Love is a Dog from Hell- Charles Bukowski

Love is a Dog from Hell
Poems, 1974-1977
Charles Bukowski

NOTE: All contents of this page are © Copyright 1977 by Charles Bukowski. All grammar, syntax and formatting are as the works appeared
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Table of Contents | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four

1
one more creature
dizzy with love

Sandra

is the slim tall
ear-ringed
bedroom damsel
dressed in a long
gown

she's always high
in heels
spirit
pills
booze

Sandra leans out of
her chair
leans toward
Glendale

I wait for her head
to hit the closet
doorknob
as she attempts to
light
a new cigarette on an
almost burnt-out
one

at 32 she likes
young neat
unscratched boys
with faces like the bottoms
of new saucers

she has proclaimed as much
to me
has brought her prizes
over for me to view:
silent blonde zeros of young
flesh
who
a) sit
b) stand
c) talk
at her command

sometimes she brings one
sometimes two
sometimes three
for me to
view

Sandra looks very good in
long gowns
Sandra could probably break
a man's heart

I hope she finds
one.

you

you're a beast, she said
your big white belly
and those hairy feet.
you never cut your nails
and you have fat hands
paws like a cat
your bright red nose
and the biggest balls
I've ever seen.
you shoot sperm like a
whale shoots water out of the
hole in its back.

beast beast beast,
she kissed me,
what do you want for
breakfast?

the 6 foot goddess

I'm big
I suppose that's why my women always seem
small
but this 6 foot goddess
who deals in real estate
and art
and flies from Texas
to see me
and I fly to Texas
to see her--
well, there's plenty of her to
grab hold of
and I grab hold of it
of her,
I yank her head back by the hair,
I'm real macho,
I suck on her upper lip
her cunt
her soul
I mount her and tell her,
"I'm going to shoot white hot
juice into you. I didn't fly all the way to
Galveston to play
chess."

later we lay locked like human vines
my left arm under her pillow
my right arm over her side
I grip both of her hands,
and my chest
belly
balls
cock
tangle into her
and through us
in the dark
pass rays
back and forth
back and forth
until I fall away
and we sleep.

she's wild
but kind
my 6 foot goddess
makes me laugh
the laughter of the mutilated
who still need
love,
and her blessed eyes
run deep into her head
like mountain springs
far in
and
cool and good.

she has saved me
from everything that is
not here.

I've seen too many glazed-eyed
bums sitting under a bridge
drinking cheap wine

you sit on the couch
with me
tonight
new woman.

have you seen the
animal-eater
documentaries?

they show death.

and now I wonder
which animal of
us will eat the
other first
physically and
last
spiritually?

we consume animals
and then one of us
consumes the other,
my love.

meanwhile
I'd prefer you go
first the first way.

since if past performance
charts mean anything
I'll surely go
first the last
way.

sexpot

"you know," she said, "you were at
the bar so you didn't see
but I danced with this guy.
we danced and we danced
close.
but I didn't go home with him
because he knew I was with
you."

"thanks a bunch," I
said.

she was always thinking of sex.
she carried it around with her
like something in a paper
bag.
such energy.
she never forgot.
she stared at every man available
in morning cafes
over bacon and eggs
or later
over a noon sandwich or
a steak dinner.

"I've modeled myself after
Marilyn Monroe," she told
me.

"she's always running off
to some local disco to dance
with a baboon," a friend once told
me, "I'm amazed that you've
stood for it as long as you have."

she'd vanish at race tracks
then come back and say,
"three men offered to buy me
a drink."

or I'd lose her in the parking
lot and I'd look up and she'd
be walking along with a strange man.
"well, he came from this direction
and I came from that and we
kind of walked together. I
didn't want to hurt his
feelings."

she said that I was a very
jealous man.

one day she just
fell down
inside of her sexual organs
and vanished.

it was like an alarm clock
dropping into the
Grand Canyon.
it banged and rattled and
rang and rang
but I could no longer
see or hear it.

