NOTE: All contents of this page are © Copyright 1977 by Charles Bukowski. All grammar, syntax and formatting are as the works appeared
in the printed version available from Black Sparrow Press. 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. This is
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Bukowski as much as I do, please share it with your friends and support the companies who continue to publish his works by purchasing something from them.Table of Contents | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four
4
Popular melodiesin the last of
your mind
girls in pantyhose
schoolgirls in pantyhose
sitting on bus stop benches
looking tired at 13
with their raspberry lipstick.
it's hot in the sun
and the day at school has been
dull, and going home is
dull, and
I drive by in my car
peering at their warm legs.
their eyes look
away--
they've been warned
about ruthless and horny old
studs; they're just not going
to give it away like that.
and yet it's dull
waiting out the minutes on
the bench and the years at
home, and books they
carry are dull, and even
the ruthless, horny old studs
are dull.
the girls in pantyhose wait,
they await the proper time and
moment, and then they will move
and then they will conquer.
I drive around in my car
peeking up their legs
pleased that I will never be
part of their heaven and
their hell. but that scarlet
lipstick on those sad waiting
mouths! it would be nice to
kiss each of them once, fully,
then give them back.
but the bus will
get them first.
up your yellow river
a woman told a man
when he got off a plane
that I was dead.
a magazine printed
the fact that I was dead
and somebody else said
that they'd heard that I
was dead, and then somebody
wrote an article and said
our Rimbaud our Villon is
dead. at the same time an old
drinking buddy published
a piece stating that I
could no longer write. a
real Judas job. they can't
wait for me to go, these
farts. well, I'm listening
to Tchaikovsky's piano
concerto number one and
the announce said Mahler's
5th and 10th symphonies
are coming up via Amsterdam,
and the beerbottles are
on the floor and ash
from my cigarettes
covers my cotton under-
wear and my gut, I've
told all my girlfriends to
go to hell, and even this
is a better poem than any
of those gravediggers
could write.
artists:
she wrote me for years.
"I'm drinking wine in the kitchen.
it's raining outside. the children
are in school."
she was an average citizen
worried about her soul, her typewriter
and her
underground poetry reputation.
she wrote fairly well and with honest
but only long after others had
broken the road ahead.
she'd phone me drunk at 2 a.m.
at 3 a.m.
while her husband slept.
"it's good to hear your voice," she'd
say.
"it's good to hear your voice too," I'd
say.
what the hell, you
know.
she finally came down. I think it had
something to do with
The Chapparal Poets Society of California.
they had to elect officers. she phone me
from their hotel.
"I'm here," she said, "we're going to elect
officers."
"o.k., fine," I said, "get some good ones."
I hung up.
the phone rang again.
"hey, don't you want to see me?"
"sure," I said, "what's the address?"
after she said goodbye I jacked-off
changed my stockings
drank a half bottle of wine and
drove on out.
they were all drunk and trying to
fuck each other.
I drove her back to my place.
she had on pink panties with
ribbons.
we drank some beer and
smoked and talked about
Ezra Pound, then we
slept.
it's no longer clear to
me whether I drove her to
the airport or
not.
she still writes letters
and I answer each one
viciously
hoping to maker her
stop.
someday she may luck into
fame like Erica
Jong. (her face is not as good
but her body is better)
and I'll think,
my God, what have I done?
I blew it.
or rather: I didn't blow
it.
meanwhile I have her box number
and I'd better inform her
that my second novel will be out
in September.
that ought to keep her nipples hard
while I consider the possibility of
Francine du Plessix Gray.
I have shit stains in
my underwear too
I hear them outside:
"does he always type this
late?"
"no, it's very unusual."
"he shouldn't type this
late."
"he hardly ever does."
"does he drink?"
"I think he does."
"he went to the mailbox in
his underwear yesterday."
"I saw him too."
"he doesn't have any friends."
"he's old."
"he shouldn't type this late."
the go inside and it begins
to rain as
3 gun shots sound half a block
away and
one of the skyscrapers in
downtown L.A. begins
burning
25 foot flames licking toward
doom.
Hawley's leaving town
this guy
he's got a crazy eye
and he's brown
a dark brown from the sun
the Hollywood and Western sun
the racetrack sun
he sees me and he says,
"hey, Hawley's leaving town
for a week. he messes up
my handicapping. now
I've got a chance."
he's grinning, he means it:
with Hawley out of town
he's going to move toward
that castle in the Hollywood Hills;
dancing girls
six German Shepherds
a drawbridge,
ten year old
wine.
Sam the Whorehouse Man
walks up and I tell Sam that
I am clearing $150 a day
at the track.
"I work right off the
toteboard," I tell him.
"I need a girl," he tells me,
"who can belt-buckle a guy
without coming out with all
this Christian moral bullshit
afterwards."
"Hawley's leaving town,"
I tell Sam.
"where's the Shoe?"
he asks.
"back east," says an old man
who's standing there.
he has a white plastic shield
over his left eye
with little hole
punched into it.
"that leaves it all to Pinky,"
says dark brown.
we all stand looking at each
other.
then
a silent signal given
we turn away
and start walking,
each
in a different direction:
north south east west.
we know something.
an unkind poem
they go on writing
pumping out poems--
young boys and college professors
wives who drink wine all afternoon
while their husbands work,
they go on writing
the same names in the same magazines
everybody writing a little worse each year,
getting out a poetry collection
and pumping out more poems
it's like a contest
it is a contest
but the prize is invisible.
they won't write short stories or articles
or novels
they just go on
pumping out poems
each sounding more and more like the others
and less and less like themselves,
and some of the young boys weary and quit
but the professors never quit
and the wives who drink wine in the afternoons
never ever ever quit
and the new young boys arrive with new magazines
and there is some correspondence with lady or men poets
and some fucking
and everything is exaggerated and dull.
when the poems come back
they retype them
and send them off to the next magazine on the list,
and they give readings
and all the readings they can
for free most of the time
hoping that somebody will finally know
finally applaud them
finally congratulate and recognize their
talent
they are all so sure of their genius
there is so little self-doubt,
and most of the live in North Beach or New York City,
and their faces are like their poems:
alike,
and they know each other and
gather and hate and admire and choose and discard
and keep pumping out more poems
more poems
more poems
the contest of the dullards:
tap tap tap, tap tap, tap tap tap, tap tap . . .
the bee
I suppose like any other boy
I had one best friend in the neighborhood.
his name was Eugene and he was bigger
than I was and one year older.
Eugene used to whip me pretty good.
we fought all the time.
