JOHN WALL’S PHARMACY

1.
Too little, I had driven past
Monica’s fiance. No few acquaintances
of theirs had been bothered. We
smoked the exceptions,
then left. Trespassing became the neighborhood.
It then became the neighborhood emotional
issue of the month, breaking
tongue and bread with the long arm
of this decade’s white dragon.

Extreme unction.
Friendship fees on high.

2.
“Extreme unction should you proceed!”
read the dashed copperfield propped
against tomorrow’s
shining leg zipperbound
model. We swelled, then agreed
that it was a constitutional command
better left to true believers. Frank decided
to visit Paris if he ever became French.

Famous bus-stop populations
melted that morning, the first of Maybe.
Monica’s fiance chose to remain
standing in that colonial position
while the rest of us resting in the silver bosom of Sally’s garage
took to fasting. Wheels spun winninglessly.
Monica spread during the anthem, quoting
Albert Camus—”For what strikes me,
in the midst of polemics, threats and outbursts
of violence, is the fundamental good will of everyone. From
Right to Left, everyone, with the exception of a few swindlers,
believes that his particular truth is the one to make men
happy.” She said it was godsway
and middle class, so
to speak I didn't.

3.
Approximately the very hour
the sunny laundry of Frank’s School Glue & Emporium
became clue, Monica’s fifteen-year old sister
blurted out that her period was due, &
later speculation would prove
indeed her period was late. Ever
the conscientious ballyhoo gang, all
except the redheaded little virginboy
with the Bob Dylan
album collection, took off
for special assignment.
The redheaded little virginboy
with the Bob Dylan
album collection just sprayed
his pencil with falsetto
nausea, resigned his post
and called Monica the most
he had ever
felt.

He took exception, however
to the notion of her aimless talk.

4.
Carrying far the issue of pornography
for its own sake, Monica's fiance sued her
for sanitary abuse. The rugged briefness
of his case, compacted into a single
blow single file delivery, rent
aspiring druggists miles
around. “Stay one more,” she yawned.
“We can serve up the wife of malcontention.”
Frank abstained. Monica’s fiance just turned
the page in the open book closed to drifters
he kept on the mantlepiece, next
to his autographed photo Germaine Greer
had sent him in a weak moment.

“Let’s pretend we’re all William Burroughs
& read lines from poems
that will suffocate a ghetto
in East Chicago at will!”
exclaimed Monica, looking for one last piece
of action. Needless to say, her speech
is our beautiful white-sanded
beach, our summer home in Malibu, our
heaven sent sex, our double edged sword
in hot buttered popcorn world.
Belushi, Akryroid, Murray
rolled into one pair.
We gazed, then died.

Live past fire
the way you dream Monica.
Dream the Monicalife. As it
seemed.


5.
Stretching. Scheming.
Close enough for laughter.
Where the marks meet.
Where past misery
chooses to call its own
friends, in fragile expressions
of the few mentionable mistakes-of-god,
luring us with somnambulant luxuriance,
pinch-hitter anonymity driving
us deep into the inner limit. Stretching
strength, strolls straight forward
patience. Monica I love.

6.Muffy songs are superfluous. Monica’s
fifteen-year old missing period
sister decided to hurry
on by the orphanage lest she
be contaminated. And King Cabin Ernie
& his current have taken laryngitis. His
excuse is all of the above, and leaves little doubt
as to his Garden of Eden. We laughed
to chuck the chance of moot poisoning. Monica
shoved her angry leg into a bucket of yellow paint.

“Life
is not yours until the final blow,”
Shrank the Shadow grew. “The paved
edge is yours—”scoffed I,
wearing my January
drawers, still too obedient
to punk rock music to show
my checkstubs. Hours later around the bases,
flew groundhogs crying, “Sweet sweet he’s
the dove we want to meet!"

I immediately fondled the new girl. And quoted
myself from one of my poems, “By words the serpent stings.”
Enid knew the scam, edgy throats and hives. Enid was a friend.
Been to Georgia State
delivering a state address—
never been late
never early either…
Enid and her lipstick.

7.
I could write these lines together.
I could make them swell and them
swell.
(Anybody can write that,
but few are issued the intent.)
I have never been
late. Enid works in Chemicals,
handling slippery things in dark
rooms, closed to drifters. There need be no discussion. I am
a glad sack, meaningful, necessary, and somewhere
supposed. You dear youthful voyeur, have elsewhere
deposited the dangerous question
marking the spotted tapestry
lately behind bookless
quotations shown impotent
by default & timberline insult.

8.
Time is space as answer.
Monica, her exposures, and the Bob Dylan
album collection whispered salty
somethings into the inkstained
ears of the redhaired little virginboy.
We departed as a moving force in America
only to arrive. Somewhere pointed! Pay Day.
Sally sold her garage to buy her wedding clothes.
Frank called it a fucking shame.
“No one knows what they did to the sandman.”
I corrected. By that time neither did I.

Little tits and nervousness.
Health conscience.
Lucy Biggs.
Heroes who live.
Jack Kerouac
Monty Python.
Heroes who die, sarcastically.
As a political enemy.
Every one of you.

9.
I could have carved a noun for openers.
Is there a room in this planet for queer discussion?

Monica soon married.
The rest became. Enid still works in a photo
lab. Lucy Biggs grew up to write
a Canadian Poem. The real Frank
O’hara traded his religion
for the Boston Celtics.
The redheaded little virginboy dyed
his hair. Monica’s sister found
her period hiding beneath
Franz Kafka’s slide rule, went on to establish
the underground newspaper for disemboweled
authors, “Popular Semantics” Bobo the historical husband
used his prowess to sit in on a jazz festival, and loved her
for it. And Monica learned his favorite quotation. Sally
didn't leave a forwarding address. I just wrote
this stick.

P.S. John Wall made the headlines.

[ 1982, Atlanta, GA ]