I'm feeling much better
now.
I've taken up tap-dancing
and I wear a black felt
hat pulled down low
over my right
eye.

sweet music

it beats love because there aren't any
wounds: in the morning
she turns on the radio, Brahms or Ives
or Stravinsky or Mozart. she boils the
eggs counting the seconds out loud: 56,
57, 58 . . .she peels the eggs, brings
them to me in bed. after breakfast it's
the same chair and listen to the class-
ical music. she's on her first glass of
scotch and her third cigarette. I tell
her I must go to the racetrack. she's
been here about 2 nights and 2 days. "when
will I see you again?" I ask. she
suggests that might be up to me. I
nod and Mozart plays.

numb your ass and your
brain and your heart---

I was coming off an affair that had gone badly.
frankly, I was sliding down into a pit
really feeling shitty and low
when I lucked into this lady with a large bed
covered with a jeweled canopy
plus
wine, champagne, smokes, pills and
color tv.
we stayed in bed and
drank wine, champagne, smoked, popped pills
by the dozens
and I (feeling shitty and low)
tried to get over this affair that had gone
bad.
I watched the tv trying to dull my senses,
but the thing that really helped
was this very long
(specially written for tv) drama about
spies--
American spies and Russian spies, and
they were all so clever and
cool--
even their children didn't know
their wives didn't know, and
in a way
they hardly knew--
and I found out about the counter-spies, double-spies:
guys who worked both sides, and
then this one who was a double-spy turned
into a triple-spy, it
got nicely confusing--
I don't even think the guy who wrote the script
knew what was happening--
it went on for hours!
seaplanes rammed into icebergs,
a priest in Madison, Wisc. murdered his own brother,
a block of ice was shipped in a casket to Peru
in lieu of the world's largest diamond, and
blondes walked in and out of rooms eating
creampuffs and walnuts;
the triple-spy turned into a
quadruple-spy and everybody loved
everybody
and it went on and on
and the hours passed and
it all finally vanished like a paperclip in a
bag of trash and I
reached over and flicked off the set and
slept well for the first time
in a week and a half.

one of the hottest

she wore a platinum blonde wig
and her face was rouged and powdered
and she put the lipstick on
making a huge painted mouth
and her neck was wrinkled
but she still had the ass of a young girl
and the legs were good.
she wore blue panties and I took them off
raised her dress, and with the TV flickering
I took her standing up.
as we struggled around the room
(I'm fucking the grave, I thought, I'm
bringing the dead back to life,
marvelous
so marvelous
like eating cold olives at 3 a.m.
with half the town on fire)
I came.

you boys can keep your virgins
give me hot old women in high heels
with asses that forgot to get old.

of course, you leave afterwards
or get very drunk
which is the same
thing.

we drank wine for hours and watched tv
and when we went to bed
to sleep it off
she left her teeth in all
night long.

ashes

I got his ashes, she said, and I took them
out to sea and I scattered his ashes and
they didn't even look like ashes
and
the urn was weighted with
green and blue pebbles . . .

he didn't leave you any of his
millions?

nothing, she said.

after having to eat all those breakfasts
and lunches and dinners with him? after
listening to all his bullshit?

he was a brilliant man.

you know what I mean.

anyhow, I got the ashes, and you fucked
my sisters.

I never fucked your sisters.

yes, you did.

I fucked one of them.

which one?

the lesbian, I said, she bought me dinner and drinks,
I had very little choice.

I'm going, she said.

don't forget your bottle.

she went in and got it.

there's so little to you, she said, that when you die and
they burn you they'll have to add almost all green and
blue pebbles.

all right, I said.

I'll see you in 6 months! she screamed and slammed the door.

well, I thought, I guess in order to get rid of her I'll have
to fuck her other sister. I walked into the bedroom and started
looking for phone numbers. all I remembered was that she
lived in San Mateo and had a very good
job.

fuck

she pulled her dress off
over her head
and I saw the panties
indented somewhat into the
crotch.

it's only human.
now we've got to do it.
I've got to do it
after all that bluff.
it's like a party--
two trapped idiots.

under the sheets
after I have snapped
off the light
her panties are still
on, she expects an
opening performance.
I can't blame her, but
wonder why she's here with
me? where are the other
guys? how can you be
lucky? having someone the
others have abandoned?

we didn't have to do it
yet we had to do it.
it was something like
establishing new credibility
with the income tax
man. I get the panties
off. I decide not to
tongue her. even then
I'm thinking about
after it's over.

we'll sleep together
tonight
trying to fit ourselves
inside the wallpaper.

