there’s a loneliness there: they all want to be accepted

in one way or another,

they want to be listened to, and that’s understandable but

I am one of those human beings who would rather sit quietly

with my wife and 6 cats (or I like to sit upstairs alone

doing nothing).

the idea is that I am selfish and that people

diminish me; the longer I sit and listen to them

the more empty I feel but I don’t get

the idea that they feel empty, I feel

that they enjoy the sound from their

mouths.

and when they leave almost all make a little gesture

toward a future visit.

my wife is nice, makes them feel warm as they exit, she’s

a good soul, so good a soul that when, say, we eat out and

choose a table she takes a seat where she can “see the

people” and I take a seat where I can’t.

all right, so I was forged by the devil: all

humankind disinterests me and no, it’s not fear although

certain things about them are fearful, and it’s not

competition because I don’t want

anything that they want, it’s just that

in all those hours of

voices voices voices

I hear nothing either essentially kind or daring or noble,

and not the least bit worth all the time shot through

the head.

you can remember when you used to run them out into the

night instead of letting them wind themselves

down,

those with their lonely wish for company, and you are

ashamed of yourself for putting up with their mostly pure

crap

but otherwise your wife would say

“do you think that you are the only person living on

earth?”

you see, that’s where the devil’s got

me.

so I listen and they are

fulfilled.

old

I see the old men at the racetrack, they are bent, carry

canes, their hands tremble, I ride up the escalators with

them.

we don’t speak.

I am older than most of them and I wonder why

the lights are out for them?

do they still hope to win the Pulitzer Prize or to cup the

breasts of young maidens in their

hands?

why don’t they just finish and die?

I’m ready to go any damned time, I’ll even take them

with me, 2 or 3 of them, or a half-dozen, a dozen:

their wrinkled white skins and their ill-fitting

dentures,

let them stiffen up and clear the space for clean

fresh lightning!

what good to linger?

for the bedpan last chapter?

for the nurse with the television mind, half the weight

of her body in flanks and buttocks?

why honor the old?

it’s just the stubbornness of genes, a trick to keep

a void existing.

almost all have lived lives of obedience and

cowardliness.

why not honor the young?

their lives are just beginning to rot.

why honor anybody?