Come on In!

by Charles Bukowski

  caught

  transfixed,

  the hours, the years,

  this minute,

  mutilated.

  another comeback

  climbing back up out of the ooze, out of

  the thick black tar,

  rising up again, a modern

  Lazarus.

  you’re amazed at your good

  fortune.

  somehow you’ve had more

  than your share of second

  chances.

  hell, accept it.

  what you have, you have.

  you walk and look in the bathroom

  mirror

  at an idiot’s smile.

  you know your luck.

  some go down and never climb back up.

  something is being kind to you.

  you turn from the mirror and walk into the

  world.

  you find a chair, sit down, light a cigar.

  back from a thousand wars

  you look out from an open door into the silent

  night.

  Sibelius plays on the radio.

  nothing has been lost or destroyed.

  you blow smoke into the night,

  tug at your right

  ear.

  baby, right now, you’ve got it

  all.

  two nights before my 72nd birthday

  sitting here on a boiling hot night while

  drinking a bottle of cabernet sauvignon

  after winning $232 at the track.

  there’s not much I can tell you except

  if it weren’t for my bad right leg

  I don’t feel much different than I did

  30 or 40 years ago (except that

  now I have more money and should be able

  to afford a decent

  burial). also,

  I drive better automobiles and have

  stopped carrying a

  switchblade.

  I am still looking for a hero, a role model,

  but can’t find one.

  I am no more tolerant of Humanity

  than I ever was.

  I am not bored with myself and find

  that I am the only one I can

  turn to in time of

  crisis.

  I’ve been ready to die for decades and

  I’ve been practicing, polishing up

  for that end

  but it’s very

  hot tonight

  and I can think of little but

  this fine cabernet,

  that’s gift enough for me.

  sometimes I can’t

  believe I’ve come this far,

  this has to be some kind of goddamned

  miracle!

  just another old guy

  blinking at the forces,

  smiling a little,

  as the cities tremble and the left

  hand rises,

  clutching

  something

  real.

  have we come to this?

  Lord, boys,

  it’s been a long time since we

  sang a happy tune from

  deep in the lungs.

  somehow we’ve allowed them

  to shut off our air, our water, our

  electricity, our joy.

  we’ve become like them: stilted, exact,

  graven,

  secretly bitter, smitten by

  what’s small.

  Lord, boys,

  we’ve not been kind enough to hippies and

  harpies, to sots and slatterns,

  to our brothers and

  sisters.

  Lord, boys,

  where has the heroic self

  gone?

  it’s gone into hiding, a scattered cat

  in a hailstorm!

  have we come to this?

  have we really come to

  this?

  as I open my mouth

  to sing

  a happy tune from

  deep in the lungs

  a black fly

  circles and swoops

  in.

  Lord!

  old poem

  what an old poem this is

  from an old guy.

  you’ve heard it many times

  before:

  me sitting here

  sotted

  again.

  ashtray full.

  bottles about.

  poems scattered on the

  floor.

  as night creeps toward dawn

  I make

  more and more typing

  errors and

  the bars closed long

  ago.

  even the crickets are

  asleep.

  Li Po must have

  experienced all these things

  too.

  hello, Li Po, you

  juicehead, the world is still

  full of

  rancor and

  regret.

  you knew what to do

  about that:

  set fire to the

  poems and then

  sail them down the river

  as the Emperor wept at such

  waste

  (but you and I

  know that waste is a

  natural part of the

  way).

  and the way is

  now

  and

  fortunately

  I have one drink

  left

  there on the floor

  among the

  poems

  as

  out of smokes

  I poke into the

  ashtray

  light a butt

  burn my nose

  singe my

  eyebrows

  then tap out

  another line of

  boozy poesy

  as I hear a voice

  rising from the

  neighborhood:

  “FUCK YOU AND THAT

  MACHINE!”

  ah, they’ve been very

  patient: it’s 3:45

  a.m.

  I will now stop

  typing and I will

  savor this last

  drink

  because while

  I have defeated death

  at least

  10,000 times

  the L.A. police department

  is another

  matter.

  older

  I’m older but I don’t mind,

  yet.

  I feel like a tank

  rolling over and through all

  the accumulated

  crap.

  more and more of it

  piles up

  as time passes,

  physical and spiritual

  crap.

  we’ve even polluted

  the stratosphere with

  space junk,

  with crap,

  it floats around up

  there.

  I remember my grandmother.

  she was old.

  a mound of useless flesh

  with dead eyes,

  and a mind stuffed with,

  well, crap.

  it made me tired and

  discouraged to look

  at her.

  me, I’m still rare meat,

  I’ll make a good meal,

  the black dogs of death trail me,

  nip at my heels.

  tiresome hounds, they never

  quit.

  when they bring me down

  they’ll have something

  worthy

  of their efforts.

  young maidens in far-off

  countries will

 
weep,

  and rightfully so.

  and hell for me will be something interesting and

  new.

  closing time

  around 2 a.m.

  in my small room

  after turning off the poem

  machine

  for now

  I continue to light

  cigarettes and listen to

  Beethoven on the

  radio.

  I listen with a

  strange and lazy

  aplomb,

  knowing there’s still a poem

  or two left to write, and

  I feel damn

  fine, at long

  last,

  as once again I

  admire the verve and gamble

  of this composer

  now dead for over 100

  years,

  who’s younger and wilder

  than you are

  than I am.

  the centuries are sprinkled

  with rare magic

  with divine creatures

  who help us get past the common

  and

  extraordinary ills

  that beset us.

