this poet had long been famous
and after some decades of
obscurity I
got lucky
and this poet appeared
interested
and asked me to his
beach apartment.
he was homosexual and I was
straight, and worse, a
lush.

I came by, looked
about and
declaimed (as if I didn't
know), "hey, where the
fuck are the
babes?”

he just smiled and stroked
his mustache.

he had little lettuces and
delicate cheeses and
other dainties
in his refrigerator.
"where you keep your fucking
beer, man?" I
asked.

it didn't matter, I had
brought my own
bottles and I began upon
them.

he began to look
alarmed: "I've heard about
your brutality, please 
desist from
that!”

I flopped down on his
couch, belched, 
laughed: “ah, shit, baby, I'm
not gonna hurt ya! ha, ha,
ha!”

"you are a fine writer," he
said, "but as a person you are
utterly
despicable!”

"that's what I like about me
best, baby!" I
continued to pour them
down.

at once
he seemed to vanish behind
some sliding wooden
doors.

"hey, baby, come on
out! I ain't gonna do no
bad! we can sit around and
talk that dumb literary
bullshit all night
long! I won't
brutalize you,
shit, I
promise!”

"I don't trust you,"
came the little
voice.

well, there was nothing to
do
but slug it down, I was
too drunk to drive
home.
 


when I awakened in the
morning he was standing over
me
smiling.

"uh," I said,
“hi..."

"did you mean what you
said last night? he
asked.

"uh, what wuz
ut?”

"I slid the doors back and
stood there and you saw
me and you said that
I looked like I was riding the
prow of some great sea
ship... you said that
I looked like a
Norseman! is
that true?”

"oh, yeah, yeah, you
did…"

he fixed me some hot tea
with toast
and I got that
down.

"well," I said, "good to
have met
you…"

"I'm sure," he
answered.

the door closed behind
me
and I found the elevator
down
and
after some wandering about the
beach front
I found my car, got
in, drove off
on what appeared to be
favorable terms
between the famous poet and
myself
but
it wasn't
so:

he started writing un-
believably hateful stuff
about
me
and I
got my shots in at
him.

the whole matter
was just about
like
most other writers
meeting
 
and
anyhow
that part about
calling him a
Norseman
wasn't true at
all: I called him
a 
Viking

and it also
isn't true
that without his
aid
I never would have
appeared in the
Penguin Collection of
Modern Poets
along with him
and who
was it?

yeah:
Lamantia.