laughing, Fuch, his lovely young wife and Raymond
in that sprawling mansion overlooking the shining sea.
ha ha ha ha ha, ha ha
monkey feet
small and blue
walking toward you
as the back of a building falls off
and an airplane chews the white sky,
doom is like the handle of a pot,
it’s there,
know it,
have ice in your tea,
marry,
have children, visit your
dentist,
do not scream at night
even if you feel like screaming,
count ten
make love to your wife,
or if your wife isn’t there
if there isn’t anybody there
count 20,
get up and walk to the kitchen
if you have a kitchen
and sit there sweating
at 3 a.m. in the morning
monkey feet
small and blue
walking toward you.
thoughts from a stone bench in Venice
I sit on this bench and look
at the sea and the freaks and the
lovers.
I need new eyes a new mouth new
pillows, a new woman.
every old stud with half an eye in
his head loves to charm and ride
a new young calf.
when I think of womenless men mowing their
Saturday lawns and playing football,
baseball, basketball with their sons
I feel like vomiting into the far
horizon.
the family stinks of Christ
and the American Stock Exchange.
the family stinks of safety and
numbness and Thanksgiving turkeys.
the family stinks of airless packed
automobiles driving through
redwood forests.
I need new eyes a new woman new
ankles a new voice new betrayals.
I don’t want a long funeral
pro cession when I die.
I want to move on without weight
or obligation.
I want just the sullen darkness I want
a tomb like this night now:
me here undiluted—
solid, cranky, immaculate.
I hold fast to me. that’s all there
is.
(uncollected)
scene in a tent outside the cotton fields of Bakersfield:
we fought for 17 days inside that tent
thrusting and counter-thrusting
but finally she got away
and I walked outside
and spit
in the dirty sand.
Abdullah, I said, why don’t you
wash your shorts? you’ve been
wearing the same
shorts
for 17 years.
Effendi, he said, it’s the sun,
the sun cleans everything. what
went with the girl?
I don’t know if I couldn’t
please her
or if I couldn’t
catch her. she was
pretty young.
what did she cost, Effendi?
17 camel.
he whistled through his broken
teeth. aren’t you going
to catch her?
howinthehell how? can I get
my camels back?
you are an American, he said.
I walked into the tent
fell upon the ground
and held my head
within
my hands.
suddenly she burst within
the tent
laughing madly,
Americano,
Americano!
please
go away
I said quietly.
men are, she said sitting down and rolling down
her stockings, some parts titty and some parts
tiger. you don’t mind
if I roll down
my stockings?
I don’t mind, I said,
if you roll down the top
of your dress. whores are
always rolling down
their hose. please
go away. I read where
the cruiser crew passed the helmet
for the red cross; I think I’ll
have them pass it
to brace your flabby
butt.
have ’em pass the helmet twice, dad,
she said, howcum you don’t love me
no more?
I been thinking, I said,
how can Love have a urinary tract
and distended bowels?
pack up, daughter, and flow,
maneuver out of the mansions
of my sight!
you forget, daddy-o, we’re in
my tent!
oh, Christ, I said, the trivialities
of private ownership! where’s my
hat?
you were wearing a towel, dad, but
kiss me, daddy, hold me in your arms!
I walked over and mauled her breasts.
I drink too much beer, she said,
I can’t help it if I
piss.
we fucked for 17 days.
3:16 and one half…
here I’m supposed to be a great poet
and I’m sleepy in the afternoon
here I am aware of death like a giant bull
charging at me
and I’m sleepy in the afternoon
here I’m aware of wars and men fighting in the ring
and I’m aware of good food and wine and good women
and I’m sleepy in the afternoon
I’m aware of a woman’s love
and I’m sleepy in the afternoon,
I lean into the sunlight behind a yellow curtain
I wonder where the summer flies have gone
I remember the most bloody death of Hemingway
and I’m sleepy in the afternoon.
some day I won’t be sleepy in the afternoon
some day I’ll write a poem that will bring volcanoes
to the hills out there
but right now I’m sleepy in the afternoon
and somebody asks me, “Bukowski, what time is it?”
and I say, “3:16 and a half.”
I feel very guilty, I feel obnoxious, useless,
demented, I feel
sleepy in the afternoon,
they are bombing churches, o.k., that’s o.k.,
the children ride ponies in the park, o.k., that’s o.k.,
the libraries are filled with thousands of books of knowledge,
great music sits inside the nearby radio
and I am sleepy in the afternoon,
I have this tomb within myself that says,
ah, let the others do it, let them win,
let me sleep,
wisdom is in the dark
sweeping through the dark like brooms,
I’m going where the summer flies have gone,
try to catch me.
a literary discussion
Markov claims I am trying
to stab his soul
but I’d prefer his wife.
I put my feet on the coffee table
and he says,
I don’t mind you putting
your feet on the coffee table
except that the legs are wobbly
and the thing
will fall apart
any minute.
I leave my feet on the table
but I’d prefer his wife.
