The Mockingbird 1
Something's Knocking At The Door 2
His Wife, The Painter 4
On The Sidewalk And In The Sun 6
The Elephants Of Vietnam 8
Dark Night Poem 9
The Last Days Of The Suicide Kid 10
Tabby Cat 12
Metamorphosis 14
A Poem Is A City 15
A Smile To Remember 17
A Free 25-Page Booklet 18
They, All Of Them, Know 21
A Future Congressman 26
Eulogy 28
The Drowning 31
Fooling Marie (The Poem) 33
The Young Man On The Bus Stop Bench 36
For They Had Things To Say 39
Silly Damned Thing Anyhow 40
Upon Reading An Interview With A Best-Selling Novelist In Our Metropolitan Daily Newspaper 42
Harbor Freeway South 43
Schoolyards Of Forever 46
In The Lobby 50
Sex 52
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place 53
Something For The Touts, The Nuns, The Grocery Clerks, And You 56
Blue Beads And Bones 62
Like A Cherry Seed In The Throat 64
Turnabout 65
Mystery Leg 67
The Girl Outside The Supermarket 74
It Is Not Much 75
2 Outside, As Bones Break In My Kitchen 77
The Japanese Wife 78
The Harder You Try 80
The Lady In Red 81
The Shower 82
I Was Glad 84
The Angel Who Pushed His Wheelchair 86
A Time To Remember 89
The Wrong Way 90
No Wonder 92
A Threat To My Immortality 94
My Telephone 96
Carson Mccullers 98
Mongolian Coasts Shining In Light 99
Putrefaction 100
Where Was Jane? 102
Something About A Woman 105
Sunday Lunch At The Holy Mission 107
Trashcan Lives 108
School Days 110
Grass 112
Crucifix In A Deathhand 113
The Screw-Game 115
Millionaires 117
When You Wait For The Dawn To Crawl Through The Screen Like A Burglar To Take Your Life Away 120
The Talkers 121
Art 122
Advice For Some Young Man In The Year 2064 A.D. 122
Ice For The Eagles 123
Girl In A Miniskirt Reading The Bible Outside My Window 124
Hell Is A Lonely Place 126
The Girls And The Birds 129
1813-1883 131
No Leaders, Please 132
Song 133
One For Sherwood Anderson 136
Bow Wow Love 137
The Day The Epileptic Spoke 139
When Hug Wolf Went Mad 141
In A Neighborhood Of Murder 142
The Strangest Sight You Ever Did See 143
The 2Nd Novel 146
Junk 148
Mademoiselle From Armetieres 150
Now 153
Society Should Realize 155
The Souls Of Dead Animals 157
The Tragedy Of The Leaves 159
The Birds 160
The Loner 162
The Genius Of The Crowd 165
German Bar 168
The Snow Of Italy 169
For Jane: With All The Love I Had, Which Was Not Enough 171
Notice 173
For Jane 174
Eulogy To A Hell Of A Dame 175
Barfly 177
Was Li Po Wrong? 178
The Night I Saw George Raft In Vegas 180
I Am Eaten By Butterflies 182
The Veryest 184
Man Mowing The Lawn Across The Way From Me 186
Oh, Yes 188
Poop 189
Phillipe's 1950 194
Downtown 195
Elephants In The Zoo 197
Girl On The Escalator 198
The Shit Shits 201
Big Time Loser 204
Commerce 206
Come On In! 210
The Bakers Of 1935 211
Secret Laughter 215
Democracy 216
An Empire Of Coins 217
What? 221
The American Flag Shirt 222
Now She's Free 223
The Simple Truth 224
Gold In Your Eye 226
A Great Writer 228
The Smoking Car 230
The Shoelace 232
Self-Inflicted Wounds 235
Verdi 237
The Young Lady Who Lives In Canoga Park 240
Life Of The King 243
My Failure 245
A Boy And His Dog 247
Liberated Woman And Liberated Man 250
Small Talk 252
The Crunch 254
