Bill Kushner
BAD BOY
I was a bad boy. I left home
at birth to explore the earth,
and when I returned I was sad.
“Why are you so sad?” Mother asks.
“I walked and I walked and I stopped
but no one gave me water. I held
my hands out but no one gave me money.”
Mother shrugged and said, “You do smell
just a bit. And your feet are very dirty.
Come with me.” She led me to the bathroom
where a tub waited full of water as
warm as toast. So I took off my torn
old clothes and I stepped in the tub,
and the water felt so good that I wanted
to cry. “You can cry,” Mother said, as
she began to scrub me gently with soap.
So I began to cry and cry and cry. “The
earth!” I cried “the earth!” as Mother
gently washed me. “My son!” Mother
cried, as she washed me ever so gently,
“My son! Oh, my son! My son!”
IT
When you approach it, it simply shudders,
most unattractively, and we run away. I
am merrily a squirrel out in search of nuts,
a registered pecan, so bite me gently, and
just your tongue, please, you terrible tease.
At night, and I mean late late, and under the
covers, we who was that masked man? blue
moon in the deep. I say I've walked across
half a desert to get to your arms, so slap me
silly, be sweet, my love. Love, as I recall,
I kept saying No No, and yet we eat, and yet
we sleep, we dream, and yet all our prayers
go with you, you lovers, you soldiers, all ye
lads and lassies, out there in that fearful deep.
IT'S SOMETIMES A LANGUAGE
It's sometimes a language that when you hear it
you think oh I've heard that. You may even think
you too could speak it, just repeat after me. You
may even think you understand it, well of course
I understand it. It's when you're on the sidelines
I mean on the wrong side no not even that you're
just like a tiny listener standing sideways listening.
So don't get too wet and upset about it, but that's
just me talking in that language, or pretending to be
talking in that language and don't I just sound smart?
"People don't do things like that," he would say,
chewing fast. Inhaling his wisdom, I sat at his feet
and listened, him wet paint splattered pure red, "I
got these great lists, kid, I got all these lists, alls of
do's and don'ts and alls mostly don'ts, great don'ts,
and so don't get all screwy, not to do." Him jumping
like high up to heaven and then down and all the while
talking, are you one of them talkers, huh, too? "Like
think of Madonna, mother and child, and how trembling
they came to the window looking out over vast Wicked
City, and then turned back, and I mean they turned back."
Me, I still sat as a thief at his feet and I listened, chewing
on air, dreamy as one. "People don't walk, kid, like that,"
into Motel 8 round midnight, as if who gives a flying
you know, "my way or the highway," and so there I was,
and such as I was, poor little Mr. Scarecrow, thumbs out,
and no ride for miles, "mmm," licking it up. So he wrote
on my feet, "Careful, dreamboy." We who walk around
moaning, bumping against all these earth things, the hush,
the mush. "I don't require much," I told the nice therapist,
who then told his wife, who then told her puppy, Lucky.
"Lucky," she'd whisper, holding him to her and stroking
his trembling fur. He said there was no future for such a
one as me, and then he bit me hard, hard enough to draw
blood, it came out like red words red, and him licking it up.
1/29/08
Last night, I saw the thousands
making love, the thousands crying
for love, and I, too, wanted to
weep, for my bed was awake, and I
could not sleep. I dressed and
went out into the streets, dark and
empty, and I walked and I walked,
miles of pain, waste and hope, "please
release this devil who has taken me
over, body and soul, so I can go home
and find some peace." It began to rain,
and I cupped my hand out, tears and
laughter in a cup. I swallowed the
rain down thirstily, and I saw of a sudden
all the other hands moving around me,
men, women, even children, hands stretched out
into the dark of this dank wet city, all, all
grabbing for the rain, all for just one
swallow of the precious liquid, and thus
my loneliness was lifted in a moment and
was gone! for I knew that I belonged here,
abandoned and yet not, but one tiny dot
among all the others, all my human brothers.
6/2/87
June! & I am hilarious, I
Write on everything, the clouds, the wind
That once I was here! (how soon they forget
Who knew me when) all I ask's Be kind
Him? he used to read his poetry, I think
I remember, why way way back in the turbulent
80's, bald & gay, yeah when Love was blind
Man, his stuff was too much, didn't he die of
You know, something? I fly like an elephant
Along the byways, dodging the pap of them flyboy's
flyballs
Then stop for an ice cream, Ben & Jerry's, 2 scary
guys but so what, that
Was delicious, creamy & forbidden, but was it love? what
melts in yr mouth
& now I am gone in search of even more fantastical
adventures! fly
Like a lumbering giant turtle high over the city, I
loved you so
But you were so heartless, but then so was I
relentless
In search of my many loves, sans pants, past everything
& now I am made of but light & memory, I forgive
& forget
The past with its arms & its legs, all thumbs, regrets
But no time for that now, as I rise above the falling city
Like a merry wink, shall I once look back? I do not think
BILL KUSHNER (1931-2015) authored eight collections of poetry and co-authored a volume of collaborative poems with Tom Savage. His work was anthologized in Up Late (4 Walls & Windows, 1987), In Our Time: The Gay and Lesbian Anthology (St. Martin’s, 1989), Out of This World (Crown, 1991), Best American Poetry 2002 (Scribners, 2002), and Poetry After 9/11: An Anthology of New York Poets (Melville House Publishing, 2003). He was a 1999 and 2005 Fellow of the New York Foundation of the Arts.
Note on the text from Barbara Henning: Bill sent me these five poems in the post, along with letters and notes. As far as I can tell, none of these poems were formally published before, but Don Yorty also received “Bad Boy” in a letter. On 2/5/2015 he wrote about the poem here. Six months later (9/18/2015) on Facebook, Don wrote— “Some folks think that Bad Boy was in Bill Kushner's first book of poems, Night Fishing, but it isn't. Bill wrote Bad Boy the year that he died. His whole life's work was in a certain way a longing to return to his parents, Russian immigrants who never learned English, a mother who loved and a father who didn't; his life was a yearning struggle to put that longing into words. He does just that in Bad Boy.”
Bill read “Bad Boy” for the Poetry Project on January 1, 2015.
See Barbara’s poem “Bill” in the latest edition of the Poetry Project Newsletter.