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AFTER THE PARTY
professors and wives and girlfriends gone home
as stale as their arrivals;
2nd. rate, 3rd. rate, 4th. rate writers gone home
unimproved;
beercans, beerbottles, under my typewriter, under my chairs;
chicken bones, dry and demented, cutting my
bare feet;
chunks of pretzel, beercaps, a book of poetry by a Canadian...
everybody's gone now...
the insults still scrabble about the room in
shadows...
just another god damned party...
"Look, Barker, who ya teachin' besides McKuen?"
"English poets of the 20th. century..."
"A lousy gang, aren't they?"
"No, they're all right..."
the professors are always the most difficult, I don't know why--they're precious and frightened and angry--
but that whole gang is unbearable:
"A roomful of writers," I said, "the lowest of the breed, lower than the horseplayer, lower than the professional wrestling fan..."
how they sat, afraid to bare the little they had,
saving it for the important typewriter, saving it for their classes...
they had small savings accounts and were afraid of making withdrawals...
to run out of soul before an evening is out,
that would be a tragedy...
my girlfriend was all right in her tight black pants and red blouse: I asked her to kiss 3 or 4
of those tragedies
to brighten up their platitudes...
there were moments: when I walked into the
can and found D. pissing with a penis the size of a tiny broken reed in a dark marsh; and K., a very bad poet, left for ten minutes to
screw an ATD case...
ten dollars for beer, 5 dollars for chicken, 78 cents for pretzels, how can you get off cheaper for a pack of 25 or 30 writers... to re-learn something you already know?
after this party their one-quarter souls rise from the beercans
like the morning smog...
ah, there's no competition, either on
or off the typer, they don't even
drink their drinks... beercans and bottles left
one-half and 3-quarters full...
they drink beer like they drink
life...
the phone rang and I said, "Hello."
"It was a great party," I heard,
the best I've been to in
years."
ah, you see, my friends...
what I've done to hold the immortal minds of
Los Angeles together?
it cost me $15.78, and for twice that price
I could probably save the states of New York and
New Jersey...
contact me, area code 416,
NO-I-* * * *,
collect.
© Frank Silvanski
as stale as their arrivals;
2nd. rate, 3rd. rate, 4th. rate writers gone home
unimproved;
beercans, beerbottles, under my typewriter, under my chairs;
chicken bones, dry and demented, cutting my
bare feet;
chunks of pretzel, beercaps, a book of poetry by a Canadian...
everybody's gone now...
the insults still scrabble about the room in
shadows...
just another god damned party...
"Look, Barker, who ya teachin' besides McKuen?"
"English poets of the 20th. century..."
"A lousy gang, aren't they?"
"No, they're all right..."
the professors are always the most difficult, I don't know why--they're precious and frightened and angry--
but that whole gang is unbearable:
"A roomful of writers," I said, "the lowest of the breed, lower than the horseplayer, lower than the professional wrestling fan..."
how they sat, afraid to bare the little they had,
saving it for the important typewriter, saving it for their classes...
they had small savings accounts and were afraid of making withdrawals...
to run out of soul before an evening is out,
that would be a tragedy...
my girlfriend was all right in her tight black pants and red blouse: I asked her to kiss 3 or 4
of those tragedies
to brighten up their platitudes...
there were moments: when I walked into the
can and found D. pissing with a penis the size of a tiny broken reed in a dark marsh; and K., a very bad poet, left for ten minutes to
screw an ATD case...
ten dollars for beer, 5 dollars for chicken, 78 cents for pretzels, how can you get off cheaper for a pack of 25 or 30 writers... to re-learn something you already know?
after this party their one-quarter souls rise from the beercans
like the morning smog...
ah, there's no competition, either on
or off the typer, they don't even
drink their drinks... beercans and bottles left
one-half and 3-quarters full...
they drink beer like they drink
life...
the phone rang and I said, "Hello."
"It was a great party," I heard,
the best I've been to in
years."
ah, you see, my friends...
what I've done to hold the immortal minds of
Los Angeles together?
it cost me $15.78, and for twice that price
I could probably save the states of New York and
New Jersey...
contact me, area code 416,
NO-I-* * * *,
collect.
© Frank Silvanski
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