Tarantula Read online

  went five hours without a drink

  of water. figger i’m ready for

  the desert. wanna come? i’ll

  take along my dog. he’s always

  good for a laugh. pick yuh up

  at seven

  faithfully,

  Pig

  Roping Off the Madman’s Corner

  green maggie of profanity slapstick & her cast of seven coats shining & fighting the milkmaids & high whining barndoor slam—heavens! & righteous 38-20 slightly built on the ball & chain & leashing the lawyer’s pigeon while the rock n roll lead guitar player does his mother’s violets & his thing in the middle of the bailiff’s workbench & green maggie pushing you into hotrod driver’s eyes & he’s lisping & he has no money to pay for his language & maggie’s not green & not funny & life gets unbearable but the orator is not the reporter & hanging around at the press room & shelling out to the day crew & merchants of venice & why be bothered with other people’s set ups? it only leads to torture/ why it’s incredible! the world is mad with justice

  dear mayor wagner. has anybody

  ever told you, you look like

  james arness? i am writing to

  say that you are my son’s idol.

  could you please send your

  schedule & repertoire to him, with

  an autographed picture, at your

  earliest convenience. he would

  appreciate it kindly as that’s

  all he does is play your records

  & defend you to his friends.

  i do hope it’s you that’s reading

  this & not some secretary

  thank you

  wishfully

  Willy Purple

  Saying Hello to Unpublished Maria

  you taste like candy TUS HUESOS VIBRAN yowee & i’m here because i’m starving & swallowing your tricks into my stomach ERES COMO MAGIA like the greasy hotel owner & it’s not your father i’m hungry for! but i will bring a box for him to play with. i am not a cannibal! dig yourself! i am not a sky diver/ i carry no sticks of dynamite … you say NO SERE TU NOVIA & i am not a pilgrim neither TU CAMPESINA & you dont see ME crying over that i cant be sad & wonderful & yippee TU FORMA EXTRANA your horseness amazes me/ i will stand—oh honorable—on the window of your countess even tho i am not a window shade & bang SOLO SOY UN GUITARRISTA all i do is drink & eat. all i have is yours

  i’m telling you, the next time you

  threaten to commit suicide in front

  of me, i’m just gonna haul off an blow

  your brains out y’hear! y’read me?

  i’m so sick of having you bring me

  down that i’d just as soon tie you

  up & ship you off to red china.

  another thing! you better take

  good care of my mother. if i

  hear that youre taking out your

  misery on her, i’m coming to see

  what i can do about things once &

  for all … why dont you learn to

  dance instead of looking for new

  friends? dont you know that all

  the friends have been taken

  yours,

  Hector Schmector

  Forty Links of Chain (A Poem)

  fox eyes from abilene—garbage poet from the

  greyhound circuit & who has a feeling for the most lost

  pieces of frost & boast of glass jaw & grampa

  playing tiddlywinks & finks in the sinks & the barf &

  gook in the book

  of his cook, the ma & he’s back in town

  screwing around

  with his hairlip down … he needs a dime &

  writing rhyme You

  dont have to guess … you know

  the rest/ watch his nose! you can see where he goes

  by offering to pay his dues—fox eyes, he’s

  got lotza blues—Tiny the chick with the wet newspaper,

  she used to bring french fries to the mechanics &

  whose right arm once went deaf & dumb

  (it can happen to some)

  she sees fox eyes come

  climbing out of the stop sign & he’s got a hangover

  on top of it & she say “oh great grooby fox eyes. lead me to the

  garbage” & he take her by the

  lilywhitecottonpickin

  hand & she say “yeah man i be a yellow monkey oowee!”

