New Poems Book Three Read Online Free PDF Page A

just
    one more winner, and we need them to help us
    forget all the things that haven’t worked out for us
    in the past, especially all the bad bets
    what counts is to endure, what counts
    is not to remember that the whole western slope
    of the U.S.A. is going to fall into the Pacific Ocean
    one day soon
    and that there was never any real need to cultivate your
    garden or to send your daughter to
    Radcliffe.
    I like to watch those fellows, they are
    like a Broadway musical, only it’s not
    Guys and Dolls
it’s
Guys and Guys
, they
    are all fine fellows, the wavering line of
    them, and even the most beautiful woman in the
    world would mean nothing to them
    because they have learned the hard way
    that that kind of thing only
    exists for other people, and there’s
    just no use wondering how things got that way or
    why.
    I watch the best Broadway musical
    every day from the best seat in the
    house and I am the author and the critic and the
    audience and sometimes I’m on stage
    too.

THE ROAD TO HELL
    if only there were more magic people
    to help us get through
    this strange life.
    surprisingly there are a few.
    the problem being that often
    their magic doesn’t hold up
    for long
    mainly
    because they begin to
    think it’s because
    they are special
    when really
    it’s almost an off-hand thing
    like some damned crazy unearned
    gift.
    and when the magic people
    begin to misuse their
    prowess
    begin to use it
    in the wrong ways
    then
    it
    vanishes
    and
    that’s a
    LAW
    and
    it’s one of the most
    unalterable laws
    of the gods and the
    universe
    and there is
    nothing sadder
    or more
    frightening
    than the once-gifted ones
    still trying to work their
    magic
    for the
    crowd
    which never offers,
    but only
    accepts,
    mercy.

CRUCIFIXION
    now we must select with extreme caution our lovers,
    water, foodstuffs and even our invisible
    air.
    it is a very careful time.
    our politicians consider ways to dismantle
    the worldwide stockpile of bombs
    all too late, of course, since it only takes one fool to
    push one button
    somewhere.
    we draw close together, frightened, searching for a return
    to a safe
    womb.
    but we must have been wrong for too long. the asylums overflow and spill their
    detritus into our streets
    and where our leaders once spoke wisely
    they now speak gibberish—
    they stop, then continue, look about, addled,
    substituting insane slogans for real
    speech.
    this is the price we now pay: we can’t go
    back, we can’t go forward and we hang helpless, nailed to a
    world
    of our own
    making.

BARFLY
    Jane, who has been dead for 31 years,
    never could have
    imagined that I would write a screenplay of our drinking
    days together
    and
    that it would be made into a movie
    and
    that a beautiful movie star would play her
    part.
    I can hear Jane now: “A beautiful movie star? oh,
    for Christ’s sake!”
    Jane, that’s show biz, so go back to sleep, dear, because
    no matter how hard they tried they
    just
couldn’t
find anybody exactly like
    you.
    and neither can
    I.

PART 2.
    bone-dead sorrows
    like starfish washed ashore.

THOUGHTS WHILE EATING A SANDWICH
    we demand that our leaders possess
    a certain clever charm, a certain mild wisdom, but no madness,
    at least not madness at its
    best.
    maybe the energy is just not there anymore, maybe
    not only is the air polluted, maybe the brain has been
    poisoned, maybe the human spirit has been
    diluted down to a dim imitation of
    itself
    until anybody who appears half-right half-the-time is
    almost always accepted as our new
    hero-leader.
    it is more and more difficult—no, it’s just damned
    impossible—to accept and admire those who are
    deemed great in our time.
    they all
    are suspect
    they all seem to lack:
    nobility
    originality
    intelligence
    honesty
    and especially that which is most needed:
    a simple, good heart.
    just bones and more bones
    bleaching in the sun.
    they say that nothing is wasted:
    either that
    or
    it all is.

NOTHING’S FREE
    got this letter
    where she