  I light the next to last

  cigarette

  remember all the 2 a.m.’s

  of my past,

  put out of the bars

  at closing time,

  put out on the streets

  (a ragged band of

  solitary lonely

  humans

  we were)

  each walking home

  alone.

  this is much better: living

  where I now

  live

  and listening to

  the reassurance

  the kindness

  of this unexpected

  SYMPHONY OF TRIUMPH:

  a new life.

  no leaders, please

  invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,

  don’t swim in the same slough.

  invent yourself and then reinvent yourself

  and

  stay out of the clutches of mediocrity.

  invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,

  change your tone and shape so often that they can

  never

  categorize you.

  reinvigorate yourself and

  accept what is

  but only on the terms that you have invented

  and reinvented.

  be self-taught.

  and reinvent your life because you must;

  it is your life and

  its history

  and the present

  belong only to

  you.

  everything hurts

  when you get as old as I am you can’t help thinking

  about death; you know it’s getting closer with every tick of

  your watch: an old fart like me can go in a second,

  have a stroke, or cancer, or

  etc.

  etc.

  while the young think about locating a piece of ass

  the old think about … death.

  still,

  age makes you appreciate small things:

  like, say, you look at a grapefruit like you never

  quite looked at one before, or at a bridge, or at a dog or even

  just at the sidewalk, you realize you’ve never really seen them clearly

  before.

  and all the other things around you suddenly seem … new.

  the world is now a flower, though sometimes an ugly

  one.

  and driving the boulevards, you watch people in their

  cars and you think: each of them must finally

  die.

  it’s strange, isn’t it, that each of them must finally die?

  then (I often get lucky) I will forget about death. I will

  forget that I am … old.

  I will feel 45 again. (I’ve always felt 45, even when

  I was 16.)

  as somewhere somebody waters a small potted plant,

  as a plane crashes with a fierce explosion into a mountain,

  as deep in the sea strange creatures move,

  the poet remains manacled to his helpless

  self.

  husk

  now I watch other men fight

  for money and glory

  on television

  while I sit on an old couch

  in the night

  a wife and 5 or 6 cats

  nearby.

  now I sit and watch other men fight

  for money and glory.

  hell,

  I never fought for money.

  maybe I should have

  but I was never that good

  at it—

  only sometimes

  brave.

  is it too late for a comeback?

  a comeback from where?

  now I sit and watch other men fight

  for money and glory.

  I sit with a soda and 3 fig bars

  as the world curls and goes up in

  flame around

  me.

  my song

  ample

  consternation,

  plentiful

  pain

  restless days

  and

  sleepless

  nights

  always fighting

  with all your

  heart and soul

  so as not

  to fail at

  living.

  who could ask

  for anything

  more?

  cancer

  half-past nowhere

  alone

  in the crumbling

  tower of myself

  stumbling in this the

  darkest

  hour

  the last gamble has been

  lost

  as I

  reach

  for

  bone

  silence.

  blue

  blue fish, the blue night, a blue knife—

  everything is blue.

  and my cats are blue: blue fur, blue claws,

  blue whiskers, blue eyes.

  my bed lamp shines

  blue.

  inside, my blue heart pumps blue blood.

  my fingernails, my toenails are

  blue

  and around my bed floats a

  blue ghost.

  even the taste inside my mouth is

  blue.

  and I am alone and dying and

  blue.

  twilight musings

  the drifting of the mind.

  the slow loss, the leaking away.

  one’s demise is not very interesting.

  from my bed I watch 3 birds through the east window:

  one coal black, one dark brown, the

  other yellow.

  as night falls I watch the red lights on the bridge blink on and off.

  I am stretched out in bed with the covers up to my chin.

  I have no idea who won at the racetrack today.

  I must go back into the hospital tomorrow.

  why me?

  why not?

  mind and heart

  unaccountably we are alone

  forever alone

  and it was meant to be

  that way,

  it was never meant

  to be any other way—

  and when the death struggle

  begins

  the last thing I wish to see

  is

  a ring of human faces

  hovering over me—

  better just my old friends,

  the wall
s of my self,

  let only them be there.

  I have been alone but seldom

  lonely.

  I have satisfied my thirst

  at the well

  of my self

  and that wine was good,

  the best I ever had,

  and tonight

  sitting

  staring into the dark

  I now finally understand

  the dark and the

  light and everything

  in between.

  peace of mind and heart

  arrives

  when we accept what

  is:

  having been

  born into this

  strange life

  we must accept

  the wasted gamble of our

  days

  and take some satisfaction in

  the pleasure of

  leaving it all

  behind.

  cry not for me.

  grieve not for me.

  read

  what I’ve written

  then

  forget it

  all.

  drink from the well

  of your self

  and begin

  again.

  EXTRACT

  FROM CHARLES BUKOWSKI’S

  HOLLYWOOD

  ALSO AVAILABLE FROM CANONGATE

  Bukowski’s alter ego, Henry Chinaski, returns, revelling in his eternal penchant for booze, women and horse-racing as he makes the precarious journey from poet to screenwriter. Based on Bukowski’s experiences when working on the film Barfly, Hollywood is an irreverent roman à clef serving up the beating heart of La-la land with razor-sharp humour.