I kept trying him but without much
success.
once we leaped off a garage roof together
to prove our guts.
I twisted my ankle and he came up clean
as freshly-wrapped butter.
I guess the only good thing he ever did for me
was when the bee stung me while I was barefoot
and while I sat down and pulled the stinger out
he said,
"I'll get the son of a bitch."
and he did
with a tennis racket
and a rubber hammer.
it was all right
they say they die
anyway.
my foot swelled up double-size
and I stayed in bed
praying for death.
and Eugene went on to become an
Admiral or Commander
or something large in the United States Navy
and he passed through one or two wars
without injury.
I imagine him an old man now
in a rocking chair
with his false teeth
and glass of buttermilk...
while drunk
I fingerfuck this 19 year old groupie
in bed with me.
but the worst part is
(like jumping off the garage roof)
Eugene wins again
because he's not even thinking
about me.
the most
here comes the fishhead singing
here comes the baked potato in drag
here comes nothing to do all day long
here comes another night of no sleep
here comes the phone ringing the wrong tone
here comes a termite with a banjo
here comes a flagpole with blank eyes
here comes a cat and a dog wearing nylons
here comes a machinegun singing
here comes bacon burning in the pan
here comes a voice saying something dull
here comes a newspaper stuffed with small red birds
with flat brown beaks
here comes a cunt carrying a torch
a grenade
a deathly love
here comes victory carrying
one bucket of blood
and stumbling over the berrybush
and the sheets hang out the windows
and bombers head east west north south
get lost
get tossed like salad
as all the fish in the sea line up and form
one line
one long line
one very long thin line
the longest line you could ever imagine
and we get lost
walking past purple mountains
we walk lost
bare at last like the knife
having given
having spit it out like an unexpected olive seed
as the girl at the call service
screams over the phone:
"don't call back! you sound like a jerk!"
ah . . .
drinking German beer
and trying to come up with
the immortal poem at
5 p.m. in the afternoon.
but, ah, I've told the
students that the thing
to do is not to try.
but when the women aren't
around and the horses aren't
running
what else is there to do?
I've had a couple of
sexual fantasies
had lunch out
mailed three letters
been to the grocery store.
nothing on tv.
the telephone is quiet.
I've run dental floss
between my teeth.
it won't rain and I listen
to the early arrivals from the
8 hour day as they
drive in and park their cars
behind the apartment
next door.
I sit drinking German beer
and trying to come up with the
big one
and I'm not going to make it.
I'm just going to keep drinking
more and more German beer
and rolling smokes
and by 11 p.m.
I'll be spread out
on the unmade bed
face up
asleep under the electric
light
still waiting on the immortal
poem.
the girl on the bus stop bench
I saw her when I was in the left lane
going east on Sunset.
she was sitting
with her legs crossed
reading a paperback.
she was Italian or Indian or
Greek
and I was stopped at a red signal
as now and then a wind
would lift her skirt,
I was directly across from her
looking in,
and such perfect immaculate legs
I had never seen.
I am essentially bashful
but I stared and kept staring
until the person in the car behind
me honked.
it had never happened quite like that
before.
I drove around the block
and parked in the supermarket
lot
directly across from her
in my dark shades
I kept staring
like a schoolboy in his first
excitement.
I memorized her shoes
her dress
her stockings
her face.
cars came by and blocked my
view.
then I saw her again.
the wind flipped her skirt
high along her thighs
and I began rubbing myself.
just before her bus cam
I climaxed.
I smelled my sperm
felt it wet against my shorts
and pants.
it was an ugly white bus
and it took her away.
I backed out of the parking lot
thinking, "I'm a peep-freak
but why do they do that?
why do they look like that?
why do they let the wind do
that?
when I got home
I undressed and bathed
got out
toweled
turned on
the news
turned off the news
and
wrote this poem.
I'm getting back to where I
was
I used to take the back off
the telephone and stuff it with rags
and when somebody knocked
I wouldn't answer and if they persisted
I'd tell them in terms vulgar
to vanish.
just another old crank
with wings of gold
flabby white belly
plus
eyes to know out
the sun
a lovely couple
I had to take a shit
but instead I went
into this shop to
have a key made.
the woman was dressed
in gingham and smelled
like a muskrat.
"Ralph," she hollered
and an old swine in a
flowered shirt and]
size 6 shoes, her
husband, came out and
she said, "this man
wants a key."
he started grinding
as if he really didn't
want to.
there were slinking
shadows and urine
in the air.
I moved along the
glass counter,
pointed and called
to her,
"here, I want this
one."
she handed it to
me: a switchblade
in a light purple
case.
$6.50 plus tax.
the key cost
practically
nothing.
I got my change and
walked out on
the street.
sometimes you need
people like that.
the strangest sight you ever did
see--
I had this room in front on DeLongpre
and I used to sit for hours
in the daytime
looking out the front
window.
there were any number of girls who would
walk by
swaying;
it helped my afternoons,
added something to the beer and the
cigarettes.
one day I saw something
extra.
I heard the sound of it first.
"come on, push!" he said.
there was a long board
about 2 1/2 feet wide and
8 feet long;
nailed to the ends and in the middle
were roller skates.
he was pulling in front
two long ropes attached to the board
and she was in back
guiding and also pushing.
all their possessions were tied to the
board:
pots, pans, bedquilts, and so forth
were roped to the board
tied down;
and the skate wheels were grinding.
he was white, red-necked, a
southerner--
thin, slumped, his pants about to
fall from his
ass--
his face pinked by the sun and
cheap wine,
and she was black
and walked upright
pushing;
she was simply beautiful
in turban
long green ear rings
yellow dress
from
neck to
ankle.
her face was gloriously
indifferent.
"don't worry!" he shouted, looking back
at her, "somebody will
rent us a place!"
she didn't answer.
then they were gone
although I still heard the
skatewheels.
they're going to make it,
I thought.
I'm sure they
did.
in a neighborhood of
murder
the roaches spit out
paperclips
and the helicopter circles and circles
smelling for blood
searchlights leering down into our
bedroom
5 guys in this court have pistols
another a
machete
we are all murderers and
alcoholics
but there are worse in the hotel
across the street
they sit in the green and white doorway
banal and depraved
waiting to be institutionalized
here we each have a small green plant
in the window
and when we fight with our women at 3 a.m.
we speak
softly
and on each porch
is a small dish of food
always eaten by morning
we presume
by the
cats.
private first class
they took a man off the street
the other day
he wore an L.A. Rams sweatshirt with
the sleeves cut
off
and under that
an army shirt
private firs class
and he wore a green beret
walked very straight
he was black in brown walking shorts
hair dyed blonde
he never bothered anybody
he stole a few babies
and ran off cackling
but he always returned the infants
unharmed
he slept in the back of the
Love Parlor
the girls let him.
compassion is found in
strange places.
one day I didn't see him
then another.
