Interact with multiple poems

Ave Maria

Mothers of America

let your kids go to the movies!

get them out of the house so they won’t know what you’re up to

it’s true that fresh air is good for the body

but what about the soul

that grows in darkness, embossed by silvery images

and when you grow old as grow old you must

they won’t hate you

they won’t criticize you they won’t know

they’ll be in some glamorous country

they first saw on a Saturday afternoon or playing hookey

they may even be grateful to you

for their first sexual experience

which only cost you a quarter

and didn’t upset the peaceful home

they will know where candy bars come from

and gratuitous bags of popcorn

as gratuitous as leaving the movie before it’s over

with a pleasant stranger whose apartment is in the Heaven on Earth Bldg

near the Williamsburg Bridge

oh mothers you will have made the little tykes

so happy because if nobody does pick them up in the movies

they won’t know the difference

and if somebody does it’ll be sheer gravy

and they’ll have been truly entertained either way

instead of hanging around the yard

or up in their room

hating you

prematurely since you won’t have done anything horribly mean yet

except keeping them from the darker joys

it’s unforgivable the

latter

so don’t blame me if you won’t take this advice

and the family

breaks up

and your children grow old and blind in front of a TV set

movies you wouldn’t let them see when they were young

The Day Lady Died

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday

three days after Bastille day, yes

it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine

because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton

at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner

and I don’t know the people who will feed me

After the first glass of vodka

you can accept just about anything

of life even your own mysteriousness

you think it is nice that a box

of matches is purple and brown

and is called

La Petite and comes from Sweden

for they are words that you know and that

is all you know words not their feelings

or what they mean

and you write because

you know them not because you understand them

because you don’t you are stupid and lazy

and will never be great but you do

what you know because what else is there?

1961

oh god its wonderful

to get out of bed

and drink too much coffee

and smoke too many cigarettes

and love you so much