by Jonathan Shaw

i walk away
i think i got it beat
this system of dots and corners
as i get in my car
shivering
driving home
to crawl between the sheets
where my lover sleeps
and she’s got it beat too i think this system
as she sleeps
i draw close to embrace her
but she wakes up sharply
she pulls away

Dinosauria, by Charles Bukowski

Born like this
Into this
As the chalk faces smile
As Mrs. Death laughs
As the elevators break
As political landscapes dissolve
As the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree
As the oily fish spit out their oily prey
As the sun is masked
We are
Born like this
Into this
Into these carefully mad wars
Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
Into bars where people no longer speak to each other
Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings
Born into this
Into hospitals which are so expensive that it’s cheaper to die
Into lawyers who charge so much it’s cheaper to plead guilty
Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes
Born into this
Walking and living through this
Dying because of this
Muted because of this
Castrated
Debauched
Disinherited
Because of this
Fooled by this
Used by this
Pissed on by this
Made crazy and sick by this
Made violent
Made inhuman
By this
The heart is blackened
The fingers reach for the throat
The gun
The knife
The bomb
The fingers reach toward an unresponsive god
The fingers reach for the bottle
The pill
The powder
We are born into this sorrowful deadliness
We are born into a government 60 years in debt
That soon will be unable to even pay the interest on that debt
And the banks will burn
Money will be useless
There will be open and unpunished murder in the streets
It will be guns and roving mobs
Land will be useless
Food will become a diminishing return
Nuclear power will be taken over by the many
Explosions will continually shake the earth
Radiated robot men will stalk each other
The rich and the chosen will watch from space platforms
Dante’s Inferno will be made to look like a children’s playground
The sun will not be seen and it will always be night
Trees will die
All vegetation will die
Radiated men will eat the flesh of radiated men
The sea will be poisoned
The lakes and rivers will vanish
Rain will be the new gold
The rotting bodies of men and animals will stink in the dark wind
The last few survivors will be overtaken by new and hideous diseases
And the space platforms will be destroyed by attrition
The petering out of supplies
The natural effect of general decay
And there will be the most beautiful silence never heard
Born out of that.
The sun still hidden there
Awaiting the next chapter.

OLD MAN — 1971

I wonder what it would be like
if this house was like it was in
that picture I took of it
in 1920 crisp and new
if things were still like that
the city was no more than a
sleeping dream phantom
then.

The streets so quiet and subdued
and routine was a beauty, an adventure
in itself
not just another nail in
yer goddamn coffin.

I lay back on the bed and stare at
the walls and ceiling around me,
walls and ceiling withered and tired
from age and neglect… and routine
like me.

I am tired.
I close my eyes
no! not ready to die yet
maybe tomorrow
but not just now
I have found something to dream of again.
I will put off my death
for another day.
I’m sure nobody will mind. Just one more day…
now I will
dream, and I will forget about that
old man lying on my bed like a fucking corpse.
He doesn’t matter now…

I am a boy. Thirteen years old in October. I live here with my mom and pop and my brother and sister too. They’re both eleven, twins, they are. Mom and Pop are okay except when Pop comes home drunk boy, the old man sure can tie one on. And then, boy howdy look out! John- that’s my little brother- he’s a pretty good sport… sometimes. Sis is okay too I guess. you know how it is with little sisters. It’s real early in the morning now. Probably wont be light for another hour. I been layin’ awake here waiting an waiting and it’s been so quiet I could hear a cat runnin a mile away. Now I hear something coming from way off down the street and I’m listenin for a long time until it’s right up next to the back door. It’s just the milkman but I know it won’t be long now till Jimmy gets here. Jimmy’s my best friend. He’ll come over soon and I’ll sneak out the window and I won’t have to get back for breakfast till nine cause it’s Sunday morning and then go to church at ten. That’s alot of time. The milkman’s finished with the bottles and I can hear him driving away now down the street. Now something’s moving through the bushes outside my window real slow and quiet but I can hear it anyway cause I been waiting. Jimmy. I’m out of bed now moving as fast as I can but real quiet so nobody will hear me. By the time I hear a tap at the window, I’ll have my trousers on and be tying up my sneakers…

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 1971, 2009.