I asked around.
my taxes are going to go up
again. the state's got to
house and feed
him. the cops took him
in. no
good.
love is a dog from hell
feet of cheese
coffeepot soul
hands that hate poolsticks
eyes like paperclips
I prefer red wine
I am bored on airliners
I am docile during earthquakes
I am sleepy at funerals
I puke at parades
and am sacrificial at chess
and cunt and caring
I smell urine in churches
I can no longer read
I can no longer sleep
eyes like paperclips
my green eyes
I prefer white wine
my box of rubbers is getting
stale
I take them out
Trojan-Enz
lubricated
for greater sensitivity
I take them out
and put three of them on
Linda where did you go?
Katherine where did you go?
(and Nina went to England)
I have toenail clippers
and Windex glass cleaner
green eyes
blue bedroom
bright machinegun sun
this whole thing is like a seal
caught on oily rocks
and circled by the Long Beach Marching Band
at 3:36 p.m.
there is a ticking behind me
but no clock
I feel something crawling along
the left side of my nose:
memories of airliners
my mother had false teeth
my father had false teeth
and every Saturday of their lives
they took up all the rugs in their house
waxed the hardwood floors
and covered them with rugs again
and Nina is in England
and Irene is on ATD
and I take my green eyes
and lay down in my blue bedroom.
my groupie
I read last Saturday in the
redwoods outside of Santa Cruz
and I was about 3/4's finished
when I heard a long high scream
and a quite attractive
young girl came running toward me
long gown& divine eyes of fire
and she leaped up on the stage
and screamed: "I WANT YOU!
I WANT YOU! TAKE ME! TAKE
ME!"
I told her, "look, get the hell
away from me."
but she kept tearing at my
clothing and throwing herself
at me.
"where were you," I
asked her, "when I was living
on one candy bar a day and
sending short stories to the
Atlantic Monthly?"
she grabbed my balls and almost
twisted them off. her kisses
tasted like shitsoup.
2 women jumped up on the stage
and
carried her off into the
woods.
I could still hear her screams
as I began my next poem.
maybe, I thought, I should have
taken her on the stage in front
of all those eyes.
but one can never be sure
whether it's good poetry or
bad acid.
now, if you were teaching creative
writing, he asked, what would you
tell them?
I'd tell them to have an unhappy love
affair, hemorrhoids, bad teeth
and to drink cheap wine,
to keep switching the head of their
bed from wall to wall
and then I'd tell them to have
another unhappy love affair
and never to use a silk typewriter
ribbon,
avoid family picnics
or being photographed in a rose
garden;
read Hemingway only once,
skip Faulkner
ignore Gogol
stare at photos of Gertrude Stein
and read Sherwood Anderson in bed
while eating Ritz crackers,
realize that people who keep
talking about sexual liberation
are more frightened than you are.
listen to E. Power Biggs work the
organ on your radio while you're
rolling Bull Durham in the dark
in a strange town
with one day left on the rent
after having given up
friends, relatives and jobs.
never consider yourself superior and /
or fair
and never try to be.
have another unhappy love affair.
watch a fly on a summer curtain.
never try to succeed.
don't shoot pool.
be righteously angry when you
find your car has a flat tire.
take vitamins but don't lift weights or jog.
then after all this
reverse the procedure.
have a good love affair.
and the thing
you might learn
is that nobody knows anything--
not the State, nor the mice
the garden hose or the North Star.
and if you ever catch me
teaching a creative writing class
and you read this back to me
I'll give you a straight A
right up the pickle
barrel.
the good life
a house with 7 or 8 people
living in it
getting up the rent.
there's a stereo never used
and a set of bongos
never used
and there are rugs over the
windows
and you smoke
as the living roaches
stumble over buttons on your
shirt and tumble
off.
it's dark and somebody sends
out for food. you eat the food
and sleep. everybody sleeps at
once: on floors, coffeetables,
couches, beds, in bathtubs. there's
even one in the brush outside.
then somebody wakes up and
says, "come on, let's roll
one!"
a few others wake up.
"sure. yea. o.k."
"all right. come on, somebody
roll a couple. let's get it
on!"
"yeah! let's get it on!"
we smoke a few joints and then
we're asleep again
except we reverse positions:
bathtub to couch, coffeetable to
rug, bed to floor, and a new one
falls into the brush
outside, and they haven't yet
found Patty Hearst and Tim doesn't
want to speak to
Allan.
the Greek
the guy in the front court can't
speak English, he's Greek, a
rather stupid-looking and
fairly ugly man.
now my landlord does some painting,
it's not very good.
he showed the Greek one of his paintings.
the Greek went out and purchased
paper, brushes, paints.
the Greek started painting in his front
court. he leaves the paintings outside to
dry.
the Greek had never painted before--
here it comes:
a blue guitar
a street
a horse
he's good
in his mid-forties he's
good.
he's found a
toy.
he's happy
now.
then I think, I wonder if he will get
very good?
and I wonder if I will have to watch
the rest?
the glory and the women and the women and
the women and the women and
the decay.
I can almost smell the bloodsuckers forming
to the left.
you see,
I have fastened to him already.
my comrades
this one teaches
that one lives with his mother.
and that one is supported by a red-faced alcoholic father
with the brain of a gnat.
this one takes speed and has been supported by
the same woman for 14 years.
that one writes a novel every ten days
but at least pays his own rent.
this one goes from place to place
sleeping on couches, drinking and making his
spiel.
this one prints his own books on a duplicating
machine.
that one lives in an abandoned shower room
in a Hollywood hotel.
this one seems to know how to get grant after grant,
his life is a filling-out of forms.
this one is simply rich and lives in the best
places while knocking on the best doors.
that one had breakfast with William Carlos
Williams.
and this one teaches.
and that one teaches.
and this one puts out textbooks on how to do it
and speaks in a cruel and dominating voice.
they are everywhere.
everybody is a writer.
and almost every writer is a poet.
poets poets poets poets poets poets
poets poets poets poets poets poets
the next time the phone rings
it will be a poet.
the next person at the door
will be a poet.
this one teaches
and that one lives with his mother
and that one is writing the story of
Ezra Pound.
oh, brothers, we are the sickest and the
lowest of the breed.
soul
oh, how worried they are about my
soul!