I try, fail,
notice the hair on her
head
mostly notice the hair
on her
head
and a glimpse of
nostrils
piglike

I try it again.

me

women don't know how to love,
she told me.
you know how to love
but women just want to
leech.
I know this because I'm a
woman.

hahaha, I laughed.

so don't worry about your breakup
with Susan
because she'll just leech onto
somebody else.

we talked awhile longer
then I said goodbye
hungup
went into the crapper and
took a good beershit
mainly thinking, well,
I'm still alive
and have the ability to expel
wastes from my body.
and poems.
and as long as that's happening
I have the ability to handle
betrayal
loneliness
hangnail
clap
and the economic reports in the
financial section.

with that
I stood up
wiped
flushed
then thought:
it's true:
I know how to love.

I pulled up my pants and walked
into the other room.

another bed

another bed
another woman

more curtains
another bathroom
another kitchen

other eyes
other hair
other
feet and toes.

everybody's looking.
the eternal search.

you stay in bed
she gets dressed for work
and you wonder what happened
to the last one
and the one before that . . .
it's all so comfortable--
this love-making
this sleeping together
the gentle kindness--

after she leaves you get up and use her
bathroom,
it's all so intimate and so strange.
you go back to bed and
sleep another hour.

when you leave it's with sadness
but you'll see her again
whether it works or not.

you drive down to the shore and sit
in your car. it's almost noon.

--another bed, other ears, other
ear rings, other mouths, other slippers, other
dresses
            colors, doors, phone numbers.
you were once strong enough to live alone.
for a man nearing sixty you should be more
sensible.

you start the car and shift,
thinking, I'll phone Jeanie when I get in,
I haven't seen her since Friday.

trapped

don't undress my love
you might find a mannequin;
don't undress the mannequin
you might find
my love.

she's long ago
forgotten me.

she's trying on a new
hat
and looks more the
coquette
than ever.

she is a
child
and a mannequin
and
death.

I can't hate
that.

she didn't do
anything
unusual.

I only wanted her
to.

tonight

"your poems about the girls will still be around
50 years from now when the girls are gone,"
my editor phones me.

dear editor:
the girls appear to be gone
already.

I know what you mean.

but give me one truly alive woman
tonight
walking across the floor toward me

and you can have all the poems

the good ones
the bad ones
or any that I might write
after this one.

I know what you mean.

do you know what I mean?

the escape

escape from the black widow spider
is a miracle as great as art.
what a web she can weave
slowly drawing you to her
she'll embrace you
then when she's satisfied
she'll kill you
still in her embrace
and suck the blood from you.

I escaped my black widow
because she had too many males
in her web
and while she was embracing one
and then the other and then
another
I worked free
got out
to where I was before.

she'll miss me--
not my love
but the taste of my blood,
but she's good, she'll find other
blood;
she's so good that I almost miss my death,
but not quite;
I've escaped. I view the other
webs.

the drill

our marriage book, it
says.
I look through it.
they lasted ten years.
they were young once.
now I sleep in her bed.
he phones her:
"I want my drill back.
have it ready.
I pick the children up at
ten."
when he arrives he waits outside
the door.
his children leave with
him.
she comes back to bed
and I stretch a leg out
place it against hers.
I was young once too.
human relationships simply aren't
durable.
I think back to the women in
my life.
they seem non-existent.

"did he get his drill?" I ask.

"yes, he got his drill."

I wonder if I'll ever have to come
back for my bermuda
shorts and my record album
by The Academy of St. Martin in the
Fields? I suppose I
will.

texan

she's from Texas and weighs
103 pounds
and stands before the
mirror combing oceans
of reddish hair
which falls all the way down
her back to her ass.
the hair is magic and shoots
sparks as I lay on the bed
and watch her combing her
hair. she's like something
out of the movies but she's
actually here. we make love
at least once a day and
she can make me laugh
any time she cares
to. Texas women are always
healthy, and besides that she's
cleaned my refrigerator, my sink,
the bathroom, and she cooks and
feeds me healthy foods
and washes the dishes
too.

