not much to hang onto in this early morning growling,
my wife, poor dear, downstairs,
I am at the racetrack all day and
up here all night with the bottle and
this machine.
my wife, poor dear, may she find her place
in heaven.

then too
the few people that I have
known, the people I thought had that
little extra flare
that inventive humanity, well, they
dissolved
but
being a natural loner
I am not over-
distraught--
there are still my 5
cats: Ting, Ding, Becker, Bleeker and
Blob.
not much to hang on to in this early morning growling
I am now a
supposedly famous
writer
influencing hordes of
typists.
would
that I could
laugh
at all
this.
Fame is the last whore, all the others are
gone.

well, the competition ain’t been
much
but that’s no hair off my
wrists: I realized all that
long ago while
starving and
pissing out the
window
while smashing waterglasses of
booze against the behind-in-the-
rent
walls.

Ting, Ding, Becker, Bleeker and
Blob.

now Death is a plant growing in my
mind

not much to hang on to in this early morning growling

I am sad for the dead and I am sad for the living
but not for my 5 cats or
for my wife, my wife who will
find her place in
heaven.

and as for the people
dissolved
I didn’t dissolve them, they dissolved
themselves.

and that the sidewalks are empty while
full of feet
passing—
this is the working of the
way.
not much to hang on to
as
a man plays a piano
through my radio and
the walls
stand up and
down

as the courage of everything
even the fleas
the lice
the tarantula
astounds me
in this early morning
growling.