How Bean Lives
by Bean Newton
Another in our long series of explorations into the recently discovered
writings of the late Bean Newton, one of the greatest and least appreciated
of the this Century’s poets. This particular poem, one in a series
from early in the poet’s career, demonstrates very well the psycho-religio-sexual
undertones of a career in floor maintenance. - E.W. Wilder
So up I wakes in the morning and like it’s
I never went to bed, only much more tired.
The sun never seemed hopeful to me–Little Orphan
Annie can just my ass kiss. And I wonder, as that light slants
down Dickinsonian, just what sort
of cosmic sludge I’ll have to slog thru today. It’s not like
particle physicists should sweep floors for a living; talents,
I guess are expressed in direct proportion to market-value.
Thank
God I’m not a poet. Probably have to clean the shitters if a
proper poet I’da been. My geriatric
Corolla sputters to blue-smoking life yet again, familiar
as that insufferable heat from that insufferable sun. So
be it: Rashes to Rashes, Rust to Rust. Traffic
this morning is homocidal. A dick in an Explorer is driving
insensate; a punk in an Acura has run a red light right
in front of me. This is God saying: “You artists think you gotta
suffer, huh? Well take that, ya’ motherfucker. Suffer I
will
make you, if you feel so strongly.” The barely
functional air-conditioner shoots bits
of disintegrating foam insulation out the duct into my eye.
That helps,
Oh God. Yes, I do believe there is a God. There must be;
who
else could I blame? Who else could my useless railings fly up
toward? They fall again as black rain and flaming hail, flat
tires, uncompensated
overtime.
