the inside of bedpans and they write the same way.)

I like my nights with Celine’s photos,

classical music, cigars, red wine and the

computer.

Celine watches over me as I drink, type, listen to music

and smoke the cigars; we have a great time together as

other people are bowling, sleeping, watching tv, arguing,

screwing, eating, doing all those

dumb things and others.

and now here

the words fly like crazy sparrows in a storm, Shostakovich

bellows from the radio, as the cigar smoke whirls to the left and

out

the door and into a night as dark as red wine.

hello Celine…Celine…you dog…we endure the pain

of centuries…but we can laugh…sometimes. here

among your photos the

dark luck is good.

upon reading a critical review

it’s difficult to accept

and you look around the room

for the person they are talking

about.

he’s not there.

he’s not here.

he’s gone.

by the time they get to your books you

are no longer in your

books.

you are on the next page,

in your next

book.

and worse,

they don’t even get the old books right.

you are given credit you don’t

deserve, for insights that aren’t

there.

people read themselves into books, altering

what they need and discarding what they

don’t.

good critics are as rare as good

writers.

and whether I get a good review or a

bad one

I can take neither

seriously.

I am on the next page.

in the next book.

the beautiful lady

we are gathered here now

to bury her in this

poem.

she did not marry an unemployed wino who

beat her every

night.

her several children will never wear

snot-stained shirts

or torn dresses.

the beautiful lady

simply

calmly

died.

and may the clean dirt of this poem

bury

her.

her and her womb

and her jewels

and her combs and her

poems

and her pale blue eyes

and her

grinning

rich

frightened

husband.

black

there are nights so bad

that the fingers on the

keys are

useless

and you might as well

cover the

machine,

might as well

sit in a chair,

go to

bed,

wait on life,

wait on death,

wait on change.

literature is

just no damned

good

now,

yours or

anybody

else’s.

my style

I watch the jocks come out in the post parade

and one will win the race, the others will lose

but each jock must win sometime in some race

on some day, and he must do it often enough

or he is no longer a jockey.

it’s like each of us sitting over a typewriter

tonight or tomorrow or next week or next month.

it’s like the girls on the street trying to score

for their pimps

and they have to do it often enough

or they are no longer whores

and we have to do it often enough