Cows In Art Class

good weather

is like

good women-

it doesn't always happen

and when it does

it doesn't

always last.

man is

more stable:

if he's bad

there's more chance

he'll stay that way,

or if he's good

he might hang

on,

but a woman

is changed

by

children

age

diet

conversation

sex

the moon

the absence or

presence of sun

or good times.

a woman must be nursed

into subsistence

by love

where a man can become

stronger

by being hated.

I am drinking tonight in Spangler's Bar

and I remember the cows

I once painted in Art class

and they looked good

they looked better than anything

in here. I am drinking in Spangler's Bar

wondering which to love and which

to hate, but the rules are gone:

I love and hate only

myself-

they stand outside me

like an orange dropped from the table

and rolling away; it's what I've got to

decide:

kill myself or

love myself?

which is the treason?

where's the information

coming from?

books…like broken glass:

I wouldn't wipe my ass with 'em

yet, it's getting

darker, see?

(we drink here and speak to

each other and

seem knowing.)

buy the cow with the biggest

tits

buy the cow with the biggest

rump.

present arms.

the bartender slides me a beer

it runs down the bar

like an Olympic sprinter

and the pair of pliers that is my hand

stops it, lifts it,

golden piss of dull temptation,

I drink and

stand there

the weather bad for cows

but my brush is ready

to stroke up

the green grass straw eye

sadness takes me all over

and I drink the beer straight down

order a shot

fast

to give me the guts and the love to

go

on.

from "poems written before jumping out of an 8 story window" - 1966