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named smokes all day and thru one sleep­
less shivering night and when I got back
to m' daddy's ranch outside Laramie,
Wyoming a year or so later after working
oil rigs in Tulsa, Oklahomey and various
other assorted bullshit gigs my own
daddy showed me this faded kind a yellow­
like-ginger candy Western Union
telegram announcing the birth of my
baby boy which'd be YOU by God I'd
hardly recognize you and sorry and all
that but I've got cancer of the balls see
and by the way 1 hope you're wearin'
sunblock case it's her-editary and I am on
my last legs as they say old hairy pencils
at that so here we are
he breathes finally and sits down
beside me on my beach towel, which
is actually a poster for The Godfather,
and of course is yet another ploy
to ... but it's too late for that now;
what cute/smart angel could even see
it underneath Raggedy Andy's bone­
butt? and by God I'm seriously
thinking about introducing this char­
acter to Crazy Kelly, dad or no, just
for fucking with my serenity and new
girlfriend-dream plans and
3
interrupting my flow of such-themed
thoughts with
here we are at what has got to be one' a
the prettiest darn beaches on the sweet
clean ass of Mother Earth and to be
honest with you sonny I'm broke as
Moses and tried to sell
pointing to MY bullet
self-same symbolic token of your existence
and my near-death experience a' course as
the chubby fella at the last pawnshop told
me and he was right there just ain't no
real way to prove that there slug is the
gen-u-wine article fired from that crazy­
as-a-shithouse rat ex-Marine's rifle on
that awful awful day but ain't it funny
how I think often that I almost lost my
life and made a NEW one all in the same
24-hour period but again as I say pawn­
shop owners don't give a monkey's ass
about history so can you spot me say a
ten-spot or a couple' a sawbucks sonny
so's I can die in some motel room in
Malibu which has in fa ct been my dream
for quite some time now