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How To Get Laid Tell her that sex always makes you feel lonely and afraid and afterwards you usually have to get up and eat a peanut butter sandwich and watch Letterman Tell her that when you were at the Guthrie you had a half a Ford Grant and a half a Rockefeller Tell her that your favorite actress is Margaret Lockwood Tell her that you know Gregory Corso Tell her that the last time you made love for real it was with a woman who couldn't get off unless she was wearing headphoness listening to Brian Wilson Tell her you think you're losing your grip Tell her you don't know which way to turn Tell her you're crazy about the little hairs on her arms Tell her you're not worth saving Tell her you know Sam Shephard Tell her you're just lost Tell her your favorite actress is Veronica Lake Tell her you've never been to Kilamanjaro but you have seen the northern lights over the St. Lawrence and how Quebec falls straight off into the water Tell her you are visited by spirits who have no voices and require you to read their lips leading to situations in which like Warhol like Nixon like Esther Williams you have often but slenderly known yourself Tell her that Gregory Corso is the only poet of your acquain- tance (except maybe Bill Harmon) that would ever dare to come up with a word Like brool Tell her that Jane Fonda has really strong hands and once massaged your back like Hayden wasn't home like you could ask her anything Tell her she can ask you anything Tell her there are some things you simply can't talk about Tell her that Sam Shephard's work is like a like a like one of these people that lays on the beach too long at Santa Monica and gets loopy from the fumes Tell her when you lived at Steele Creek your mama had a terrier name of Sam that she used to shove up into the attic every night to hunt for rats Tell her you not only know the man who wrote Tubby the Tuba but have heard him play his own composition Tell her does she dream in color or black and white Tell her that when you were at the Chelsea they gave you the room where Thomas Wolfe had stayed and you couldn't write a single line the entire time you were there but at least you got to meet Gregory Corso who prowled the halls a lot and once borrowed your felt-tip to scribble brool in cursive on the marble steps Tell her oh God how it finally happened that you ended up just like your father broke and busted in the wilds of Burbank nowhere to turn not an orange grove in sight fighting with this old woman behind the Kentucky Fried to decide which one of you would get the chance to pick though the leavings in the dumpster how you got the woman down and tried to strangle her smelled her fear felt the loose flesh under her arms tasted the spittle trailing down her cheek how all of a sudden it wasn't an old woman at all it was Jane Fonda saying don't kill me don't we can take turns Tell her you knew Allen Tate in the sixties and Allen Tate's semi- spick wife who was about a hundred years old and never failed to introduce herself as a Yale Younger Poet Tell her that your favorite actress in the whole entire world is this French woman that fell in love with a German soldier in Hiroshima Mon Amour and when the people in her village found out about it they cut off all her hair and then after the war she was with this Japanese guy and so she had to tell the truth didn't she so she told him everything and the ashes rained all over them Tell her to quit looking at you like that Tell her that much as you hate to admit it Jorie Graham is probably the best poet around and a person you lust after day and night and once wrote a letter to requesting her autograph or one of her bras Tell her tell her you have to tell her something: Tell her it's happening it's love at first sight Tell her you know she feels the same way Tell her you can read her every thought but she may as well get one thing straight: you wouldn't even let Constance Ockleman fuck you on a first date James Lineberger |