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

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