I get letters
the phone rings . . .
"are you going to be all right?"
they ask.
"I'll be all right," I tell them.
"I've seem so many go down the drain,"
they tell me.
"don't worry about me," I say.
yet, they make me nervous.
I go in and take a shower
come out and squeeze a pimple on my
nose.
then I go into the kitchen and make
a salami and ham sandwich.
I used to live on candy bars.
now I have imported German mustard
for my sandwich. I might be in danger
at that.
the phone keeps ringing and the letters keep
arriving.
if you live in a closet with rats and
eat dry bread
they like you.
you're a genious
then.
or if you're in the madhouse or
the drunktank
they call you a genius.
or if you're drunk and shouting
obscenities and
vomiting your life-guts on
the floor
you're a genius.
but get the rent paid up a month in
advance
put on a new pair of stockings
go to the dentist
make love to a healthy clean girl
instead of a whore
and you've lost your
soul.
I'm not interested enough to ask about
their souls.
I suppose I
should.
a change of habit
Shirley came to town with a broken leg
and met the Chicano who smoked
long slim cigars
and they got a place together
on Beacon street
5th floor;
the leg didn't get in the way
too much and
they watched television together
and Shirley cooked, on her
crutches and all;
there was a cat, Bogey,
and they had some friends
and talked about sports and Richard Nixon
and how the hell to
make it.
it worked for some months,
Shirley even got the cast off,
and Chicano, Manuel,
got a job at the Biltmore,
Shirley sewed all the buttons back on
Manuel's shirts, mended and matched his
socks, then
one day Manuel returned to the place, and
she was gone--
no argument, no note, just
gone, all her clothes
all her stuff, and
Manuel sat by the window and looked out
and didn't make his job
the next day or
the day after, he
didn't phone in, he
lost his job, got a
ticket for parking, smoked
four hundred and sixty cigarettes, got
picked up for common drunk, bailed
out, went
to court and pleaded
guilty.
when the rent was up he
moved from Beacon street, he
left the cat and went to live with
his brother and
they'd get drunk
every night
and talk about how
terrible
life was.
Manuel never again smoked
long slim cigars
because Shirley always said
how
handsome he looked
when he did.
$$$$$$
I've always had trouble with
money.
this one place I worked
everybody ate hot dogs
and potato chips
in the company cafeteria for
3 days before each
payday.
I wanted steaks,
I even went to see the manager
of the cafeteria and
demanded that he serve
steaks. he refused.
I'd forget payday.
I had a high rate of absenteeism and
payday would arrive and everybody would
start talking about
it.
"payday?" I'd say, "hell, is this
payday? I forgot to pick up my
last check. . ."
"stop the bullshit, man . . ."
"no, no, I mean it . . ."
I'd jump up and go down to payroll
and sure enough there'd be a
check and I'd come back and show it
to them. "Jesus Christ, I forgot all about
it . . ."
for some reason they'd get
angry. then the payroll clerk would come
around. I'd have two
checks. "Jesus," I'd say, "two checks."
and they were
angry.
some of them were working
two jobs.
the worst day
it was raining very hard,
I didn't have a raincoat so
I put on a very old coat I hadn't worn for
months and
I walked in a little late
while they were working.
I looked in the coat for some
cigarettes
and found a 5 dollar bill
in the side pocket:
"hey, look," I said, "I just found a 5 dollar
bill I didn't know I had, that's
funny."
"hey, man, knock off the
shit!"
"no, no, I'm serious, really, I remember
wearing this coat when
I got drunk at the
bars. I've been rolled too often,
I've got this fear . . . I take money out of
my wallet and hide it all
over me."
"sit down and get to
work."
I reached into an inside pocket:
"hey look, here's TWENTY! God, here's a
TWENTY I never knew I
had! I'm
RICH!"
"you're not funny, son of
a bitch . . ."
"hey, my God, here's ANOTHER
twenty! too much, too too
much . . . I knew I didn't spend all that
money that night. I thought I'd been
rolled again . . ."
I kept searching the
coat. "hey! here's a ten and
here's a fiver! my God . . ."
"listen, I'm telling you to sit down
and shut up . . ."
"my God, I'm RICH . . . I don't even need
this job . . ."
"man, sit down . . ."
I found another ten after I sat down
but I didn't say
anything.
I could feel waves of hatred and
I was confused,
they believed I had
plotted the whole thing
just to make them
feel bad. I didn't want
to. people who live on hot dogs and
potato chips for
3 days before payday
feel bad
enough.
I sat down
leaned forward and
began to go to
work.
outside
it continued to
rain.
sitting in a sandwich joint
my daughter is most
glorious.
we are eating a take-
out snack in my car
in Santa Monica.
I say, "hey, kid,
my life has been
good, so good."
she looks at me.
I put my head down
on the steering wheel,
shudder, then I
kick the door open,
put on a
mock-puke.
I straighten up.
she laughs
biting into her
sandwich.
I pick up four
french fries
put them into my mouth,
chew them.
it's 5:30 p.m.
and the cars run up
and down past us.
I sneak a look:
we've got all the
luck we need:
her eyes are brilliant with the
remainder of the
day, and she's
grinning.
doom and siesta time
my friend is worried about dying
he lives in Frisco
I live in L.A.
he goes to the gym and
works with the iron and hits
the big bag.
old age diminishes him.
he can't drink because of
his liver.
he can do 50 pushups.
he writes me
letters
telling me
that I'm the only one
who listens to him.
sure, Hal, I answer him
on a postcard.
but I don't want to pay
all those gym fees.
I go to bed
with a liverwurst and
onion sandwich at
one p.m.
after I eat I
nap
with the heli-
copters and vultures
circling over my
sagging mattress.
as crazy as I ever was
drunk and writing poems
at 3 a.m.
what counts no
is one more
tight
pussy
before the light
tilts out
drunk and writing poems
at 3:15 a.m.
some people tell me that I'm
famous.
what am I doing alone
drunk and writing poems at
3:18 a.m.?