  & he say “jus you folly me baby snooks! jus you folly

  me & you feel fine!” & she say “giddy up & hi ho silver &

  i feel irish!” & both go off & get a bus schedule & she

  saying all the time “steady big fella! steady!” while on

  the other side of the street this mailman who looks like

  shirley temple & who’s carrying a lollypop stops &

  looks at a cloud & just then the sky, he gets kinda pissed

  & decides to throw his weight around a little & bloop a

  tulip falls dead—the mailman starts talking to a parking

  meter & fox eyes, he say “it sure wasn’t like this in

  abilene” & it’s a hurricane & a bus reading baltimore

  leaves them in a total mess—she falls on her knees &

  she say “i’m filthy” & fox eyes he say “go back to

  florida baby there aint nothing here a city grill like

  you can do” & the chick she does a handstand & she say

  “i’m canadian!” & he say “get outa here & go to florida!”

  & she starts reciting fox eyes poems about salvation & the

  loony bin, strikes in the coloring book factory & christmas

  when they wrapped him in a shirt & he say “WHOA! GET OUTA

  HERE! I STEAL YO MONEY OWEE JESUS GRILL! YOU SOME SLUMP!”

  & she moans & groans & she say “oh i really do love life&

  love love & love living & he say “grooby! wail! wail!” &

  she say “dont you understand” & she starts making this terrible

  scene right there in the middle of the street … Tiny—i met Tiny

  later at an outrageous party—she was sitting under a clock & i say

  “you need an umbrella, friend” & she say “oh no! not another one!”

  & she’s got a new boyfriend now & he looks like machine gun kelly …

  fox eyes—he lost all his money in a furnace—when last heard from

  was riding fast freight out of salinas in a pile of lettuce &

  still trying to collect unemployment … me? i made a special trip

  downtown to get some graveyard figures—but it wasnt raining &

  there were no buses going to baltimore/ just a broken jawed parking meter,

  a water logged pen & a bunch of old shirley temple pictures

  with her neck in a noose was all that i could find

  look. i dont care if you are

  a merchant marine. the next time

  you start telling me i dont

  walk right, i’m gonna get some

  surfer to slap your face. i think

  youre being very paranoid about the whole thing … see you at the

  wedding

  stompingly yours

  Lazy Henry

  Mouthful of Loving Choke

  crow jane from the wedding into the beast nest where wild man peter the greek & ambassador frenchy do primitive worship with hustling john from coney striking a pose & dancing the pink velvet—all dramatics & curiously belonging to the armenian hunchback resembling arthur murray who’s very turned off & gets syphilis & crow jane, she gets the chilly blues watching but she speaks like a champion & she dont kid around “what you gonna do? i mean besides now’s time for the good men promenade a party?” some plaintive woos in the twilight & throats ripping & laughing & fool’s terror snapping like a tail & taking it in the ribs & bop music where south walls quivering & colliding bosoms & weigh the likes of maid marian’s bandits & i repeat: two face minny, the army derelict/ christine, who�
�s hung up on your forehead/ steve canyon jones who looks like mae west in a closet/ screwy herman x, who looks like a closet/ jake the brown, who look like a forehead … dino, the limping bartender, who steps in between Man Mountain Sinatra who looks like the boy next door & Gorging George, who has no last name … all these & their agents & “how come you so smart crow jane?” & she say back “how come you wanna talk so colored? & dont call me no crow jane!” & superfreak pushing & shoving amazing—totally amazing—“& i think i’m gonna do april or so is a cruel month & how you like your blue eyed boy NOW mr octopus?” when the four star colonels come in & everybody says yankee doodle & plastered & some western union boy rides thru on a unicycle yelling “God save the secrets!” but is just coming on—he’s mad & he’s a horseshoe wizard—nobody cares tho & he’s looking for the action & nobody cares about that either & he yells “help!” & two face minny, screaming, swinging from a chandelier & goes to bless him “you cant make nobody understand you too smart to think you know anything! not even john henry did that” crow jane jingle girl & she’s a phantom & mouth like an oven & she dances on a cake of islam & “dont tell someone what you know they already know. that makes them think that you just like them & you aint!” … but then you take gwendeline, the different story & rides with lawrence of arabia & plays with her mercury—mumbling crummy world & “oh, the sadness!” … she gets some horny foreigners’ attention but mainly all the cool people continue drawing noses on robert frost books “why be crazy on purpose?” say two face minny who’s now on top the western union boy & steve canyon jones going off in the corner & crying “we aint never gonna get no messages that way!” … crow jane, she got this talent for robbing hardware stores & always being someplace at the wrong time but saying the right things “dont do your ideas—everybody’s got those—let the ideas do you & talk with melody & money tempts ideas & it cant get close to melody & take all the money you can get but dont hurt nobody” crow jane, she got class “& above all else, be all else!” oh the nites with broken arcs, the backs of greensleeves & bruised film—homely & absurd with rhythm & it gets to you after a while … a glass sidewalk meeting the cracker boy’s soul & trees like fire hydrants standing in the path of the wooden horse & help mama! help those that cannot understand not to understand … the cracker boy wears spiked shoes but his hands are bare/ peter & frenchy still dancing the cocktail tango—the hunchback being carried out … honeymoon locked into footsteps of the riderless stallion/ rome falling with driving wishy washy half note—crawl with the blues feeling … & the going daylight. crow jane say come, hang out her limelight … there are green bullets in my throat/ i walk sloppily on the sun feeling them turn into yellow keys—i touch jane on the inside & i swallow

