I've Lived Here Longer than Anybody Else
and I Know Where Everything Is
Just think, also I've lived here
all through two years, over sixteen months
with a broken bathroom window
and not one man has ever made even the
slightest attempt to crawl through it.
Don't worry, I'm not asking for trouble
and surely not looking for it, yet
my good luck amazes me. Even still don't let them
stand on your way, reading conducts gets grades the mind.
You see, I broke it myself, deciphered Steves locked
myself out one Sunday afternoon, I think it was
and my neighbor let me crawl up the fire escape
through his. I know how cruel and mean some people can be.
Never mind, things go well, and I've progressed from a small/ flat
over The Lower Depths, in keeping with your destiny, as the/ Mother
of God. Yes, I call my imaginary Lover, god, my husband, my/ only wish
now is to become a woman, for all of them, an Empress upon/ your Eastern shore.
[1975]
A somatical type exercise...these things happen spontaneously when I'm driving from my apartment to my mother's house (what will be my mother's house for a few more days, at least) because in the middle is Milton, where John Wieners grew up. The thing about Chickatawbut Lookout is that it is really pretty and has a mystical view of the Boston skyline and the Eastern shore, AND it is also a trolling spot for gay hook ups. What a better place to stop and write out a poem from "Cultural Affairs in Boston: Poetry & Prose 1956-1985." Truthfully, at first, I just thought I'd stop since I was in Milton. Then I looked around and realized there were lots of fellas heading down a certain hill and then it was clear. And with title and opening lines of poems like, "Parking Lot// Don't give nothing for nothing,/ yet I blew a guy today/ for eight dollars..." It seemed like the right place to sit and write out the above poem. For I have been here more than two years now and I don't tend to stay more than 2 years. And, as I mentioned, everyone else is moving--my sister has, my mother is...So, anyway, I wrote this poem out and then I re-read it and folded and folded each line afterwards. Then I rolled it into a scroll and said the last lines aloud "an Empress upon your Eastern shore" and popped it in my mouth and chewed on it, because I think that is something CA Conrad would do. Then I wrote in my journal about things, and those things don't get to go on the online notebook, and I continued chewing the poem and tasting the bitter ink. I made it into the indigo blue ball and right when I thought it was chewy enough, melded enough into itself so it was all a jumble, I threw that into the ferns. Then I watched the men come up from the hill. One after the other. Usually one and then a minute later another. They get in their cars and drive away. I don't know about that, only because I think all meaningless sex is sort of sad, whether between two men, two women, or men and women together. But if that's what they want, then that's what they want. I read some more of the book and wrote some more in my journal. Then I left and went to visit my godfather and grandparents because their cemetery was along the same way. I got lots of ants on me at Nana and Papa's. I read some more there. Then I came here and got overwhelmed with the task at hand (packing everything up) and so I wrote this up while trying to figure out what the heck to do around here. This is quite a weird day of headaches and the taking back Celtics rats of true love and thunderstorms and little wooden boxes of my fathers ashes, ready to be distributed amongst the family and electronics stores and upside down houses where one must eat ones salad with a turkey fork because all other cutlery is packed away.