Comments on Things I Heard Outside My Window Last Night (In Order)

Ari, perhaps yo ucan find comfort in this poem by the late Steven Jesse Bernstein.

MORE NOISE, PLEASE!

I live on a street
where there are many
many cars
and trucks
and factories
that pump
and bang and
grind all night
and day.
It is a miracle
that I can write poetry
or sleep or
talk on the telephone
or that
my lover will
visit me here.
There is
so much noise.
Every few minutes
a jet comes in low
or a prop job
swings down like
a kamikaze.
There is an airport
at the end
of my street.
The new age people say
that you choose
all these things --
choose the cars
and trucks and
airplanes -- me and
all of my neighbors.
Maybe this is true;
maybe we can't live
without
all this goddamn noise.
Maybe I need the noise
to write poems
make love and eat.
I'm going to hang a sign
out my window
that says:
More Noise Please!
or:
Thank You for Making Noise!
Maybe we are the kind of people
who need to have
what we don't want
just to get along,
to do the basic things.
Myself,
I could not sleep
last night,
and I could not
close the window,
either. I tried
to tear the window
out of its frame
and put it
in a closed position,
banging and ripping
with the hammer
and a screw driver,
standing on the window ledge
in my socks
three stories up.
But, the window
wouldn't come out
and the factory was screaming
and the trucks were rumbling
and the whole world
was praying for silence
and it was up to me
to shut the window
and I couldn't
get it down.
I was just making
more noise.
A jet went by
and all the people waved.
Thanks, I yelled
as the shifts changed
without a lull in production
at the big plant
across the street.
The workers lined up
at the bus stop
watching me with my hammer
in the window.
I put sponge stoppers
in my ears,
but I can't stand those things
for more than a few minutes.
Finally,
I put my head
between two pillows.
It is the same
every night.
I love it
I need it.
Without you I could not live,
I would not have written
this poem,
I yell,
the window dangling
half on half off.

-Steven J. Bernstein

Dear Diary,

What a night! I didn't know my Spanish friends would drive by with all that weed. We got super stoned and we talked about my furniture business for a while, they I told them about my cover of "Today" by the Smashing Pumpkins. I played it for them, because they didn't know the song, being Spanish and all, and then showed off my arrangement of it for cello, guitar, bongo and bass. Just then, my girlfriend saw a freaky spider on the side of the building, and screamed, which they thought was funny. I guess the Spanish really know about spiders. Unfortunately, the only way I could get her to calm down after that was to have sex with her, and we were all still pretty baked, so we showed my Spanish friends some new moves we had been working on. They were duly impressed. Then some douchebag turned on his fan and drowned out our whole party.

Davej: that rocks.

That must have been one hell of an orgasm.

ARI ISN'T A HE, DAMNIT.

Lucky Bastard. I can't remember the last time I heard a woman orgasm.

Sorry, Ari, I can't tell the gender of the person who lives above me. Maybe they have both lady and man parts.

Ay, fui yo fuera de tu casa anoche. De verdad fui yo........ Y te digo lo que yo vi, pues no voy a decir a nadie. Tu secreto esta bien conmigio.

#8 No tengo secreto! Usted debe pensar en algún otro.

Ahhh... Esta bien el secreto es que tu eres un guapeton. Si no es cierto a la mejor vi otro. LOL