What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire (23 page)

I am

one of them.

how did we get here?

where are our ladies?

what happened to

our lives and years?

this appears to be a calm Sunday

evening.

the waiters move among us.

we are poured water, coffee, wine.

bread arrives, armless, eyeless bread.

peaceful bread.

we order.

we await our orders.

where have the wars gone?

where have, even, the tiny agonies

gone?

this place has found us.

the white table cloths are placid ponds,

the utensils glimmer for our

fingers.

such calm is ungodly but

fair.

for in a moment we still remember the

hard years and those to come.

nothing is forgotten, it is merely put

aside.

like a glove, a gun, a

nightmare.

3 old men at separate tables.

eternity could be like this.

I lift my cup of coffee,

the centuries enduring

me,

nothing else matters so

sweetly

now.

this then

is the arena

forevermore.

this then is the arena

where you must

succeed or fail.

you have had some

success here

but they expect more

than that

in this arena.

there have been defeats too,

befuddling defeats.

there is no mercy in this

arena,

there is only victory or

defeat,

something living or something

dead.

this arena

is neither just

nor good.

there is no permanent

escape from this

arena.

and each temporary escape

has a permanent price.

neither drink nor love

will

see you through.

in this arena

now

stretching your arms

looking out the window

watching cats and leaves and shadows

thinking of vanished women and old automobiles

while Europe runs up and down your rug

you can only sing popular melodies

in the last of your mind.

this is plagiarism, of course, sitting here with

my hands and my feet,

sitting here lighting another deadly

cigarette,

then pouring more deathly booze into

myself,

and this is plagiarism

because I used to read Pound to my

drunken prostitute, my first

love.

I just didn't know, still don't.

I buried her, went on to

others,

then got married in Las Vegas,

and lost.

what we'd all like to do, of

course, is to cut through the

fog of centuries

and get down into where it

shines and blazes,

blazes and shines,

roars.

I gave it a shot,

missed.

I go to CoCo's,

get my Senior Citizen's

Dinner,

good deal, soup or salad,

the beverage, the main

course, cornbread

too.

and I sit with the

other old

farts,

listen to them

talk,

not bad, really, they've also

been burned down to the

nub.

now I sit here

plagiarizing, still probably

zapped by the Key West

Cuba Kid Fisherman

who opted out over his

last orange juice

somewhere in

Idaho.

we all steal.

but I'll tell you

the plagiarism I like best

is this pouring of the

cabernet sauvignon,

1988

from the

Alexander Valley.

and once I held a woman's

hand as she was dying of

cancer in a small room on

some 2nd floor

and the stink of it spread

for a thousand yards

everywhere

and I tried not to breathe.

my mother, your mother,

anybody's mother

and she said, dying,

“Henry, why do you write

those terrible

words?”

a man hit a pregnant woman

he seemed to know her

knocked her down on the sidewalk

outside the Mexican food place

she was wearing a black dress with

orange dots

she fell on her back and screamed

she had a bloody nose

and the man was fat

powerful

in workingman's clothes

and a crowd gathered:

“what did you

hit her for?”

“it's not right! you shouldn't do

that!”

he just stood there

looking down at her

as she sobbed

the blood from her nose

running into her

mouth.

more people gathered

there must have been

15 people.

“somebody do something!” a woman

said.

nobody did.

just then an old battered black car

with the headlights on

at noon

came down the street at

70 m.p.h.

a bearded man was driving

swerving to avoid a car

he flashed by with 2 wheels

momentarily up on the

curb near the

crowd.

there were shouts:

“LOOK OUT!”

“JESUS!”

then he got the wheels back down

on the street

fired through the

red light

without hitting a thing and

was gone.

when the crowed recovered

and looked around again

the pregnant woman

was still on the

sidewalk

she looked almost

asleep

but the man was

gone.

“the son-of-a-bitch got

away,” somebody

said.

one man looked up at the

sky

as if looking for an invasion

from space.

the cook from the Mexican cafe

stood in his

dirty apron.

then somebody moved forward and

helped the pregnant woman

to her feet.

I keep getting phone calls from the

helpless and the lonely and the

depressed.

yes, I tell them, that happens to all of

us.

oh, you're writing poems now? I'll buy your

book.

women? you lose them and you find

them. be strong. eat well.

sleep late, if

possible.

you're sick? you should jog, jog

along the water. watch for the

dolphins. you need vitamin E, cigarettes, and a

new typewriter ribbon.

I hang up.

I go over and sit down in front of the

typewriter.

little do they know, those suffering

bastards, that no man is completely

sane. I am sweating behind the ears.

the phone rings again. I

listen. I listen until it stops

then I lean over the

keys…

another great book in the works

for

Barnes and Noble.

I write poetry, worry, smile,

laugh

sleep

continue for a while

just like most of us

just like all of us;

sometimes I want to hug all

Mankind on earth

and say,

god damn all this that they've brought down

upon us,

we are brave and good

even though we are selfish

and kill each other and

kill ourselves,

we are the people

born to kill and die and weep in dark rooms

and love in dark rooms,

and wait, and

wait and wait and wait.

we are the people.

we are nothing

more.

my movies are getting better finally.

but I remember this one old movie I starred in.

I worked as a janitor in a tall office building

at night, with other men and

women who cleaned up the shit

left behind by other people.

those men and women had a very tired and dark and

useless feeling about them.

this one old man and I

we used to work very fast together

and then sit in an office on the top

floor

at the Big Man's desk

our feet up there as

we looked out over the city and

watched the sun come up while

drinking whiskey

from the Big Man's wet bar.

the old man talked and I listened to the

years of his life

not much

he was just another tired guy who cleaned up

other people's shit

and did a good job of it.

I didn't.

they canned me.

then I got a job as a dishwasher

and they also canned me there because

I wasn't a good dishwasher.

this was a seemingly endless low-budget movie

it ran for years and years

it didn't cost 50 million to make

it didn't have an anti-war message

it really didn't have much to say about anything

but you still ought to read my poems

and see it.

a different fight now, warding off the weariness of

age,

retreating to your room, stretching out upon the bed,

there's not much will to move,

it's near midnight now.

not so long ago your night would be just

beginning, but don't lament lost youth:

youth was no wonder

either.

but now it's the waiting on death.

it's not death that's the problem, it's the waiting.

you should have been dead decades ago.

the abuse you wreaked upon yourself was

enormous and non-ending.

a different fight now, yes, but nothing to

mourn, only to

note.

frankly, it's even a bit dull waiting on the

blade.

and to think, after I'm gone,

there will be more days for others, other days,

other nights.

dogs walking, trees shaking in

the wind.

I won't be leaving much.

something to read, maybe.

a wild onion in the gutted

road.

Paris in the dark.

if you're going to try, go all the

way.

otherwise, don't even start.

if you're going to try, go all the

way.

this could mean losing girlfriends,

wives, relatives, jobs and

maybe your mind.

go all the way.

it could mean not eating for 3 or

4 days.

it could mean freezing on a

park bench.

it could mean jail,

it could mean derision,

mockery,

isolation.

isolation is the gift,

all the others are a test of your

endurance, of

how much you really want to

do it.

and you'll do it

despite rejection and the

worst odds

and it will be better than

anything else

you can imagine.

if you're going to try,

go all the way.

there is no other feeling like

that.

you will be alone with the

gods

and the nights will flame with

fire.

do it, do it, do it.

do it.

all the way

all the way.

you will ride life straight to

perfect laughter, it's

the only good fight

there is.