How long will these graves go on?
How long will my head ache from
that who’s-for-loving booze?
Things went well until—but then
time’s a damn sad thing—
time and the time it brings—
selection of a casket
in the mid-price range.
God knows I’ve curbed responses
in response to current trends
and practiced automatic ones.
Secretaries think I’m nice
except that one, but she—
This curve shows the cost of love
went up in late November
and where it intersects this line
representing the rate of pain
we call point kiss. A damn sad thing.
The stones go on and on.
Caskets must be touching underground.
Now we’re welcome at the homes
of those who never spoke before.
Whee. Success. Money coming in.
Welcome at the homes of grovelers
I’m sure. Pigeons I have fed
found better pickings at the dump.
Molding apricots. The faded sign.
Big Lil. Dancer. On at nine.
Eleven. One. Last show. Last gala
strip-down strip-off strip-skin
show with count ’em twenty
gorgeous straight from Vegas and
above all clean cats on at three.
A damn sad thing.
From my room, a splendid view
of a statue of a stuffy man
who founded Uruguay, a land
I don’t believe in although maps
still show it red below Brazil.
Should I say with noble waving
of my arms I’m free? Ah, liberty.
A gasper goo among nonentities.
A bone the dogs are tossing
to the dogs. Big Lil was a cat.
I believe in Paraguay, Peru.
It’s the P that makes them real.
The U that starts out Uruguay
is not a P. UP. United Press.
A damn sad thing.
I never told you. Greenland floats.
Is often Africa when no one looks.
Has been Russia in its time and France.
Is never Italy because of snobbery.
I believe in Greenland. It’s the G.
Gee. I’d give the world to see
that old gang of mine. A damn
sad bunch of damn sad things.
Lynn is less one eye in Singapore.
Winslow waits behind the door
that opens only at his feeding time,
a time time’s sure to bring.
Last night what poem was it where
Joe Langland brought so many birds
down stone dead through the air?
And where did Claire McAllister
get such blond hair? And still
the graves go on. In Mukilteo,
Washington, the graveyard holds
twenty, maybe, all who died
as I recall by 1910.
I’ll not die of course. My health
is perfect. I’ll admit the jet
we’re on our way to get
might crash in Iowa,
I smoke too much, and once
when thirteen at a seance
a spirit scared me half-to-death
forecasting I’d be killed
by rain. Such a damn sad thing.
And I’ll select my casket
in the mid-price range.
The bus and graves go on. Millions—
and the lines of stone all point our way.
A damn sad thing. Let’s go home to bed.
You didn’t mean a thing when you were living
and you don’t mean nothing now you’re dead.
The morning after a reading
at the YMHA Poetry Center