The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills Read Online Free PDF Page A

Mar
     
     
    I get on the train on the way to the track
    it’s down near Dago
    and this gives some space and rolling and
    I have my pint
    and I walk to the barcar for a couple of
    beers
    and I weave upon the floor—
    THACK THACK THACKA THACK THACK THACKA THACK—
    and some of it comes back
    a little of it comes back
    like some green in a leaf after a long
    dryness
     
 
    and the sun crashes into the barcar like a
    bull and the bartender sees that
    I am feeling good
    he smiles a real smile and
    asks—
    “How’s it going?”
     
 
    how’s it going? my heels are down
    my shoes cracked
    I am wearing my father’s pants and he died
    10 years ago
    I need 8 teeth pulled
    my intestine has a partial blockage
    I puff on a dime cigar
     
 
    “Great!” I answer him,
    “how you making?”
    glory glory glory and the train rolls on
    past the sea
    past the sand and
    down in between the
    cliffs.
     

I thought of ships, of armies, hanging on…
     
     
    I have practiced death for so long
    and still I have not learned it,
    and tonight I came in
    and my goldfish was not in his bowl,
    he had leaped
    for reasons of his own
    (I had changed the water; it might have been
    a fly…)
    and he was now on the rug
    with black spots upon his golden body,
    and he was still and he was stiff
    but I put him back in the water
    (some sound told me to do this)
    and I seemed to see the gills move,
    a large air bubble formed
    but the body was still stiff
    but miraculously
    it did not float flat—
    the tail part was down in the water,
    and I thought of ships, of armies,
    hanging on,
    and then I saw the small fins
    near the underside of the head
    move
    and I sat down on the couch
    and tried to read,
    tried not to think
    that the woman who had given me these fish
    was now dead 6 months,
    the world going on past living things
    now no longer living,
    and the other fish had died.
    he had overeaten, he had eaten his meal
    and most of the meal of the small one,
    and now the woman was gone
    and the small one was stiff,
    and an hour later
    when I got up
    he floated flat and finished;
    his eyes looking up at me did not look at me
    but into places I could not see,
    and the slave carried the master,
    this goldfish with black spots
    and dumped him into the toilet
    and flushed him away.
     
 
    I put the bowl in the corner
    and thought, I really cannot stand
    much more of this.
     
 
    dead fish, dead ladies, dead wars.
     
 
    it does seem a miracle to see anybody alive
    and now somebody on the radio is playing
    a guitar very slowly and I think, yes,
    he too: his fingers, his hands, his mind,
    and his music goes on but it is very still
    it is very quiet, and I am tired.
     

war and piece
     
     
    all the efforts of the Spanish to effect peace
    were in vain and Domenico came over the hill
    and shot the white chicken and raped the woman
    in the hut, and then he rode up the road
    noticing the pink anemones, the lazy toads,
    and when he got to town he ate a hot tamale,
    and through the window he saw the fleet
    and the fleet put its guns even with the town,
    he saw that, and in came a wind of fire,
    and in the smoke he grabbed the cigarette girl
    and raped her, then he got back on his mule
    which stepped carefully over the dead
    and he rode back to the village where his own hut
    still stood, and the old lady was outside
    rubbing clothes on rocks by the stream,
    and in the air came the planes
    looking them over
    banking their wings
    and finally deciding
    that they were not worth the bombs,
    they left
    like large undecided butterflies,
    and Domenico went inside and fell
    upon the floor
    and the old lady came in
    wiggling what was left,
    and he said, war is a horrible thing,
    and he wondered if anybody would ever bother to rape her,
    he would not stop them, they
    could have it, not much there, nothing,
    and he decided that sleep was better than nothing
    and he went to sleep.
     

18 cars full of men thinking of what could have been
     
     
    driving in from the track
    I saw