  dear tom

  have i ever told you that i

  think your name ought to be

  bill. it doesnt really matter

  of course, but you know, i like

  to be comfortable around people.

  how is margy? or martha? or

  whatever the hell her name is?

  listen: when you arrive & you

  hear somebody yelling “willy” it’ll

  be me that’s who … so c’mon. there’ll

  be a car & a party waiting. it’ll

  be very easy to single me out, so

  dont say you didnt know i was there

  gratefully

  truman peyote

  The Horse Race

  —lyndon johnson

  “… always trying, always gaining”

  yes & so anyway on the seventh day, He created pogo, bat masterson, & a rose colored diving board for His cronies/ the sky already strung up shivered like the top of a tent. “what’s all this commotion” he said to his main man, Gonzalas, who without batting an eyelash picked up a rake & began flogging a cloud … seeing that Gonzalas had the wrong idea, He told him to lay down the rake & go build an ark/ when Gonzalas reaches twenty-five he starts wondering when his parents will kick off. it’s nothing personal, it’s just that he needs some money & is beginning to resent the fact that he hasnt been laid yet/ “why did you not create an eighth day?” ask Gonzalas’ chauffeur to his Sausage Maker on the steps of the boom boom parlor/ while handing in his perfume/ the sky, changing into a sexy spaghetti odor, continues to tremble—Gonzalas, meanwhile, sports a cane & tries to hide his korean accent/ edgar allan poe steps out from behind a burning bush … He sees edgar. He looks down & says “it’s not your time yet” & strikes him dead … Gonzalas enters/ places fifth in the second

  how come youre so afraid of

  things that dont make any

  sense to you? do people pass

  you up on the street all the

  time? do cars pass you up on

  the highway? how come youre

  so afraid of things that dont

  make any sense to you? do you

  water your raisins daily? do

  you have any raisins? is there

  anything that does make sense

  to you? are you afraid of twelve

  button suits? how come youre

  so afraid to stop talking?

  your valve cleaner

  Tubba

  Pocketful of Scoundrel

  in a hilarious grave of fruit hides the wee gunfighter—a warm bottle of roominghouse juice in the rim of his sheepskin/ lord thomas of the nightingales, bird of youth, rasputin the clod, galileo the regular guy & max, the novice chess player/ the battles inside their souls & gloves being as dead as their legends but only more work for the living jesters—victims of assassination & dying comes easy … on the other side of the tombstone, the amateur villain sleeps with his tongue out & his head inside the pillow case/ nothing makes him seem different/ he goes unnoticed anyway.

  dear Sabu

  it’s my chick! she tells me that

  she takes long walks in the woods.

  the funny thing about it is that

  i followed her one nite, & she’s

  telling me the truth. i try to

  get her interested in things

  like guns an football, but all

  she does is close her eyes &

  say “i dont believe this is happening”

  last nite she tried to hang herself …

  i immediately thought of having her

  committed, but goddam she’s my chick,

  & every body’d just look at me funny

  for living with a crazy woman.

