The Last Night of the Earth Poems Read Online Free PDF Page A

nothing
    to do
    at the moment.
    this fucking
    Scotch is
    great.
    let’s play
    Scrabble.

before Aids
     
     
    I’m glad I got to them
    all, I’m glad I got so many of them
    in.
 
    I flipped them
    poked them
    gored them.
 
    so many high-heeled shoes
    under my bed
    it looked like a January
    Clearance Sale.
 
    the cheap hotel rooms,
    the drunken fights,
    the phones ringing,
    the walls banging
 
    I was
    wild
    red-eyed
    big-balled
    unshaven
    poor
    foul-mouthed
    I laughed
    plenty
 
    and I picked them off
    the barstools
    like
    ripe plums.
 
    dirty sheets
    bad whiskey
    bad breath
    cheap cigars
    and to hell with the next
    morning.
 
    I always slept with my
    wallet under my
    pillow
    bedded down with the
    depressed and the
    crazies.
 
    I was barred from half the
    hotels in
    Los Angeles.
 
    I’m glad I got to them all,
    I plugged and banged and
    sang and
    some of them
    sang with me
    on those glorious
    3 a.m. mornings.
    when the cops
    arrived, that was
    grand,
    we barricaded the doors
    and taunted
    them
    and they never waited around
    until noon
    (checking-out time) to
    arrest us,
    we weren’t that
    important
 
    but
    I thought we were
    walking toward the bar,
    and what a place the bar was
    around noon, so quiet and
    empty,
    a place to begin
    again,
    to buck up with a quiet
    beer,
    looking out across at the
    park
    with the ducks over there
    and the tall trees
    over there.
 
    so,
    always broke but always
    money from somewhere,
    I waited
    getting ready to
    plug and bang and poke
    and sing again
    in those good old times
    in those very very very
    good old times
    before Aids.

hunk of rock
     
     
    Nina was the hardest of them
    all,
    the worst woman I had known
    up to that moment
    and I was sitting in front of
    my secondhand black and white
    tv
    watching the news
    when I heard a suspicious
    sound in the kitchen
    and I ran out there
    and saw her with
    a full bottle of whiskey—
    a 5th—
    and she had it and
    was headed for the back porch
    door
    but I caught her and
    grabbed at the bottle.
    “give me that bottle, you
    fucking whore!”
    and we wrestled for the
    bottle
    and let me tell you
    she gave me a good fight
    for it
    but
    I got it away from her
    and I told her to
    get her ass out of
    there.
    she lived in the same place
    in the back
    upstairs.
 
    I locked the door
    took the bottle and a
    glass
    went out to the couch
    sat down and
    opened the bottle and
    poured myself a good
    one.
 
    I shut off the tv and
    sat there
    thinking about what a
    hard number
    Nina was.
    I came up with
    at least
    a dozen lousy things
    she had done
    to me.
 
    what a whore.
    what a hunk of rock.
 
    I sat there drinking
    the whiskey
    and wondering
    what I was doing
    with Nina.
 
    then there was a
    knock on the
    door.
    it was Nina’s friend,
    Helga.
 
    “where’s Nina?”
    she asked.
 
    “she tried to steal
    my whiskey, I
    ran her ass
    out of here.”
    “she said to meet
    her here.”
 
    “what for?”
 
    “she said me and her
    were going to do it
    in front of you
    for $50.”
 
    “$25.”
 
    “she said $50.”
 
    “well, she’s not
    here…want a
    drink?”
 
    “sure…”
 
    I got Helga a glass
    poured her a
    whiskey.
    she took a
    hit.
 
    “maybe,” she said,
    “I ought to go get
    Nina.”
 
    “I don’t want to see
    her.”
 
    “why not?”
 
    “she’s a whore.”
 
    Helga finished her
    drink and I poured
    her another.
    she took a
    hit.
 
    “Benny calls me a
    whore, I’m no
    whore.”
 
    Benny was the guy
    she was shacked
    with.
 
    “I know you’re no
    whore, Helga.”
 
    “thanks. Ain’t ya got no
    music?”
 
    “just the radio…”
 
    she saw it
    got up
    turned it
    on.
    some music came
    blaring out.
 
    Helga began to
    dance
    holding her whiskey
    glass in one
    hand.
    she wasn’t a good
    dancer
    she looked
    ridiculous.
 
    she stopped
    drained her drink
    rolled her glass along the
    rug
    then ran toward
    me
    dropped to her knees
    unzipped me
    and then
    she was down
    there
    doing tricks.
 
    I drained