after all the threats to do so
somebody else has committed suicide for me
at last.
the nurse stops the wheelchair, breaks a rose from a nearby bush,
puts it in my hand.
I don’t even know
what it is. it might as well be my pecker
for all the good
it does.
bang bang
absolutely sesamoid
said the skeleton
shoving his chalky foot
upon my desk,
and that was it,
bang bang,
he looked at me,
and it was my bone body
and I was what remained,
and there was a newspaper
on my desk
and somebody folded the newspaper
and I folded,
I was the newspaper
under somebody’s arm
and the sheet of me
had eyes
and I saw the skeleton
watching
and just before the door closed
I saw a man who looked
partly like Napoleon,
partly like Hitler,
fighting with my skeleton,
then the door closed
and we went down the steps
and outside
and I was under
the arm
of a fat little man
who knew nothing
and I hated him
for his indifference
to fact, how I hated him
as he unfolded me
in the subway
and I fell against the back
of an old woman.
5 men in black passing my window
5 men in black passing my window
it’s Sunday
they’ve been to church.
5 men in black passing my window;
they’re between 40 and 60
each with a little smile on his face
like a tarantula.
they’re without women;
I am too.
look at them,
it’s the way they walk by fives—
no two together,
not speaking,
just the little smiles.
each has done his horrible thing
during the week—
fired a stockboy, stolen from a partner;
cowardly horrible little men
passing my window.
5 men in black with little
smiles.
I could machinegun them
without feeling
banal
bury them without a tear:
death of all these things
Springtime.
the poet’s muse
there was one
made a thousand dollars
one day
in a town no larger than
El Paso
jumping taxies between
universities and ladies’
clubs.
hell, you can’t blame him;
I’ve worked for $16 a week,
quit, and lived a month on
that.
his wife is suing for divorce
and wants $200 a week
alimony.
he has to stay famous and
keep
talking.
I see his work
everywhere.
somebody
god I got the sad blue blues,
this woman sat there and she
said
are you really Charles
Bukowski?
and I said
forget that
I do not feel good
I’ve got the sad sads
all I want to do is
fuck you
and she laughed
she thought I was being
clever
and O I just looked up her long slim legs of heaven
I saw her liver and her quivering intestine
I saw Christ in there
jumping to a folk-rock
all the long lines of starvation within me
rose
and I walked over
and grabbed her on the couch
ripped her dress up around her face
and I didn’t care
rape or the end of the earth
one more time
to be there
anywhere
real
yes
her panties were on the
floor
and my cock went in
my cock my god my cock went in
I was Charles
Somebody.
story and poem
look, he said, that story,
everybody knew it was me.
by god, I said, are you still
hacking at that?
I thought you were going to write a
story exposing me?
what happened to that?
you didn’t have to write that
story about me!
forget it, I said, it’s not
important.
he leaped and slammed the door;
the glass didn’t break
but the curtain rod and curtain
fell.
I tried to finish a one-act play
gave up
and went to bed.
the phone rang.
listen, he said, when I came over
I had no idea I’d act like
that.
it’s o.k., I said.
relax.
I leaned back to sleep and I
thought,
now I’ll probably write a poem about
him.
there seems to be no way out, I thought,
everybody is always angry about the truth
even though they claim to
believe in it.
I slept and wrote the poem
in the morning.
and the moon and the stars and the world:
long walks at
night—
that’s what’s good
for the
soul:
peeking into windows
watching tired
housewives
trying to fight
off
their beer-maddened
husbands.
get the nose
comfrock, you motherfuck
get up off your crazy knees
and I’ll belt you down
again—
what’s that?
you say I eat stem pipes?
I’ll kill you!
stop crying. god damn.
all right, we dumped your car into the sea
and raped your daughter
but we are only extending the possibilities of a working
realism, shut up!, I said
any man must be ready for anything and
if he isn’t then he isn’t a
man a goat a note or a plantleaf,
you shoulda known the entirety of the trap, asshole,
love means eventual pain
victory means eventual defeat
grace means eventual slovenliness,
there’s no way
out…you see, you
understand?
hey, Mickey, hold his head up
want to break his nose with this pipe…
god damn, I almost forgot the
nose!
death is every second, punk.
the calendar is death. the sheets are death. you put on your
stockings: death. buttons on your shirt are death.
lace sportshirts are death. don’t you smell it? temperature is
death. little girls are death. free coupons are death. carrots are
death. didn’t you
know?
o.k., Mack, we got the nose.
no, not the balls, too much bleeding.