Funhouse 258
The Poetry Reading 259
Somebody 261
The Colored Birds 263
Poem For Personnel Managers 265
My Fate 270
My Atomic Stockpile 271
Bruckner (2) 272
Hello, How Are You? 274
Vacancy 275
Batting Slump 277
Bang Bang 279
The Pleasures Of The Damned 281
One More Good One 282
The Little Girls Hissed 285
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha, Ha Ha 288
Thoughts From A Stone Beach In Venice 289
Scene In A Tent Outside The Cotton Fields Of Bakersfield 291
3:16 And One Half 295
A Literary Discussion 297
Butterflies 300
The Great Escape 302
My Friend William 304
Safe 306
Starve, Go Mad, Or Kill Yourself 308
The Beautiful Lady 310
My Life As A Sitcom 311
Who Needs It? 313
Riots 314
Those Marvelous Lunches 315
The Look 321
The Big One 322
The Genius 323
About The PEN Conference 327
What A Man I Was 328
Scarlet 332
Like A Flower In The Rain 334
A Killer 336
Prayer In Bad Weather 337
Melancholia 340
Eat Your Heart Out 342
I Made A Mistake 344
She Comes From Somewhere 345
The High-Rise Of The New World 346
Car Wash 348
Van Gogh 349
The Railroad Yard 351
The Girls At The Green Hotel 352
In Other Words 354
Destroying Beauty 356
Peace 357
Afternoons Into Night 359
We Ain't Got No Money, Honey, But We Got Rain 361
Marina 372
Trollius And Trellises 373
Beagle 378
Coffee And Babies 379
Magical Mystery Tour 381
The Last Generation 383
About Competition 387
A Radio With Guts 388
The Egg 390
A Killer Gets Ready 392
In The Center Of The Action 394
Poetry 395
Notes Upon The Flaxen Aspect 396
The Fisherman 398
The 1930's 399
The Burning Of The Dream 401
Sit And Endure 410
Goldfish 411
Finish 412
Dreaming 415
My Special Craving 416
A Love Poem 418
One Writer's Funeral 421
The Wine Of Forever 423
The Pile-Up 425
My Big Night On The Town 426
Close Encounters Of Another Kind 429
Drying Out 431
Scene From 1940 433
The Area Of Pause 434
I Know You 436
Relentless As The Tarantula 438
The Replacements 440
To Lean Back Into It 441
Eating My Senior Citizen's Dinner At The Sizzler 443
It's Strange 447
The Beast 448
Woman On The Street 450
Lost In San Pedro 451
Manx 454
The History Of A Tough Motherfucker 455
Bad Fix 458
One For The Old Boy 460
My Cats 462
Death Wants More Death 464
The Lisp 466
On Being 20 468
Meanwhile 470
The World's Greatest Loser 471
Human Nature 473
The Trash Men 476
A Gold Pocket Watch 478
Talking To My Mailbox 479
I Liked Him 481
One For The Shoeshine Man 482
The Proud Thin Dying 485
Shot Of Red-Eye 486
About Pain 491
Hot 492
Who In The Hell Is Tom Jones? 495
The Price 497
I'm In Love 499
The Girls 501
The Ladies Of Summer 502
Tonight 503
Shoes 504
Hug The Dark 505
Face Of A Political Candidate On A Street Billboard 507
Whit Dog 508
On Going Out To Get The Mail 509
Spring Swan 511
How Is Your Heart? 512
Closing Time 514
Racetrack Parking Lot At The End Of The Day 516
There 519
Dinosauria, We 520
Mind And Heart 523
TB 525
Crime Does Pay 527
The Orderly 539
The Nurses 531
Cancer 533
First Poem Back 534
Tired In The Afterdusk 535
Again 536
So Now? 537
Blue 538
A Summation 539
Sun Coming Down 540
Twilight Musings 524
My Last Winter 543
Like A Dolphin 544
The Bluebird 545
If We Take 547