"hank," she told me,
holding up a can of grapefruit
juice, "this is the best of them
all."
it says: Texas unsweetened
PINK grapefruit juice.

she looks like Katherine Hepburn
looked when she was
in high school, and I watch those
103 pounds
combing a yard and some change
of reddish hair
before the mirror
and I feel her inside of my
wrists and at the backs of my eyes,
and the toes and legs and belly
of me feel her and
the other part too,
and all of Los Angeles falls down
and weeps for joy,
the walls of the love parlors shake--
the ocean rushes in and she turns
to me and says, "damn this hair!"
and I say,
"yes."

the spider

then there was the time in
New Orleans
I was living with a fat woman,
Marie, in the French Quarter
and I got very sick.
while she was at work
I got down on my knees
in the kitchen
that afternoon and
prayed. I was not a
religious man
but it was a very dark afternoon
and I prayed:
"Dear God: if you let me live,
I promise You I'll never take
another drink."
I kneeled there and it was just like
a movie--
as I finished praying
the clouds parted and the sun came
through the curtains
and fell upon me.
then I got up and took a crap.
there was a big spider in Marie's bathroom
but I crapped anyhow.
an hour later I began feeling much
better. I took a walk around the Quarter
and smiled at people.
I stopped at the grocery and got a couple of
6 packs for Marie.
I began feeling so good than an hour later
I sat in the kitchen and opened
one of the beers.
I drank that and then another one
and then I went in and
killed the spider.
when Marie got home from work
I gave her a big kiss,
then sat in the kitchen and talked
as she cooked dinner.
she asked me what had happened that day
and I told her I had killed the
spider. she didn't get
angry. she was a good
sort.

the end of a short affair

I tried it standing up
this time.
it doesn't usually
work.
this time it seemed
to . . .

she kept saying
"o my God, you've got
beautiful legs!"

it was all right
until she took her feet
off the ground
and wrapped her legs
around my middle.

"o my God, you've got
beautiful legs!"

she weighed about 138
pounds and hung there as I
worked.

it was when I climaxed
that I felt the pain
fly straight up my
spine.

I dropped her on the
couch and walked around
the room.
the pain remained.

"look," I told her,
"you better go. I've got
to develop some film
in my dark room."

she dressed and left
and I walked into the
kitchen for a glass of
water. I got a glass full
in my left hand.
the pain ran up behind my
ears and
I dropped the glass
which broke on the floor.

I got into a tub full of
hot water and epson salts.
I just got stretched out
when the phone rang.
as I tried to straighten
my back
the pain extended to my
neck and arms.

I flopped about
gripped the sides of the tub
got out
with shots of green and yellow
and red light
flashing in my head.

the phone kept ringing.
I picked it up.
"hello?"

"I LOVE YOU!" she said.

"thanks," I said.

"is that all you've got
to say?"

"yes."

"eat shit!" she said and
hung up.

love dries up, I thought
as I walked back to the
bathroom, even faster
than sperm.

moaning and groaning

she writes: you'll
be moaning and groan-
ing in your poems
about how I fucked
those 2 guys last week,
I know you.
she writes on to
say that my vibe
machine was right--
she had just fucked
a third guy
but she knows I don't
want to hear who, why
or how. she closes her
letter, "Love."

rats and roaches
have triumphed again.
here it comes running
with a slug in its
mouth, it's singing
old love songs.
close the windows
moan
close the doors
groan.