what was he when? oh, yeah, he used to be a cabby
we snatched him from his cab
right off Madison, destroyed his home, his car, raped his
12 year old daughter, it was beautiful, burned his wife with
gasoline.
look at his eyes
begging mercy…
my landlady and my landlord
56, she leans
forward
in the kitchen
2:25 a.
m.
same red
sweater
holes in
elbows
cook him something to
EAT
he says
from the
same red
face
3 years ago
we broke down a tree
fighting
after he caught me
kissing
her.
beer by the
quarts
we drink
bad beer
by the
quarts
she gets up
and
begins to
fry
something
all night
we sings songs
songs from 1925 a.
d. to
1939 a.
d.
we talk about
short skirts
Cadillacs the
Republican Administration
the depression
taxes
horses
Oklahoma
here
you son of a bitch,
she says.
drunk
I lean forward and
eat.
bad night
Bartenders are human too
and when he reached for the baseball bat
the little Italian hit him in the face
with a bottle
and several whores screamed.
I was just coming out
of the men’s room
when I saw the bartender
get off the floor
and open the cigar box
to get the gun,
and I turned around
and went out back,
and the Italian
must have argued poorly
because I heard the shot
just as I got
the car door open.
I drove down the alley
and turned East on 7th st.,
and I hadn’t gone a block
before a cop pulled me over.
You trying to get killed?
he asked. Turn your lights
on.
He was a big fat one and he
kept pushing his helmet
further and further
on the back of his head.
I took the ticket and then
drove down to Union. I
parked outside the Reno Hotel
and went downstairs
to Harry’s.
It was quiet there, only
a big redhead, bigger
than the cop.
She called me Honey
and I ordered 2.
hogs in the sky
the territory of the diamond and the territory of the
cross and the territory of the spider and the territory of
the butcher
divided by the territory of you and me
subtracted from the territory of mathematical
reality
multiplied by those tombstones in the
moonlight
just going on
is a greater gut-miracle than the life-death cycle
itself, I mean
going on against uselessness—
say, the way a fly lives;
the brain gives us enough light to know
that living is only an artful sacrifice
at best. at worst, it’s
hogs in the sky.
the territory of the darning needle
the territory of the mustard jar
the territory of mad dogs and love gone stale
the territory of you and me
each evening bent like the point of a thumb tack
that will no longer stick
in
each kiss a hope of returning to the first kiss
each fuck the same
each person nailed against diminishing
returns
we are slaves to hopes that have run to
garbage
as old age
arrives on schedule.
the territory of meeting and leaving
the territory of you and me
death arrived on schedule on a
Sunday afternoon, and,
as always,
it was easier than we thought
it would be.
the white poets
the white poets usually knock quite early
and keep knocking and ringing
ringing and knocking
even though all the shades are down;
finally I arise with my hangover
figuring such persistency
must mean good fortune, a prize of some
sort—female or monetary,
“aw right! aw right!” I shout
looking for something to cover my ugly
naked body. sometimes I must vomit first,
then gargle; the gargle only makes me vomit again.
I forget it—go to the door—
“hello?”
“you Bukowski?”
“yeh. come in.”
we sit and look at each other—
he very vigorous and young—
latest blooming clothes—
all colors and silk—
face like a weasel—
“you don’t remember me?” he
asks.
“no.”
“I was here before. you were rather short. you didn’t like my
poems.”
“there are plenty of reasons for not liking
poems.”
“try these.”
he put them on me. they were flatter than the paper they were typed
upon. there wasn’t a tick or a
flare. not a sound. I’d never read
less.
“uh,” I said, “uh-uh.”
“you mean you don’t LIKE
them?”
“there’s nothing there—it’s like a pot of evaporated piss.”
he took the papers, stood up and walked
around. “look, Bukowski. I’ll put some broads from Malibu on
you, broads like you’ve never
seen.”
“oh yeah, baby?” I asked.
“yeah, yeah,” he
said.
and ran out the
door.
his Malibu broads were like his
poems: they
never arrived.
the black poets
the black poets
young
come to my door—
“you Bukowski?”
“yeh. come in.”
they sit and look around at the
destroyed room
and at
me.
they hand me their poems.
I read
them.
“no,” I say and hand them
back.
“you don’t like
them?”
“no.”
“’roi Jones came down to see us at our
workshop…”
“I hate,” I say,
“workshops.”
“…Leroi Jones, Ray Bradbury, lots of big
boys…they said this stuff was
good…”
“it’s bad poetry, man. they are powdering your
ass.”
“there’s this big film-writer too. he started the
whole
idea: Watts Writers’ Workshop.”
“ah, god, don’t you see? they are tickling your