Mockingbird Wish Me Luck Read Online Free PDF Page A

there
    for non-payment of rent and I signed on with a
    track gang going West—the windows wouldn’t open
    and the seats and sides of the cars were 100 years old with
    dust. they gave us cans of food but no openers
    and we busted the cans against the side of the seats
    ate raw hash, raw lima beans
    the water tasted like candlewick
    and I leaped out under a line of trees in the middle of
    Texas, some small town, and the police found me asleep
    on a park bench and put me in a cell with only a crapper,
    no water, no sink, and they questioned me about robberies and
    murders,
    under a hot light
    and getting nothing
    they drove me to the next town 17 miles away
    the big one kicked me in the ass
    and after a good night’s sleep
    I went into the local library
    where the young lady librarian seemed to take an interest in my
    reading habits
    and later we went to bed
    and I woke up with teethmarks all over me and I said,
    Christ, watch it, baby, you might give me
    cancer!
     
 
    you’re an idiot, she said.
     
 
    I suppose that I
    was.
     

radio
     
     
    strange eyes in my head
    I’m the coward and the fool and the clown
    and I listen to a man telling me that I can get a
    restaurant guide and an expanding cultural events calendar
     
 
    I’m just not here today
    I don’t want restaurants and expanding cultural events
    I want an old shack in the hills
    rent free
    with enough to eat and drink until I die
     
 
    strange eyes in my head
    strange ways
     
 
    no chance
     

ariel
     
     
    oh my god, oh my dear god
    that we should end up
    on the end of a rope
    in some slimy bathroom
    far from Paris,
    far from thighs that care,
    our feet hanging down
    above the simplicity
    of stained tile,
    telephone ringing,
    letters unopened,
    dogs pissing in the street…
     
 
    greater men than I
    have failed to agree with Life.
     
 
    I wish you could have met my brother, Marty:
    vicious, intelligent, endearing,
    doing
    quite well.
     

the passing of a dark gray moment
     
     
    Standing here,
    doing what?
    as exposed as an azalea
    to a bee.
     
 
    Where’s the axman,
    where’s it done?
     
 
    They tiptoe round
    on rotting wood,
    peeking into shelves.
    Summertime!
     
 
    Where’s the sun,
    where’s the sea?
     
 
    The god’s are gone!
    Everything hums
    with humble severity…
    they wipe their faces
    with cotton and rags
    —and wait for morning.
     
 
    Where’s the fire,
    where’s the burn?
     
 
    Rain-spouts ! and rats
    printing dirge-notes in ashes…
    a voice plows my brain:
    “the gods are dead.”
     
 
    Where’s the time,
    where’s the place?
     
 
    Somewhat eased, extinguished,
    I listen behind me
    to my bird eating seed,
    hoping he’ll chitter
    and peep some pink
    back into white elbows.
    I love that bird,
    the simple needing of seed, so clear:
     
 
    A god can be anything
    that’s needed right away.
    The sound of aircraft overhead
    winging a man…
    stronger now, not yet pure,
    but moving away the dread.
     

consummation of grief
     
     
    I even hear the mountains
    the way they laugh
    up and down their blue sides
    and down in the water
    the fish cry
    and all the water
    is their tears.
    I listen to the water
    on nights I drink away
    and the sadness becomes so great
    I hear it in my clock
    it becomes knobs upon my dresser
    it becomes paper on the floor
    it becomes a shoehorn
    a laundry ticket
    it becomes
    cigarette smoke
    climbing a chapel of dark vines…
     
 
    it matters little
     
 
    very little love is not so bad
    or very little life
     
 
    what counts
    is waiting on walls
    I was born for this
     
 
    I was born to hustle roses down the avenues of the dead.
     

those sons of bitches
     
     
    the dead come running sideways
    holding toothpaste ads,
    the dead are drunk on New Year’s eve
    satisfied at Christmas
    thankful on Thanksgiving
    bored on the 4th of July
    loafing on Labor Day
    confused at Easter
    cloudy at funerals
    clowning at hospitals
    nervous at birth;
    the dead shop for stockings and shorts
    and