I would rather, says Markov,
entertain a ditchdigger
or a news vendor
because they are kind enough
to observe the decencies
&n
bsp; even though
they don’t know
Rimbaud from rat poison.
my empty beercan
rolls to the floor.
that I must die
bothers me less than
a straw, says Markov,
my part of the game
is that I must live
the best I can.
I grab his wife as she walks by,
and then her can is against my belly,
and she has fine knees and breasts
and I kiss her.
it is not so bad, being old, he says,
a calmness sets in, but here’s the catch:
to keep calmness and deadness
separate; never to look upon youth
as inferior because you are old,
never to look upon age as wisdom
because you have experience. a
man can be old and a fool—
many are, a man can be young
and wise—few are. a—
for Christ’s all sake, I wailed,
shut up!
he walked over and got his cane and
walked out.
you’ve hurt his feelings, she said,
he thinks you are a great poet.
he’s too slick for me, I said,
he’s too wise.
I had one of her breasts out.
it was a monstrous
beautiful
thing.
butterflies
I believe in earning one’s own way
but I also believe in the unexpected
gift
and it is a wondrous thing
when a woman who has read your works
(or parts of them, anyhow)
offers her self to you
out of the blue
a total
stranger.
such an offer
such a communion
must be taken as
holy.
the hands
the fingers
the hair
the smell
the light.
one would like to be strong enough
to turn them away
those butterflies.
I believe in earning one’s own way
but I also believe in the unexpected gift.
I have no shame.
we deserve one
another
those butterflies
who flutter to my tiny
flame
and
me.
the great escape
listen, he said, you ever seen a bunch of crabs in a
bucket?
no, I told him.
well, what happens is that now and then one crab
will climb up on top of the others
and begin to climb toward the top of the bucket,
then, just as he’s about to escape
another crab grabs him and pulls him back
down.
really? I asked.
really, he said, and this job is just like that, none
of the others want anybody to get out of
here. that’s just the way it is
in the postal ser vice!
I believe you, I said.
just then the supervisor walked up and said,
you fellows were talking.
there is no talking allowed on this
job.
I had been there eleven and one-half
years.
I got up off my stool and climbed right up the
supervisor
and then I reached up and pulled myself right
out of there.
it was so easy it was unbelievable.
but none of the others followed me.
and after that, whenever I had crab legs
I thought about that place.
I must have thought about that place
maybe 5 or 6 times
before I switched to lobster.
my friend William
my friend William is a fortunate man:
he lacks the imagination to suffer
he kept his first job
his first wife
can drive a car 50,000 miles
without a brake job
he dances like a swan
and has the prettiest blankest eyes
this side of El Paso
his garden is a paradise
the heels of his shoes are always level
and his handshake is firm
people love him
when my friend William dies
it will hardly be from madness or cancer
he’ll walk right past the de vil
you’ll see him at the party to night
grinning
over his martini
blissful and delightful
as some guy
fucks his wife in the
bathroom.
safe
the house next door makes me
sad.
both man and wife rise early and
go to work.
they arrive home in early evening.
they have a young boy and a girl.
by 9 p.m. all the lights in the house
are out.
the next morning both man and
wife rise early again and go to
work.
they return in early evening.
by 9 p.m. all the lights are
out.
the house next door makes me
sad.
the people are nice people, I
like them.
but I feel them drowning.
and I can’t save them.
they are surviving.
they are not
homeless.
but the price is
terrible.
sometimes during the day
I will look at the house
and the house will look at
me
and the house will
weep, yes, it does, I
feel it.
the house is sad for the people living
there
and I am too
and we look at each other
and cars go up and down the
street,
boats cross the harbor
and the tall palms poke
at the sky
and to night at 9 p.m.
the lights will go out,
and not only in that
house
and not only in this
city.
safe lives hiding,
almost
stopped,
the breathing of
bodies and little
else.
starve, go mad, or kill yourself
I’m not going to die
easy;
I’ve sat on your suicide beds
in some of the worst
holes in America,
penniless and mad I’ve been,
I mean, insane, you know;
big tears, each one the size of your bastard hearts,
flowing down,
roaches crawling into my shoes,
one dirty 40-watt lightbulb overhead
and a room that smelled like piss;
while your rich
your falsely famous
laughed in safe stale places
far away,
you gave me a suicide bed and two choices,
no three:
starve, go mad, or kill yourself.
for now enjoy your trips to Paris where
you consort with great painters and dupes,
but I am getting ready for your eyes and your brain and
your dirty dishwater souls;
you men who have created a pigpen for millions
to choke soundlessly in—
from India to Los Angeles
from Paris to the tits of the Nile—
you’re fucked
up
you rich you warty you insecure you pricky
damned imbecile pasty white
idiots with your starched shirts and your starched wives and, yes yes,
your starched lives,
get away get away
get away
go to Paris
while you can
while I let you.
the jolly damned man with the hoe (see Markham)
didn’t answer the call,
but your children will be raped and your pigs will be eaten