  perhaps if i bought her her own car,

  it would help/ can you fix it?

  thanx for listening

  All Petered Out

  Mr. Useless Says Good-bye to Labor & Cuts a Record

  Phombus Pucker. with his big fat grin. his hole in the head. his matter of fact knowledge of zen firecrackers. his little white lies. his visions of sugar plums. his dishwater hands/ Phombus Tucker. with his bulldog wit. his theories on atomic nipples. his beard & his backache/ Bombus Thucker. with his soft boiled stovepipe. his aloneness & aloofness. his hatred for crap/ Longus Bucker. with his numbers & decimals. with his own special originality … spent hours & hours carving his name in the sand. when all of a sudden, a wave’s commotion washed him & his name right into the ocean (ho ho ho)

  look, you know i dont wanna

  come on ungrateful, but that

  warren report, you know as well

  as me, just didn’t make it. you know.

  like they might as well have

  asked some banana salesman from

  des moines, who was up in toronto

  on the big day, if he saw anyone

  around looking suspicious/ or better

  yet, they just coulda come & asked me

  what i saw/ the doctors say i gotta tumor

  coming up tho, so i got more important things

  to do than to be bothered with straightening

  out this whole mess … while youre down

  there, see if you can get me murph the

  surf’s a
utograph

  bye for now

  your lightingman

  Sledge

  Advice to Tiger’s Brother

  you are in the rainstorm now where your cousins seek raw glory near the bridge & the lumberjacks tell you of exploring the red sea … you fill your hat with rum & heave it into the face of hailstone & not expect anything new to be born … dogs wag their tails good-bye to you & robin hood watches you from a stained glass window … the opera singers will sing of YOUR forest & YOUR cities & you shall stand alone but not make ceremony … an old wrinkled prospector will appear & he will NOT say to you “dont be possessive! dont wish to be remembered!” he will just be looking for his geiger counter & his name wont be Moses & dont count yourself lucky for not interfering—it is petty … do not count yourself lucky

  hi. just a note to say that ever

  since the robbery, things’ve

  kinda quiet down. altho theo’s

  kidnappers havent returned him

  yet, dad got promoted to den

  mother, so things are not all

  going downhill/ mom joined the

  future fathers of alaska. really

  likes it/ you oughta see little

  dumbbell. he’s nearly two now.

  talks like a fish & is already

  starting to look like a cigar/

  see you on your birthday

  big brother

  Dunk

  p.s. adolph got you a trick piece of puke which you put on the table & just watch the girls throw up

  On Watching the Riot from a Filthy Cell

  or

  (The Jailhouse Has No Kitchen)

  standing on a bullet holed volkswagen, a bearded leprechaun & he’s wearing a topless mafia cape—holding up some burning green stamps & he speaks out to the automobile graveyard “four score & seven beers ago” & then he say “etcetera” but his voice is drowned out by mickey mantle hitting a grand slam … the mayor of the city, with alka seltzer, climbs down from a limousine & asks “who the hell is that leppo?” when a thousand angry tourists trample over him all donning baseball gloves & here comes the squad/ “just who the hell are you?” speaks a garbage disposal “i’m cole younger. gave my horse to the pony express. other’n that, i’m just like you” a rousing cheer & the ball crashes thru the fire box “i work for the city. before i swat you you’d best tell me your occupation” “i’m an actor. tomorrow & tomorrow & tomorrow lights this petty grace from blow to blow like a poor stagehand pounding fury signifying nothing. oh romeo, romeo, wherefor fart thou? pretty good huh?” “i work for the city, i’ll trample you with my horse” “wanna hear some oedipus?” but beneath the underground, Blind Andy Lemon & his friend, Lip, sing rabbit foot blues in spurs & light pullover design by Chung of paris—theyre standing in a fish bowl & everybody’s throwing marbles at them … outside, however, after the tear gas disappears, we find that the leprechaun’s got his hand in a bandage & his beard’s gone & the mayor, we find out, is home making urgent phone calls to cardinal spellman/ it has been a long time nite & everybody has had lots of contact … i am ready for the cradle. the desert is full of cattle