an almost made up poem

I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny
blue hands, no, your hands are not tiny
they are small, and the fountain is in France
where I you wrote me that last letter and
I answered and never heard from you again.
you used to write insane poems about
ANGELS AND GOD, all in upper case, and you
knew famous artists and most of them
were your lovers, and I wrote back, it's all right,
go ahead, enter their lives, I'm not jealous
because we've never met. we got close once in
New Orleans, one half block, but never met, never
touched. so you went with the famous and wrote
about the famous, and, of course, what you found out
is that the famous are worried about
their fame--not the beautiful young girl in bed
with them, who gives them that, and then awakens
in the morning to write upper case poems about
ANGELS AND GOD. we know God is dead, they've told
us, but listening to you I wasn't sure. maybe
it was the upper case. you were one of the
best female poets and I told the publishers,
editors, "print her, print her, she's mad but she's
magic. there's no lie in her fire." I loved you
like a man loves a woman he never touches, only
writes to, keeps little photographs of. I would have
loved you more if I had sat in a small room rolling a
cigarette and listened to you piss in the bathroom,
but that didn't happen. your letters got sadder.
your lovers betrayed you. kid, I wrote back, all
lovers betray. it didn't help. you said
you had a crying bench and it was by a bridge and
the bridge was over a river and you sat on the crying
bench every night and wept for the lovers who had
hurt and forgotten you. I wrote back but never
heard again. a friend wrote me of your suicide
3 or 4 months after it happened. if I had met you
I probably would have been unfair to you or you
to me. it was best like this.

blue cheese and chili peppers

these women are supposed to come
and see me
but they never
do.
there's the one with the long scar along her
belly.
there's the other who writes poems
and phones at 3 a.m., saying
"I love you."
there's the one who dances with a
boa constrictor
and writes every four
weeks, she'll
come, she says.
and the 4th who claims she sleeps
always
with my latest book
under her
pillow.

I whack-off in the heat
and listen to Brahms and eat
blue cheese with chili
peppers.

these are women of good mind and
body, excellent in our out of bed,
dangerous and deadly, of
course --
but why do they all have to live
up north?

I know that someday they'll
arrive, but two or three on the same day, and
we'll sit around and talk
and then they'll all leave
together.

somebody else will have them
and I will walk about
in my floppy shorts
smoking too many cigarettes
and trying to make drama
out of
no damned progress
at all.

problems about the other woman

I had worked my charms on her
for a couple of nights in a bar--
not that we were new lovers,
I had loved her for 16 months
but she didn't want to come to my place
"because that other woman has been there,"
and I said, "all right, all right, what will we do?"

she had come in from the north and was looking for a
place to stay
meanwhile rooming with her girlfriend,
and she went to her rent-a-trailer
and got out some blankets and said,
"let's go to the park."
I told her she was crazy
the cops would get us
but she said, "no, it's nice and foggy,"
so we went to the park
spread out the equipment and began
working and here came headlights --
a squad car --
she said, "hurry, get your pants on! I've got mine
on!"
I said, "I can't. they're all twisted-up."
and they came with the flashlights
and asked what we were doing and she said,
"kissing!" one of the cops looked at me and
said, "I don't blame you," and after some small
talk they left us alone.
but she still didn't want the bed where that woman
had been,
so we ended up in a dark hot motel room
sweating and kissing and working
but we made it all right; but I mean,
after all that suffering . . .

we were at my place finally
that next afternoon
doing the same thing.

those weren't bad cops though
that night in the park--
and it's the first time I ever said that
about cops,
and,
I hope,
the last time I ever have
to.

T.M.

she lived in Galveston and was into
T.M.
and I went down to visit her and we made love
continually even though it was very warm
weather
and we took mescalin
and we took the ferry to the island
and drove 200 miles to the nearest
racetrack.
we both won and sat in a redneck bar--
disliked and distrusted by the natives--
and then we went to a redneck motel
and came back a day or two later
and I stayed another week
painted her a couple of good paintings--
one of a man being hanged
and another of a woman being fucked by a wolf.
I awakened one night and she wasn't in bed
and I got up and walked around saying,
"Gloria, Gloria, where are you?"
it was a large place and I walked around opening door after door,
and then I opened what looked like a closet door
and there she was on her knees
surrounded by photographs of
7 or 8 men
heads shaved
most of them wearing rimless spectacles.
there was a small candle burning
and I said, "oh, I'm sorry."
Gloria was dressed in a kimono with flying
eagles on the back of it.
I closed the door and went back to bed.
she came out in 15 minutes.
we began kissing,
her large tongue sliding in and out of my
mouth.
she was a large healthy Texas girl.
"listen, Gloria<" I finally managed to say,
"I need a night off."

the next day she drove me to the airport.
I promised to write. she promised to write.
neither of us has written.