I'm as crazy as I ever was
they don't understand
that I haven't stopped hanging out of the 4th floor
windows by my heels--
I still do
right now
sitting here
writing this down
I am hanging by my heels
floors up:
68, 72, 101,
the feeling is the
same.
relentless
unheroic and
necessary
sitting here
drunk and writing poems
at 3:24 a.m.
sex
I am driving down Wilton Avenue
when this girl of about 15
dressed in tight blue jeans
that grip her behind like two hands
steps out in front of my car
I stop to let her cross the street
and as I watch her contours waving
she looks directly through my windshield
at me
with purple eyes
and then blows
out of her mouth
the largest pink globe of
bubble gum
I have ever seen
while I am listening to Beethoven
on the car radio.
she enters a small grocery store
and is gone
and I am left with
Ludwig.
dead now
I always wanted to ball
Henry Miller, she said,
but by the time I got there
it was too late.
damn it, I said, you girls
always arrive too late.
I've already masturbated
twice today.
that wasn't his problem,
she said. by the way,
how come you flog-off
so much?
it's the space, I said,
all that space between
poems and stories, it's
intolerable.
you should wait, she said,
you're impatient.
what do you think of Celine?
I asked.
I wanted to ball him too.
dead now, I said.
dead now, she said.
care to hear a little
music? I asked.
might as well, she said.
I gave her Ives.
that's all I had left
that night.
twins
hey, said my friend, I want you to meet
Hangdog Harry, he reminds me of you,
and I said, all right, and we went to
this cheap hotel.
old men sitting around watching
some program o\n the tv in the lobby
as we went up the starway
to 209 and there was Hangdog
sitting in a straight strawback chair
bottle of wine at his feet
last year's calendar on the wall,
"you guys sit down," he said,
"that's the problem:
man's inhumanity to man."
we watched him slowly roll a
Bull Durham cigarette.
"I've got a 17 inch neck and I'll kill
anybody who fucks with me."
he licked his cigarette
then spit on the rug.
"just like home here. feel free."
"how you feeling, Hangdog?" asked
my friend.
"terrible. I'm in love with a whore,
haven't seen her in 3 or 4 weeks."
"what you think she's doing, Hang?"
"well, right now about now I'd say
she's sucking some turkeyneck."
he picked up his wine bottle
took a tremendous drain.
"look," my friend said to Hangdog,
"we've got to get going."
"o.k., time and tide, they don't
wait . . ."
he looked at me:
"watcha say your name was?"
"Salomski."
"pleased to meet cha, kid."
"likewise."
we went down the stairway
they were still in the lobby
looking at t.v.
"what did you think of him?"
my friend asked.
"shit," I said, "he was really
all right. yes."
the bad place didn't look
bad
she had huge thighs
and a very food laugh
she laughed at everything
and the curains were yellow
and I finished
rolled off
and before she went to the bathroom
she reached under the bed and
threw me a rag.
it was hard
it was stiff with other men's
sperm.
I wiped off on the sheet.
when she came out
she bent over
and I saw all that behind
as she put Mozart
on.
the little girls
up in northern California
he stood in the pulpit
and had been reading for some time
he had been reading poems about
nature and the foodness
of man.
he knew that everything was all
right and you couldn't blame him:
he was a professor and had never
been in jail or in a whorehouse
had never had a used car die
in a traffic jam;
had never needed more than
3 drinks during his wildest
evening;
had never been rolled, flogged,
mugged,
had never been bitten by a dog
he got nice letters from Gary
Snyder, and his face was
kindly, unmarked and
tender.
his wife had never betrayed him,
nor had his luck.
he said, "I'm just going to read
3 more poems and then I'm going
to step down and let
Bukowski read."
"oh no, William," said all the
little girls in their pink and blue
and white and orange and lavender
dresses, "oh no, William,
read some more, read some
more!"
he read one more poem and then he said,
"this will be the last poem that
I will read."
"oh no, William," said all the little
girls i ntheir red and green see-
through dresses, "oh no, William," said
all the little girls in their tight blue
jeans with the little hears sewn on them,
"oh no, William," said all the little girls,
"read more poems, read more poems!"
but he was good to his word.
he got the poem out and he climbed down and
vanished. as I got up to read
the little girls wigged in
their seats and some of them hissed and
some of them made remarks to me
which I will use at some later date.
two or three weeks later
I got a letter from William
saying the he did enjoy my reading.
a true gentleman.
I was in bed in my underwear with a
3 day hangover. I lost the envelope
but I took the letter and folded it
into a paper airplane such as
I had learned to make in grammar
school. it sailed about the room
before landing between an old Racing Form
and a pair of shit-stained shorts.
we have not corresponded since.
rain or shine
the vultures
(all 3 of them)
sit very quietly in their
caged tree
and below
on the ground
are chunks of rotting meat.
the vultures are over-full.
our taxes have fed them
well.
we move on to the next
cage.
a man is in there
sitting on the ground
eating
his own shit.
I recognize him as
our former mailman.
his favorite expression
had been:
"have a beautiful day."
that day, I did.
cold plums
eating cold plums in bed
she told me about the German
who owned everything on the block
except the custom drapery shop
and he tried to buy
the custom drapery shop
but the girls said, no.
the German had the best grocery store in
Pasadena, his meats were high
but worth the price
and his vegetables and produce were
very cheap and
he also sold flowers. people came
from all over Pasadena to go to his
store
but he wanted to buy the custom drapery shop
and the girls kept saying, no.
one night somebody was seen running
out the back door of the drapery shop
and there was a fire
and almost everything was destroyed--
they'd had a tremendous inventory,
they tried to save what was left
had a fire sale
but it didn't work
they had to sell, finally,
and the German owned the custom drapery shop
but it just sits there, vacant,
but the German's wife tried to make a go of it
she tried to sell little baskets and things
but it didn't work.
we finished the plums.
"that was a sad story," I told her.
then she bent down and started sucking me off.
the windows were open and you could hear me
hollering all over the neighborhood
at 5:30 in the evening.
girls coming home
the girls are coming home in their cars
and I sit by the window and
watch.
there's a girl in a red dress
driving a white car
there's a girl in a blue dress
driving a blue car
there's a girl in a pink dress
driving a red car.
as the girl in the red dress
gets out of the white car
I look at her legs
as the girl in the blue dress
gets out of the blue car
I look at her legs
as the girl in the pink dress
gets out of the red car
I look at her legs.
the girl in the red dress
who got out of the white car
had the best legs
the girl in the pink dress
who got out of the red car
had average legs
but I keep remembering the girl in the blue dress
who got out of the blue car
I saw her panties
and you don't know how exciting life can get
around here
at 5:35 p.m.
some picnic
which reminds me
I shacked with Jane for 7 years
she was a drunk
I lover her
my parents hated her
I hated my parents
we made a nice
foursome
one day we went on a picnic
together
up in the hills
and we played cards and drank beer and
ate potato salad
they treated her as if she were a living person
at last
everybody laughed
I didn't laugh.
