For Ed G. Biro
Ed,
my hopes pierce the black skies
of fear and loneliness,
my heart longs for freedom
from their catatonic indifference,
Ed, I’m pale with fever
of life,
they will not leave me with their ant-like
expressions and lawn mower melancholia,
my teeth break against their metal bras
and their leather panties,
Ed, I’m tearing up their lacy see-through material,
I wipe off their lipstick,
I wipe off their phony smiles,
I break down their car windows with a crowbar,
Ed, I’m through with masturbation
and the triple X matinee double features,
I’m bored by their moaning and groaning
and I can’t stand the stench of their perfume,
Let them eat their MTV manure,
Let them drink their piss and their tears,
Let them enlarge their cocks to a whopping
twelve thousand inches,
I’m tired, Ed,
I’m just very tired,
Let them fuck themselves to the sound of the Sex Pistols,
Let them take their bloody vacations and medications,
Let them enjoy their anorexias and bulimias,
Let them rape each other on dates,
I’m just pissed and I’m not going to take it anymore,
and I will scream bloody murder,
and the men in white coats will take me away,
no more masturbation, no more copulation,
no more virginity, for that matter—
just one bloody hell,
I’m tired of their Gestapo love,
I’m tired of the color black,
and I don’t think that purple is homosexual,
No, Ed, they will not take our soul away,
and they will not prevent me from drinking more vodka,
and you will always be Hungarian,
Ed, I’m turning paler,
I’m beginning to see morticians all around me,
Ed, I’m dying,
I’m sweating profusely,
I need something cheap to get me through this lonely
night,
I’m burning,
I’m hot, I’m very hot,
Ed, I don’t want to be an American,
I don’t want to be an English major,
I don’t want to piss in urinals and be conscious of the
size of my penis,
Ed, I’m lonely and desperate,
I think I’m going to commit a crime,
this time I think I’m serious,
no one will stop me,
Ed, Ed, Ed,
my mind is hazy,
I cannot control myself anymore,
I’m freaking out completely
even though I can speak several languages,
Ed, Ed, Ed, Ed...
om, om, om, om,...
I should’ve never gone to a massage parlor,
I should’ve never gone to go-go bars,
I should’ve never seen “Deep Throat” and a live sex act,
Look at me, Ed, look at me,
I’m just a pathetic nervous wreck
with an ingrown toe nail and itching hemorrhoids,
Ed, I should have read the Bible,
I should have never been seduced by corrupt American
girls,
I can’t even fantasize anymore without an appropriate
sexual stimulus to get me hot and horny,
Ed, my underwear is dirty,
no woman wants to go out with me,
I’m swearing in Russian in front of my mother,
I’m talking to myself,
I don’t masturbate anymore,
I’m living in horror,
in New Haven, Connecticut,
in the United States of America,
in the altered states of consciousness,
and I don’t know any good drugs for my headache,
and my poetry is going nowhere,
And I write letters to this really sexy girl
and she never writes me back,
Ed, I need some salami
or something to kill this horrible
despair and loneliness,
I need a fix, for god’s sake,
and some lewd entertainment,
I need some noise in the background,
I need some good old-fashioned minimum
daily requirement of real beef
and gratuitous sex and violence,
Ed, Ed, Ed,
my brother, my brother with Magyar soul,
let’s get drunk, let’s smoke some cheap cigars,
let us numb ourselves in a complete oblivion,
My soul beats against the Southern cafeteria,
My soul rises above the urinals,
My soul flies along the hallways of these deadly
institutions of minds poisoned with rat poison
and acidified Styrofoam,
My soul rises above all the kissasses,
all the snivelling bureaucrats in their business suits,
My soul rises above the boredom,
We shall burn in the fires of hell,
we shall never leave this paradise,
we shall eat the shoelaces of the born-again Christians,
we shall browse through the libraries of dead books
written by morbid individuals with several degrees,
we’ll never find affection in the student union,
O Ed, so this is it,
this is another day in paradise!
I cannot bear it without heroin,
and freaking out and shivering,
I send you my last words.
December 14, 1987
--Alexander Shaumyan
The Door: Selected Poems
Share
Print
Save
I resemble a good part of it, believe it or not. And you're right, even at the Friday night mixers where I danced real close and slow, I couldn't make a love connection in the student union that lasted. After walking about five girls back to the dorm who lived on the same floor and decided that I was persona non grata.
I hope you are beyond the idea of going out and committing a crime of last resort like I see now again, and again.
Ron
“And how do you know that you're mad? "To begin with," said the Cat, "a dog's not mad. You grant that?" I suppose so, said Alice. "Well then," the Cat went on, "you see a dog growls when it's angry, and wags it's tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad.” -L.Carroll