Bee's 5th

I heard it first while screwing a blonde
who had the biggest box in
Scranton.

I listened to it again as I wrote a letter
to my mother asking for 5,000 dollars
and she mailed back
3 bottletops and
the stems of grandpop's
forefingers.

The 5th will kill you
in the grass or at the track,
the kitten said,
walking across the popinjay
rug.

if the 5th don't kill you
the tenth will,
and the Caliente hooker.
as they ran up the
beautiful catsup red flag
93 thieves wept in the
purple dust.

the 5th is like an
ant in a breakfastnook full of
swaggersticks and
june bugs
sucking
dawn's orange juice coming.

and I took the 3 bottletops from my
mother and
ate them
wrapped in pages from
Cosmopolitan
magazine.

but I am tired of the
5th
and I told this to a woman in
Ohio once, I
had just packed coal up 3 flights
of stairs
I was drunk and
dizzy, and she said:

    how can you say you don't care
    for something greater than you'll
    ever be?

and I said:

    that's easy.

and she sat in a green chair and
I sat in a red chair
and after that
we never made love
again.

103 degrees

she cut my toenails the night before,
and in the morning she said, " I think I'll
just lay here all day."
which meant she wasn't going to work.
she was at my apartment -- which meant another
day and another night.
she was a good person
but she had just told me that she wanted to
have a child, wanted marriage, and
it was 103 degrees outside.
when I thought of another child and
another marriage
I really began to feel bad.
I had resigned myself to dying alone
in a small room--
now she was trying to reshape my master plan.
besides she always slammed my car door too loud
and ate with her head too close to the table.
this day we had gone to the post office, a department
store and then to a sandwich place for lunch.
I already felt married. driving back in I almost
ran into a Cadillac.
"let's get drunk," I said.
"no, no," she answered, "it's too early."
and then she slammed the car door.
it was still 103 degrees.
when I opened my mail I found my auto insurance
company wanted $76 more.
suddenly she ran into the room and screamed, "LOOK, I'M
TURING RED! ALL BLOTCHY! WHAT'LL I DO!"
"take a bath," I told her.
I dialed the insurance company long distance and
demanded to know why.
she began screaming and moaning from the
bathtub and I couldn't hear and said, "just a
moment, please!"
I covered the phone and screamed at her in the bathtub:
"LOOK! I'M ON LONG DISTANCE! HOLD IT DOWN, FOR CHRIST'S
SAKE!"
the insurance people still maintained that I owed them
$76 and would send me a letter explaining why.
I hung up and stretched out on the bed.
I was already married, I felt married.
she came out of the bathroom and said, "can I stretch out
beside you?"
and I said, "o.k."
in ten minutes her color was normal.
it was because she had taken a niacin tablet.
she remembered that it happened every time.
we stretched out there sweating:
nerves. nobody has the soul enough to overcome nerves.
but I couldn't tell her that.
she wanted her baby.
what the fuck.

pacific telephone

you go for these wenches, she said,
you go for these whores,
I'll bore you.

I don't want to be shit on anymore,
I said,
relax.

when I drink, she said, it hurts my
bladder, it burns.

I'll do the drinking, I said.

you're waiting for the phone to ring,
she said,
you keep looking at the phone.
if one of those wenches phones you'll
run right out of here.

I can't promise you anything, I said.

then-- just like that-- the phone rang.

this is Madge, said the phone. I've
got to see you right away.

oh, I said.

I'm in a jam, she continued, I need ten
bucks-- fast.

I'll be right over, I said, and
hung up.

she looked at me. it was a wench,
she said your whole face lit up.

what the hell's the matter with
you?

listen, I said, I've got to leave.
you stay here. I'll be right back.

I'm going, she said. I love you're
crazy, you're doomed.

she got her purse and slammed the door.

it's probably some deeply-rooted childhood fuckup
that makes me vulnerable, I thought.

then I left my place and got into my volks.
I drove north up Western with the radio on.
there were whores walking up and down
both sides of the street and Madge looked
more vicious than any of them.