later at my place
over the whiskey
I said to her,
I don't like them
but it's good they treated you
nice.
you damn fool, she said,
don't you see?
see what?
they kept looking at my beer-belly,
they think I'm pregnant.
oh, I said, well here's to our beautiful
child.
here's to our beautiful child,
she said.
we drank them down.
bedpans
in the hospitals I've been in
you see the crosses on the walls
with the thin palm leaves behind them
yellowed and browned
it is the signal to accept the inevitable
but what really hurts
are the bedpans
hard under you ass
you're dying
and you're supposed to sit up on this
impossible thing
and urinate and defecate
while in the bed
next to yours
a family of 5 brings good cheer
to an incurable
heart-case
cancer-case
or a case of general rot.
the bedpan is a merciless rock
a horrible mockery
because nobody wants to drag your failing body
to the crapper and back.
you'd drag it
but they've got the bars up:
you're in your crib
your tiny death-crib
and when the nurse comes back
an hour and a half later
and there's nothing in the bedpan
she gives you a most
intemperate look
as if when nearing death
one should be able to do
the common common things
again and again.
but if you think that's bad
just relax
and let it go
all of it
into the sheets
then you'll hear it
not only from the nurse
but from the other patients . . .
the hardest part of dying
is that they expect you
to go out
like a rocket shot into the
night sky.
sometimes that can be done
but when you need the bullet and the gun
you'll look up
and find
that the wires above your head
connected to the button
years ago
have been cut
snipped
eliminated
been
made
useless as
the bedpan.
the good loser
red face
Texas
and age
he's at an L.A.
racetrack
been talking to
a group of folks.
it's the 4th race
and he's ready to
leave:
"well, goodbye,
folks and God bless,
see you around
tomorrow . . ."
"nice fellow."
"yeh."
he's going to the
parking lot to
get into a 12 year
old car
from there he'll
drive to a roominghouse
his room will neither
have a toilet nor a
bath
his room will have
one window with a
torn paper shade
and outside will be
a crumbling cement wall
spray-can graffiti courtesy
of a Chicano youth gang
he'll take off his
shoes and
get on the bed
it will be dark
but he won't turn
on the light
he's got nothing
to do.
an art
all the way from Mexico
straight from the fields
to 14 wins
13 by k.o.
he was ranked #2
and in a tune-up fight
he was k.o'd by an unranked
black fighter who hadn't fought
in 2 years.
all the way from Mexico
straight from the fields
the drink and the women had gotten
to him.
in the rematch he was k.o'd again
and suspended for 6 moths.
all that way
for the bottle and 2 cases of
v.d.
he came back in a year
swearing he was clean, he'd
learned.
and he earned a draw with the
9th ranked in his division.
he came back for the rematch
and the fight was stopped in
the 3rd round because he
couldn't protect
himself.
and he went all the way back
to Mexico
straight to the fields.
it takes a damn good poet
like me
to handle drink and women
evade v.d.
write about failures
like him
and hold my ranking in the
top 10:
all the way from Germany
straight from the factories
among beerbellies
and the ringing of the
phone.
the girls at the green
hotel
are more beautiful than
movie stars
and they lounge on the
lawn
sunbathing
and one sits in a short
dress and high
heels, legs crossed
exposing miraculous
thighs.
she has a bandana
on her head
and smokes a
long cigarette.
traffic slows
almost stops.
the girls ignore
the traffic.
they are half
asleep in the afternoon
they are whores
they are whores without
souls
and they are magic
because they lie
about nothing.
I get in my car
wait for traffic to
clear,
drive across the street
to the green hotel
to my favorite:
she is
sun-bathing on the
lawn nearest the
curb.
"hello," I say.
she turns eyes like
imitation diamonds
up at me.
her face has no
expression.
I drop my latest
book of poems
out the car window,
it falls
by her side.
I shift into
low,
drive off.
there'll be some
laughs
tonight.
a good one
I get too many
phone calls.
they seek the
creature out.
they shouldn't.
I never phoned
Knut Hamsun or
Ernie or
Celine.
I never phoned
Salinger
I never phoned
Neruda.
tonight I got
a call:
"hello. you
Charles Bukowski?"
"yes."
"well, I got a
house."
"yes?"
"a bordello."
"I understand."
"I've read your
books. I've got a
houseboat in
Sausalito."
"all right."
"I want to give you
my phone number. you
ever come to San Francisco
I'll buy you a drink."
"o.k. give me the
number."
"I took it down.
"we run a class joint. we're
after lawyers and state senators,
upper class citizens, muggers,
pimps,
the like."
"I'll phone you when I
get up there."
"lots of the girls
read your books. they
love you."
"yeah?"
"yeah."
we said goodbye.
I liked that
phone call.
shit time
half drunk
I left her place
her warm blankets
and I was hungover
didn't even know what town
it was.
I walked along and
I couldn't find my car.
but I knew it was somewhere.
and I was lost
too.
I walked around. it was a
Wednesday morning and I could
see the ocean to the south.
but all that drinking:
the shit was about to pour
out of me.
I walked towards the
sea.
I saw a brown brick
structure at the edge
of the sea.
I walked in. there was an
old guy groaning on one of
the pots.
"hi, buddy," he said.
"hi," I said.
"it's hell out there,
isn't it?" the old guy
asked.
"it is," I answered.
"need a drink?"
"never before noon."
"what time you got?"
"11:58."
"we got two minutes."
I wiped, flushed, pulled up my
pants and walked over.
the old man was still on his pot,
groaning.
he pointed to a bottle of wine
at his feet
it was almost done
and I picked it up and took about
half what remained.
I handed him a very old and wrinkled
dollar
then walked outside on the lawn
and puked it up.
I looked at the ocean the
ocean looked good, full of blues and
greens and sharks.
I walked back out of there
and down the street
determined to find my automobile.
it took me an hour and 15 minutes
and when I found it
I got in and drove off
pretending that I knew just as much
as the next
man.
madness
I don't beat the walls with my fists
I just sit
but it rushes in
a tide of it.
the woman in the court behind me howls,
weeps every night.
sometimes the count comes
and takes her away for a day or two.
I believed she was suffering the loss
of a great love
until the day she came over and old about
it--
she had lost 8 apartment houses
to a gigolo who had swindled her out
of them.
she was howling and weeping over loss of property.
she began weeping as she told me
then with a mouth lined with stale lipstick
and smelling of garlic and onions
she kissed me and told me:
"Hank, nobody loves you if you don't have money."
she's old, almost as old as I am.
she left, still weeping . . .
the other morning at 7:30 a.m. two black
attendants came with their stretcher,
only they knocked on my door.