Late at night all was silent in the neighborhood
only the steady breathing
beside the neighbors
in their sleeping beds
and they noticed the sounds again

“Oh Jim, these last few months have been the happiest of my life!”
“Yada yada, warden: Come in an’ get me! Hah hah hah hahahahah!”

James Cagney?
Edward G Robertson?
What?
Why?

the neighbors sit bolt upright as from
a nightmare
not to sleep again
until the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
cuts loose
with the national anthem
by the dawn’s early
light.

And they woke up late
bleary-eyed
and wondering
wondering at the music
which fairly crept into their Wheaties
Sunday morning
Church music
Gospel music
Sunday morning television sermon music
and the slow mournful moan of a pipe organ
from the house next door
just like Aunt Agnes’ funeral dirge.
But Aunt Agnes was dead and gone
dead and gone…

strange goings on
behind the door
of that broken down house across the street
from dusk till dawn
for three days

And for awhile nobody really noticed
much
what with the summer days so long
and spent away from home
most of the time
and even the kids mostly too preoccupied
with the ice-cream truck melodies
too preoccupied
to snoop around
the neighborhood
unearthing amazing facts
and fantasies…

All through the day and into the nights
spent before their own tv’s
nobody really noticed
the strange goings on of
Walter Cronkite
with the network news
or Edward G. Robinson and
most everyone was far asleep by then
anyway.

But if some lone person were out on a stroll in the
stealthy tomcat hours before dawn
he would hear the sounds
sounds of awe
sounds of wonder
from a house on a corner
whose windows were lit
like the eyes of a horror movie
corpse
with an eerie blue glow that didn’t sleep at night
and if he stopped and strained his ears
for a moment beneath the black dome of eternity
he may have been frightened by the sounds he heard

“You won’t get away with this!”
“Yada yada, warden!”
“You haven’t got a chance!”
“Yadayadayadayada!”
“POWPOWPOW!”

And hurried quickly away
to his own home
his own world
where he was safe.
So it went.

Then bit by bit
people did begin to notice.
They didn’t notice ‘20,000 Years in Sing Sing’
they didn’t even notice ‘The Alfred Hitchcock Hour’

But the next day
some housewives going to the market
heard sounds of Mexican soap opera
from that old house.
behind the closed door
closed
like the lid of their papa’s
coffin

And finally some anxious neighbor
went on over there
to the house on the corner
and pounded on the door for awhile
and when no answer came
he scurried off
scurried off and found the policemen
and told them the story
of three days
three days of
movies, talk shows, soap operas, news broadcasts, quizzes,
commercials, dog shows, races, varieties, and now this, sermons…

Gospel music and
television sermons.
and he told the cops the old man lived all
alone
and was in his nineties or something
and the cops just kinda shook their heads
and looked kinda bored
as if to say, “yeah, well we know the rest.”

and the officers came and
they crossed the untrimmed lawn
and rapped on the door
schoolboys rapping on their
daddy’s coffin lid
the tv answered
from behind the door

“Yada yada, Warden, come in an’ get me hahahahahahahahahah!”

so they just walked in.

The body was enveloped in shadow
but one hand rested on the arm of the easy chair
exposed to the glow of blue light
which seemed to possess
a life of its’ own.

From then on
it was just the usual
banal dialogue
after all
That’s Hollywood…

And outside in the sunlight
the neighbors were all
crowded around on the sidewalk talking
and whispering
even though
nobody was listening.

And in a while
an ambulance pulled up
and a morbid hush fell over
the people
as two white clad negros took a stretcher
and a white white sheet
out of the back
and just when things
were getting good
some idiot
turned off
the tv.

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 1970, 2009