There are days when that is the last place
in the world where you want to be but you
have to be there, like a movie, because it
     features you. 

Hva er noe av det tristeste som finnes (der er det igjen, det tristeste, og denne gangen ikke fuglerelatert)? Cirka-datoer for dødsfall. Men slik er det, i alle fall. Født trettiende januar nittentrettifem (tretti én trettifem), død kanskje, antageligvis, mest sannsynlig fjortende september nittenåttifire (fjorten ni åttifire, en fonetisk utilfredsstillende dato) for egen hånd, et skudd til hodet, slik følsomme menn dør, utrydder sin egen brutalitet og alt det pusete innenfor samtidig. Ti romaner og over fem hundre dikt.

Det er en greie med beat-generasjonen: Jeg klarer ikke lese noen av romanene deres uten å få lyst til å kolonisere en annen planet, med andre folk og andre romaner i stedet for lefsete og tilsynelatende uendelige runkesesjoner/bevissthetsstrømmer fra folk med en betydelig diskrepans mellom produksjon og personlighet (Bukowski, liksom). Litteraturens svar på frijazz. Mitt jazzhat er betydelig og jeg har alltid vært en ganske voldsom person. Jeg blir sint og lite sjenerøst innstilt. For en svindel.
Men diktene, de leser jeg. Nå skal du få lese dem også.

"For Fear You Will Be Alone"
For fear you will be alone
you do so many things
that aren't you at all. 

"The Last Surprise"
The last surprise is when you come
gradually to realize that nothing
     surprises you any more. 

"Heroine of the Time Machine"
When she was fifteen if you'd told her
that when she was twenty she'd be going
to bed with bald-headed men and liking it,
she would have thought you very abstract. 

"Karma Repair Kit: Items 1-4"
1. Get enough food to eat,
    and eat it.

2. Find a place to sleep where it is quiet,
    and sleep there.

3. Reduce intellectual activity and emotional noise
    until you arrive at the silence of yourself,
    and listen to it.

4. 

"I Live in the Twentieth Century"
For Marcia

I live in the Twentieth Century
and you lie here beside me. You
were unhappy when you fell asleep.
There was nothing I could do about
it. I felt helpless. Your face
is so beautiful that I cannot stop
to describe it, and there's nothing
I can do to make you happy while
     you sleep.

"The Memoirs of Jesse James"
I remember all those thousands of hours
that I spent in grade school watching the clock,
waiting for recess or lunch or to go home.
     Waiting: for anything but school.
My teachers could easily have ridden with Jesse James
     for all the time they stole from me.

"—2"
Everybody wants to go to bed
with everybody else, they're
lined up for blocks, so I'll
go to bed with you. They won't
miss us. 

"All Girls Should Have a Poem"
                    For Valerie

All girls should have a poem
written for them even if
we have to turn this God-damn world
upside down to do it.

                    New Mexico
                    March 16, 1969 

"Please"
Do you think of me
as often as I think
     of you? 

"It Was Your Idea to Go to Bed with Her"
Snowflaked as if by an invisible polar bear
     —unlucky bastard,
you're sitting on the fender of her kisses
while she drives the car down into the
     perfect center of ice. 

"Late Starting Dawn"
It's a late starting dawn that breathes my vision,
inhales and exhales the sound of waking birds
and pokes ten miles of cold gray sky at a deer
     standing alone in a meadow. 

"The Alarm-Colored Shadow of a Frightened Ant"
The alarm-colored shadow of a frightened ant
wants to make friends with you, learn all about
your childhood, cry together, come live with
     you. 

"Deer Tracks"
Beautiful, sobbing, high-geared fucking
and then to lie silently like deer tracks
in the freshly-fallen snow beside the one
     you love. That’s all.

"Taxi Drivers Look Different from Their Photographs"
There is no difference
between Tokyo and New York.
These men do not look
like their photographs.
These are different men.
I'm not being fooled in the
least. Complete strangers drive
     these cabs.

                    Tokyo
                    May 28, 1976 

"Real Estate"
I have emotions
that are like newspapers that
     read themselves.

I go for days at a time
trapped in the want ads.

I feel as if I am an ad
for the sale of a haunted house:

     18 rooms
     $37,000
     I'm yours
     ghosts and all.

                    Tokyo
                    June 2, 1976 

"The Past Cannot Be Returned"
The umbilical cord
cannot be refastened
and life flow through it
     again.

Our tears never totally
     dry.

Our first kiss is now a ghost,
haunting our mouths as they
     fade toward
     oblivion.

                    Tokyo
                    June 19, 1976
                    with a few words
                    added in Montana
                    July 12, 1976 

"Right Beside the Morning Coffee"
If I write this down now, I
will have it in the morning.
The question is: Do I want
to start the day off with
     this?