"come on, man," said the tallest
"wait," I said, "there's been a mistake."
I was terribly hungover
standing in my torn bathrobe
hair hanging down over my eyes.
"this is the address the gave us, man,
this is 5437 and 2/5's isn't it?"
"yes."
"come on, man, don't give us no shit."
"the lady you want is in the back there."
they both walked around back.
"this door here?"
"no, no, that's my back door. look go up those steps behind
you there. it's the door to the east, the one with the mailbox
hanging loose."
they went up and banged on the door. I watched them take her
away. they didn't use the stretcher. she walked between them.
and the thought occurred to me that there were taking the wrong
one but I wasn't sure.
a 56 year old poem
I went with two ladies
down to Venice
to look for antique furniture.
I parked in back of the store
and went in with them.
$125 for a clock, $700 for 6 chairs.
I stopped looking.
the ladies moved around
looking at everything.
the ladies had class.
I waved goodbye to one of the ladies
and walked out.
it was Sunday and the bar
wasn't much better,
everybody was nervous and young
and blonde and pale.
I finished my drink, got 4 beers
at the liquor store
and sat in my car drinking them.
finishing the 4th beer
the ladies came out.
they asked me if I was all right.
I told them that every experience
meant something
and that they had pulled me out of
my usual murky
current.
the one I knew best had bought a table
with a marble top for $100.
she owned her own business and was a
civilized person.
she was civilized enough to know a neighbor
who had a van
and while I sat in her apartment drinking
1974 Zeller Schwarze Katz
they went down and got the table.
later she wanted to know what I thought about
the table and I said I thought it was all right,
sometimes I lost one hundred dollars at the
racetrack. we watched tv in her bed and later
that night I couldn't come. I think it was
because I was thinking about the marble table.
I'm sure it was. I don't have any antique marble
tables at my place, I almost never have any sex trouble at
my place. sometimes but
very seldom.
I don't understand the whole antique
business
I'm sure it's a giant
con.
the beautiful young girl
walking past the graveyard--
I stop my car at the signal
I see her walking past the graveyard--
as she walks past the iron fence
I can see through the iron fence
and I see the headstones
and the green lawn.
her body moves in front of the iron fence
the headstones do not move.
I think,
doesn't anybody else see this?
I think,
does she see those headstones?
if she does
she has wisdom that I don't have
for she appears to ignore them.
her body moving in its
magic fluid
and her long hair is lighted
by the 3 p.m. sun.
the signal changes
she crosses the street to the west
I drive west.
I drive my car down to the ocean
get out
and run up and down
in front of the sea for 35 minutes
seeing people here and there
with eyes and ears and toes
and various other parts.
nobody seems to care.
beer
I don't know how many bottles of beer
I have consumed while waiting for things
to get better.
I don't know how much wine and whiskey
and beer
mostly beer
I have consumed after
splits with women--
waiting for the phone to ring
waiting for the sound of footsteps,
and the phone never rings
until much later
and the footsteps never arrive
until much later.
when my stomach is coming up
out of my mouth
they arrive as fresh as spring flowers:
"what the hell have you done to yourself?
it will be 3 days before you can fuck me!"
the female is durable
she lives seven and one half years longer
than the male, and she drinks very little beer
because she knows it's bad for the
figure.
while we are going mad
they are out
dancing and laughing
with horny cowboys.
well, there's beer
sacks and sacks of empty beer bottles
and when you pick one up
the bottles fall through the wet bottom
of the paper sack
rolling
clanking
spilling grey wet ash
and stale beer,
or the sacks fall over at 4 a.m.
in the morning
making the only sound in your life.
beer
rivers and seas of beer
beer beer beer
the radio singing love songs
as the phone remains silent
and the walls stand
straight up and down
and beer is all there is.
artist
all of a sudden I'm a painter.
a girl from Galveston gives me
$50 for a painting of a man
holding a candycane while
floating in a darkened sky.
then a young man with a black beard
comes over
and I sell him three for $80.
he likes rugged stuff
where I write across the painting--
"shoot shit" or "GRATE ART IS
HORSESHIT, BUY TACOS."
I can do a painting in 5 minutes.
I use acrylics, paint right out of
the tube.
I do the left side of the painting
first with my left hand and then
finish the right side with my
right hand.
now the man with the black beard
comes back with a friend whose hair
sticks out and they have a young blonde
girl with them.
black beard is still a sucker:
I sell him a hunk of shit--
and orange dog with the word
"DOG" written on his side.
stick-out hair wants 3 paintings
for which I ask $70.
he doesn't have the money.
I keep the paintings but
he promises to send me a
girl called Judy
in garter belt and high heels.
he's already told her about me:
"a world-renowned writer," he said
and she said, "oh no!" and pulled
her dress up over her head.
"I want that," I told him.
then we haggled over terms
I wanted to fuck her first
then get head later.
"how about head first and
fuck later?" he asked.
"that doesn't work," I
said.
so we agreed:
Judy will come by and
afterwards
I will hand her the
3 paintings.
so there we are:
back to the barter system,
the only way to beat
inflation.
never the less,
I'd like to
start the Men's Liberation Movement:
I want a woman to hand me 3 of her
paintings after I have
made love to her,
and if she can't paint
she can leave me
a couple of golden earrings
or maybe a slice of ear
in memory of one who
could.
my old man
16 years old
during the depression
I'd come home drunk
and all my clothing--
shorts, shirts, stockings--
suitcase, and pages of
short stories
would be thrown out on the
front lawn and about the
street.
my mother would be
waiting behind a tree:
"Henry, Henry, don't
go in . . .he'll
kill you, he's read
your stories . . ."
"I can whip his
ass . . ."
"Henry, please take
this . . .and
find yourself a room."
but it worried him
that I might no
finish high school
so I'd be back
again.
one evening he walked in
with the pages of
one of my short stories
(which I had never submitted
to him)
and he said, "this is
a great short story."
I said, "o.k.,"
and he handed it to me
and I read it.
it was a story about
a rich man
who had a fight with
his wife and had
gone out into the night
for a cup of coffee
and had observed
the waitress and the spoons
and forks and the
salt and pepper shakers
and the neon sign
in the window
and then had gone back
to his stable
to see and touch his
favorite horse
who then
kicked him in the head
and killed him.
somehow
the story held
meaning for him
though
when I had written it
I had no idea
of what I was
writing about.
so I told him,
"o.k., old man, you can
have it."
and he took it
and walked out
and closed the door.