225 pounds

we were in bed and
she started to fight:
"you son of a bitch! you just wait a minute,
I'll get you!"

I began laughing"
"what's the matter? what's the matter?"

"you son of a bitch!" she screamed.

I held her hands as she squirmed.

she was a couple of decades younger than I
a health food freak.
she was very young.

"you son of a bitch! I'll get you!"
she screamed.

I rolled on top of her with my 225 pounds and
just laid it there on her.

"uugg, oooo, my God, that's not fair, oooo, my
God!"

I rolled off and walked into the other room and
sat on the couch.

"I'll get you, bastard," she said, "you just
wait!"

"just don't bite it off," I said, "or you'll make
a half dozen women very unhappy."

she climbed up on the headboard of my bed
(it did have a flat though narrow surface)
and sat perched there watching the news on
tv.
the tv faced the bedroom and it illuminated
her as she sat up there on the
headboard.

"I thought you were sane," I said, "but you're
just as crazy as the rest of them."

"be quiet," she said, " I want to watch the
news!"

"look," I said, "I'll . . ."

"SHUSH!" she said.

and there she was up on the headboard of my bed
really watching the news. I accepted her that
way.

turnabout

she drives into the parking lot while
I am leaning up against the fender of my car.
she's drunk and her eyes are wet with tears:
"you son of a bitch, you fucked me when you
didn't wan to. you told me to keep phoning
you, you told me to move closer into town,
then you told me to leave you alone."

it's all quite dramatic and I enjoy it.
"sure, well, what do you want?"

"I want to talk to you, I want to go to your
place and talk to you . . ."

"I'm with somebody now, she's in getting a
sandwich."

"I want to talk to you . . . it takes a while
to get over things. I need more time."

"sure. wait until she comes out. we're not
inhuman. we'll all have a drink together."

"shit," she says, "oh, shit!"

she jumps in her car and drives off.

the other one comes out: "who was that?"

"an ex-friend."

now she's gone and I'm sitting here drunk
and my eyes seem wet with tears.

it's very quiet and I feel like I have a spear
rammed into the center of my gut.

I walk to the bathroom and puke.

mercy, I think, doesn't the human race know anything
about mercy?

one for old snaggle-tooth

I know a woman
who keeps buying puzzles
chinese
puzzles
blocks
wires
pieces that finally fit
into some order.
she works it out
mathematically
she solves all her
puzzles
lives down by the sea
puts sugar out for the ants
and believes
ultimately
in a better world.

her hair is white
she seldom combs it
her teeth are snaggled
and she wears loose shapeless
coveralls over a body most
women would wish they had.
for many years she irritated me
with what I considered her
eccentricities --
like soaking eggshells in water
(to feed the plants so that
they'd get calcium).
but finally when I think of her
life
and compare it other lives
more dazzling, original
and beautiful
I realize that she has hurt fewer
people than anybody I know
(and by hurt I simply mean hurt).
she has had some terrible times,
times when maybe I should have
helped her more
for she is the mother of only
child
and we were once great lovers,
but she has come through
like I said
she has hurt fewer people than
anybody I know,
and if you look at it like that,
well,
she has created a better world.
she has won.

Frances, this poem is for
you.

communion

horses running
with her miles away
laughing with a
fool

Bach and the hydrogen bomb
and her miles away
laughing with a
fool

the banking system
bumper jacks
gondolas in Venice
and her miles away
laughing with a
fool

you've never quite
seen a stairway before
(each step looking at you
separately)
and outside
the newsboy looking
immortal
as the cars go by
under a sun
like an enemy
and you wonder
why it's so hard
to go crazy--
if you're not already
crazy

until now
you've never seen a
stairway that looked like
a stairway
a doorknob that looked like
a doorknob
and sounds like these sounds

and when the spider comes out
and looks at you
finally
you don't hate it
finally
with her miles away
laughing with a
fool.

trying to get even

we'd had any number of joints and some
beer and I was on the bed stretched out
and she said, "look, I've had 3 abortions
in a row, real fast, and I'm sick of
abortions, I don't want you to stick that
thing in me!"

it was sticking up there and we were both
looking at it.
"ah, come on," I said, "my girlfriend fucked
2 different guys this week and I'm trying to
get even."

