Gerald Locklin
ONE I HOPE HANK WOULD HAVE LIKED
how often do you get to drop
two big names in the same breath?
with sean penn in the spotlight
for his brilliant performance in
dead man walking, and for the
subsequent notoriously effete
hatchet-job some little rex-reed-wannabe
tried to do on him in rolling stone,
i have innumerable opportunities to interject,
nonchalantly,
"i met sean penn once, at bukowski's funeral:
he seemed like a nice guy."
EDWARD HOPPER: NIGHTHAWKS, 1942
in those days, even the
nighthawks wore suits, not
to mention ties and fedoras.
but notice they were hawks,
not owls. the woman is in
red, with red hair, red lips,
an aging face, and skinny,
pasty, veined arms. the fingers
of one hand rest inside the
elbow of the man with the thin
lips and beak. the balding
counter boy replies while bending
to rinse something. the only
condiments are salt and pepper.
is his shirt blue, or is it only
the tint of the wraparound windows?
coffee cups have changed little
and napkin dispensers remain
standard after fifty years. but
who advertises cigars anymore,
surely not "phillies," certainly
not for a nickel. we do not see
the entrance, but the man has his
eye on it. another man, slightly
shabbier, watches him.
gangsters? gamblers? police
detectives? private eyes?
politicos?
it's the world of william kennedy's
albany novels. it is a world at
war. it's the life, i suspect,
that my irish uncle jack lived
as a young man, upstate.
it is a clean place, with
good wood, and it is a source
of light for a dark and empty
downtown neighborhood, where the
sencond-story shades are drawn
to half-mast.
JUST LIKE THE OLD DAYS
it must be because
i've been asked, the night before,
to write a couple of poems for
an anthology commemorating
the anniversary of bukowski's death:
i have this dream in which
i am in a place a lot like
the 49er tavern, but fancier,
and i have taken up drinking again
and am consuming all these different
kinds of foreign beers (maybe
because i'm thirsty from having
eaten too much popcorn at a
movie, the madness of king
george, or else i would be
drinking vodka-tonics). anyway,
i drink all night and morning
and into the next afternoon, just
as would sometimes happen years
ago, and i get involved with the
woman who, in fact, in real life,
i have been coveting, this bright,
petite, pretty, interesting young
married woman, and all the stages
begin all over again, the
clandestine meetings, the
semi-secret touches, the
jealousies and possessiveness, and
i'm supposed to to meet her the
next afternoon, just before going
to work, and i'm very proud that
i'm not even hungover, and
i'm waiting in this room like
a library, near a park, and i
go for a couple of walks in
the woods to kill time, but
she's late and then later, and
so i go back to a bar because,
as good as i feel, i'm afraid
that, having not slept in so long,
i might get the shakes or
something, and at the bar i
get in a couple of fights and
by the time i get back to
the rendezvous room she
still isn't there. i ask this
other young lady reading at a desk
if she's seen her, and she
says that she's been there and
left, and she starts to flirt,
and i go into this other
room and masturbate. when i come out
the new young lady is still flirting
with me and i'm already a few months
late to work, and then i discover the
other woman there at a desk behind
me very near the window of the room
in which i was masturbating, and she has
a very bemused and nymphlike smile
on her face, and she wants me to
skip work, and i say, "oh no,
i never skip work, i never skipped
a day of work in my life, but i
can check in and get things started
and then come back out for a couple
of hours and we can go someplace,
wherever you would like" and at that
point my alarm goes off and i wake
up with a mild headache and wanting
to see the vivacious young
married woman, but realizing that,
if i do get involved with her, it's
going to be a real temptation to
go back to drinking, just like in
the dream, which, for various
medical reasons, could be the
beginning of the end.
Gerald Locklin
© 1996
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