I guess that's
as close
as we ever got.
fear
he walks up to my Volks
after I have parked
and rocks it back and
forth
grinning around his
cigar.
"hey, Hank, I notice
all the women around your
place lately . . . good looking
stuff; you're doing all
right."
"Sam," I say, "that's not
true; I am one of God's most
lonely men."
"we got some nice girls at
the parlor, you oughta try
some of them."
"I'm afraid of those places,
Sam, I can't walk into them."
"I'll send you a girl then,
real nice stuff."
"Sam, don't send me a whore,
I always fall in love with
whores."
"o.k., friend," he says,
"let me know if you change
your mind."
I watch him walk away.
some men are always on
top of their game.
I am mostly always
confused.
he can break a man
in half
and doesn't know who
Mozart is.
who wants to listen
to music
anyhow
on a rainy Wednesday
night?
little tigers everywhere
Sam the whorehouse man
has squeaky shoes
and he walks up and down
the court
squeaking and talking to
the cats.
he's 310 pounds,
a killer
and he talks to the cats.
he sees the women at the massage
parlor and has no girlfriends
no automobile
he doesn't drink or dope
his biggest vices are
chewing on a cigar and
feeding all the cats in
the neighborhood.
some of the cats get
pregnant
and so finally there are
more and more cats and
every time I open my door
one or two cats will
run in and sometimes I'll
forget they are there and
they'll shit under the bed
or I'll awaken at night
hearing sounds
leap up with my blade
sneak into the kitchen and
find one of Sam the whorehouse
man's cats walking around on
the sink or sitting on top
of the refrigerator.
Sam runs the love parlor
around the corner
and his girls stand in the
doorway in the sun
and the traffic signals go
red and green and red and green
and all of Sam's cats
possess some of the meaning
as do the days and the nights.
after the reading:
". . . I've seen people in front of
their typewriters in such a bind
that it would blow their intestines
right out of their assholes if they
were trying to shit."
"ah hahaha hahaha!"
". . . it's a shame to work that
hard to try to write."
"ah hahaha hahaha!"
"ambition rarely has anything to
do with talent. luck is best, and
talent limps along a little
bit behind luck."
"ah haha."
he rose and left with an 18 year old virgin, the most
beautiful co-ed of them
all.
I closed my notebook
got up and limped a
little bit behind
them.
about cranes
sometimes after you get your ass
kicked real good by the forces
you often wish you were a crane
standing on one leg
in blue water
but there's
the
old up-bringing
you know:
you don't want to be
a crane
standing on one leg
in blue water
the distress is not
enough
and
the victory
limps
a crane can't
buy a piece of ass
or
hang itself at noon
in Monterey
those are some of
the things
humans can do
besides
stand on one leg.
a gold pocket watch
my grandfather was a tall German
with a strange smell on his breath.
he stood very straight
in front of his small house
and his wife hated him
and his children thought him odd.
I was six the first time we met
and he gave me all his war medals.
the second time I met him
he gave me his gold pocket watch.
it was very heavy and I took it home
and wound it very tight
and it stopped running
which made me feel bad.
I never saw him again
and my parents never spoke of him
nor did my grandmother
who had long ago
stopped living with him.
once I asked about him
and they told me
he drank too much
but I liked him best
standing very straight
in front of his house
and saying, "hello, Henry, you
and I, we know each
other."
beach trip
the strong men
the muscle men
there the sit
down at the beach
cocoa tans
with the weights
scattered about them
untouched
they sit as the
waves go in and
out
they sit as the
stock market
makes and breaks
men and families
the sit while
one punch of a button
could turn their
turkeynecks to
black and shriveled
matchsticks
they sit while
suicides in green rooms
trade it in for more space
they sit while former
Miss Americas
weep before wrinkled
mirrors
they sit
they sit with less
life-flow than apes
and my woman stops and
looks at them:
"oooh oooh oooh," she
says.
I walk off with
my woman as the waves
go in and out.
"there's something wrong
with them," she said, "what
is it?"
"their love only runs in
one direction."
the seagulls whirl and
the sea runs in and out
and we left them
back there
wasting themselves
time
this moment
the seagulls
the sea
the sand.
one for the shoeshine man
the balance is preserved by the snails climbing the
Santa Monica cliffs;
the luck is in walking down Western Avenue
and having the girls in a massage
parlor holler at you, "Hello Sweetie!"
the miracle is having 5 women in love
with you at the age of 55,
and the goodness is that you are only able
to love one of them.
the gift is having a daughter more gentle
than you are, whose laughter is finer
than yours.
the peace comes from driving a
blue 1967 Volks through the streets like a
teenager, radio tuned to The Host Who Loves You
Most, feeling the sun, feeling the solid hum
of the rebuilt motor
as you needle through traffic.
the grace is being able to like rock music,
symphony music, jazz . . .
anything that contains the original energy of
joy.
and the probability that returns
is the deep blue low
yourself flat upon yourself
within the guillotine walls
angry at the sound of the phone
or anybody's footsteps passing;
but the other probability--
the lilting high that always follows--
makes the girl at the checkstand in the
supermarket look like
Marilyn
like Jackie before they got her Harvard lover
like the girl in high school that we
all followed home.
there is that which helps you believe
in something else besides death:
somebody in a car approaching
on a street too narrow,
and he or she pulls aside to let you
by, or the old fighter Beau Jack
shining shoes
after blowing the entire bankroll
on parties
on women
on parasites,
humming, breathing on the leather,
working the rag
looking up and saying:
"what the hell, I had it for
while. that beats the
other."
I am bitter sometimes
but the taste has often been
sweet. it's only that I've
feared to say it. it's like
when you woman says,
"tell me you love me," and
you can't.
if you see me grinning from
my blue Volks
running a yellow light
driving straight into the sun
I will be locked in the
arms of a
crazy life
thinking of trapeze artists
of midgets with big cigars
of a Russian winter in the early 40's
of Chopin with his bag of Polish soil
of an old waitress bringing me an extra
cup of coffee and laughing
as she does so.
the best of you
I like more than you think.
the others don't count
except that they have fingers and heads
and some of them eyes
and most of them legs
and all of them
good and bad dreams
and way to go.
justice is everywhere and it's working
and the machine guns and frogs
and the hedges will tell you
so.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
This is the end of Charles Bukowski's Love is a Dog from Hell.
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -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.