or perhaps

gnawed at by the

curious

mice.

Brahms is the only

friend you have,

the only friend you

want,

him and the wine

bottle,

as you realize that

you will never

be a citizen of the

world,

and if you

live to be very

old

you still will never

be a citizen of the

world.

the wine and

Brahms mix well as

you watch the

lights

move across the

ceiling,

courtesy of

passing

automobiles.

soon you’ll sleep

and

tomorrow there

certainly

will be

more

masterpieces.

the Kenyon Review and other matters

it was good being young but I didn’t know it, a starving

jackass, stubborn beyond reason, reading that

tower of practiced literary horror, the Kenyon Review.

somehow I admired their gamesmanship, their snobby word

play, their inbred docility.

I was lower class, depraved, a spectacle, a dissolute

slave

yet I was oddly charmed by their petty jousting, their

safe anger, their shield of learnedness;

to read this journal and others and then return to my small

room or the bars of night (most often that) to meet

another breed—club-fisted, bleary-eyed, cantankerous,

grubby, and joining them in their downward dance.

drink tempered our defeat, it warmed us, it heated us.

our only challenge was ourselves, no one would have

anything to do with us.

rallied and maddened by drink, I tested these in the

alleys, these bulls, these bears, these dumb bastards,

and they were good at war and I was not so bad.

it was a doing, a going on, nothing else.

our space was small and a bit unkind.

the next day to return to the library with a shut eye,

a swollen lip, skinned fingers, a wrist that hurt and

flamed like hell.

to turn more pages, to find them thinner and thinner, less

and less, like gossamer wings that would not hold

strong light, I was caught between nowhere and nowhere, I

sat at that library table caught between suicide and

acquiescence

I was no longer young; I was older than the centuries.

I closed the last book, the last magazine then.

I walked out of there.

the streets were all I saw.

I walked into

them.

big night on the town

drunk on the dark streets of some city,

it’s night, you’re lost, where’s your

room?

you enter a bar to find yourself,

order scotch and water.

damned bar’s sloppy wet, it soaks

one of your shirt

sleeves.

it’s a clip joint—the scotch is weak.

you order a bottle of beer.

Madame Death walks up to you

wearing a dress.

she sits down, you buy her a

beer, she stinks of swamps, presses

a leg against you.

the bartender sneers.

you’ve got him worried, he doesn’t

know if you’re a cop, a killer, a

madman or an

idiot.

you ask for a vodka.

you pour the vodka into the top of

the beer bottle.