Het is weekend. Maar zou u.

waiting for death 
like a cat 
that will jump on the 
bed 

I am so very sorry for 
my wife 

she will see this 
stiff 
white 
body 
shake it once, then 
maybe 
again 

"Hank!"

Hank won't
answer. 

it's not my death that 
worries me, it's my wife 
left with this 
pile of 
nothing. 

I want to 
let her know 
though 
that all the nights 
sleeping 
beside her 

even the useless 
arguments 
were things 
ever splendid 

and the hard 
words 
I ever feared to 
say 
can now be 
said: 

I love 
you.
Prettig weekend. En be nice.

Het is weekend. Het geweld stopt hier.

225 days under grass
and you know more than I.
they have long taken your blood,
you are a dry stick in a basket.
is this how it works?
in this room
the hours of love  
still make shadows. 

when you left
you took almost
everything.
I kneel in the nights  
before tigers
that will not let me be. 

what you were  
will not happen again.
the tigers have found me
and I do not care.
Prettig weekend. En be nice.

Het is weekend. Een goed moment om met een drankje te ontspannen.

I was fairly drunk when it
began and I took out my bottle and used it
along the way. I was reading a week or two after
Kandel and I did not look quite as
pretty but
I brought it off and we
ended up at the Webbs, 6, 8, 10 of
us, and I drank scotch, wine, beer, tequila
and noticed a nice one sitting next to me -
one tooth missing when she smiled,
lovely, and I put my arm around her
and began loading her with bullshit. when I awakened at 10 a.m. the next morning
I was in a strange house
in bed with this
woman. she was asleep but looked
familiar.
Prettig weekend. En be nice.

Het is weekend. Alles is te koop.

some say we should keep personal remorse from the
poem,
stay abstract, and there is some reason in this,
but jezus;
twelve poems gone and I don't keep carbons and you have
my
paintings too, my best ones; its stifling:
are you trying to crush me out like the rest of them?
why didn't you take my money? they usually do
from the sleeping drunken pants sick in the corner.

next time take my left arm or a fifty
but not my poems:
I'm not Shakespeare
but sometimes simply
there won't be any more, abstract or otherwise;
there'll always be money and whores and drunkards
down to the last bomb,
but as God said,
crossing his legs,
I see where I have made plenty of poets
but not so very much
poetry.
Prettig weekend. En be nice.

Het is weekend. Hier is Hank.

listen, he said, you ever seen a bunch of crabs in a
bucket?
no, I told him.
well, what happens is that now and then one crab
will climb up on top of the others
and begin to climb toward the top of the bucket,
then, just as he's about to escape
another crab grabs him and pulls him back
down.
really? I asked.
really, he said, and this job is just like that, none
of the others want anybody to get out of
here. that's just the way it is
in the postal service!
I believe you, I said.
just then the supervisor walked up and said,
you fellows were talking.
there is no talking allowed on this
job.
I had been there for eleven and one-half
years.
I got up off my stool and climbed right up the
supervisor
and then I reached up and pulled myself right
out of there.
it was so easy it was unbelievable.
but none of the others followed me.
and after that, whenever I had crab legs
I thought about that place.
I must have thought about that place
maybe 5 or 6 times
before I switched to lobster.
Prettig weekend. En be nice.