"don't get me involved in you domestic
horseshit! now what I want you to do is
to BEAT that thing OFF while I WATCH!
I want to WATCH while you beat that thing
OFF! I want to see it shoot JUICE!"

"o.k. get your face closer."

she got it closer and I spit on my palm
and began working.

it got bigger. just before I was ready I
stopped, I held it at the bottom
stretching it,
the head throbbed
purple and shiny.

"oooh," she said.
she ducked her mouth over it, sucked at
it and
pulled away.

"finish it off," I said.

"no!"

I whacked away and then stopped again
at the last moment and felt it at the
bottom and waved it all around the
bedroom.

she eyed it
fell upon it again
sucked
and pulled away.

we alternated the process
back and forth

again and again.

finally I just pulled her off
the chair
onto the bed
rolled on top of her
stuck it in
worked it
worked it
and came.

when she walked back out of
the bathroom she said,
"you son of a bitch, I love you,
I've loved you for a long time.
when I get back to Santa Barbara
I'm going to write you. I'm
living with this guy but I hate
him, I don't even know what I'm
doing with him."

"o.k.," I said, "but you're up
now. can get me a glass of
water? I'm dry."

she walked into the kitchen and
I heard her remark that
all my drinking glasses were
dirty.

I told her to use a
coffee cup. I
heard the water running and I
thought, one more fuck
I'll be even
and I can be in love with my girlfriend again--
that is
if she hasn't slipped in an
extra
and she probably
has.

Chicago

"I've made it," she said, "I've come
through." she had on new boots, pants
and a white sweater. "I know what I
want now." she was from Chicago and
had settled in L.A.'s Fairfax district.

"you promised me champagne,"
she said.
"I was drunk when I phoned. how about
a beer?"
"no, pass me your joint."
she inhaled, let it out:
"this isn't very good stuff."
she handed it back.

"there's a difference," I said, "between
making it and simply becoming hard."

"you like my boots?"
"yes, very nice."
"listen, I've got to go. can I use
your bathroom?"
"sure."

when she came out she had on a
large lipstick mouth. I hadn't seen
one of those since I was a boy.
I kissed her in the doorway
feeling the lipstick rub off on my
lips.

"goodbye," she said.
"goodbye," I said.

she went up the walk toward her car.
I closed the door.
she knew what she wanted and it wasn't
me.
I know more women like that than any
other kind.

quiet clean girls in gingham dresses

all I've ever known are whores, ex-prostitutes,
madwomen. I see men with quiet,
gentle women-- I see them in the supermarkets,
I see them walking down the streets together,
I see them in their apartments: people at
peace, living together. I know that their
peace is only partial, but there is
peace, often hours and days of peace.

all I've ever known are pill freaks, alcoholics,
whores, ex-prostitutes, madwomen.

when one leaves
another arrives
worse than her predecessor.

I see so many men with quiet clean girls in
gingham dresses
girls with faces that are not wolverine or
predatory.

"don't ever bring a whore around," I tell my
few friends, "I'll fall in love with her."
"you couldn't stand a good woman, Bukowski."

I need a good woman. I need a good woman
more than I need this typewriter, more than
I need my automobile, more than I need
Mozart; I need a good woman so badly that I
can taste her in the air, I can feel her
at my fingertips, I can see sidewalks built
for her feet to walk upon,
I can see pillows for her head,
I can feel my waiting laughter,
I can see her petting a cat,
I can see her sleeping,
I can see her slippers on the floor.

I know that she exists
but where is she upon this earth
as the whores keep finding me?

we will taste the islands and the sea

I know that some night
in some bedroom
soon
my fingers will
rift
through
soft clean
hair

songs such as no radio
plays

all sadness, grinning
into flow.

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This is the end of Part One of Charles Bukowski's Love is a Dog from Hell.
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four
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All contents of this page are © Copyright 1977 by Charles Bukowski. This reproduction is done only out of respect for him and to expose others to his many works. Please visit www.blacksparrowpress.com or www.amazon.com to purchase this book and many other offerings from Buk. I am not compensated in any manner for your visits, "clicks," or purchases.