DON'T FLUSH DURING MEDITATION SESSIONS.
I was confused by arriving late
preoccupied about the problem
of a friend's using heroin needles again
which was what drew me to the zendo
in the first place, to listen
in silence for a solution
to addiction
The workers said they'd get accused
for flushing
so I borrowed paper and wrote
an apologetic note explaining I did it
then left it on the table
for everyone to see
I walked back in the lifting light
to sleep a few hours more.
The message was read by the head teacher
poet Philip Whalen
who when I returned for a 6 p.m. sit said,
"The girls thought you sweet"
by covering for them with that note
and how he'd wished I'd not left
without joining the circle.
Philip started making me feel
less worried about everything
asking me in a soft-spoken way
"If you'd entered the zendo while we
were sitting, what do you think
would've happened?"
In other words NOTHING
which I think about
at new points of hesitation

Ross the Waiter

"Who shines your shoes?" someone
asked Ross
"I have an old Jew who does
that," Ross replied
"Who's that?"
"Me!"

Mainstreams in Modern Art

.........Chinatown first night.
.........After a while by myself I grew restless. I went out. I took a right off Grant and walked over to Columbus. 11:30 p.m. There were still stores open and places to eat.
.........I walked into the used bookstore just down from City Lights. Maybe I could find The Duino Elegies. All the shelves in the store were crammed, the sign of a good used bookstore. There was a guy sporting a neatly trimmed beard who looked at each shelf that I looked at. I browsed around the poetry section. Then my attention diverted to a man wearing a grey suit who broke the silence by coming through the front door saying in a loud voice toward the clerk, "Do you have Mainstreams in Modern Art?"
.........The clerk who had his feet up on the desk had been reading a book. I couldn't see his face from where I stood but imagined it looked glum or disinterested. He said flatly to the man who had entered the bookstore a second ago, "We're closed."
.........The man looked stunned. His eyes scanned the store and saw a dozen people reading books off the shelves. The bright lights were all on. His eyes caught mine. If the store was closed it was news to me. Many of us looked up at the clerk. Then the man in the gray suit chuckled. He said, "All I want is a copy of Mainstreams in Modern Art. Can't you tell me if you have it?"
.........He was smiling, painfully.
.........The clerk said, "I'm sorry. We're CLOSED." If he had a reason for boycotting this guy, it wasn't clear to me what that reason was.
.........The man burst into laughter, leaned his head back and started walking away, laughing harder and harder. At the front door he stopped laughing. Turning to the clerk he said bitterly with all his teeth showing, "Have a good fucking night. This is the last fucking time I come into this fucking store!"