Burning in Water, Drowing in Flame

by Bukowski, Charles

  pink sun pink sun

  I hate your holiness

  crawling your gilded cross of life

  as my fingers and feet and face

  come down to this

  sleeping with the whore of your fancy wife

  you must some day die for nothing

  as I

  have lived.

  crucifix in a deathhand

  yes, they begin out in a willow, I think

  the starch mountains begin out in the willow

  and keep right on going without regard for

  pumas and nectarines

  somehow these mountains are like

  an old woman with a bad memory and

  a shopping basket.

  we are in a basin, that is the

  idea. down in the sand and the alleys,

  this land punched-in, cuffed-out, divided,

  held like a crucifix in a deathhand,

  this land bought, resold, bought again and

  sold again, the wars long over,

  the Spaniards all the way back in Spain

  down in the thimble again, and now

  real estaters, subdividers, landlords, freeway

  engineers arguing. this is their land and

  I walk on it, live on it a little while

  near Hollywood here I see young men in rooms

  listening to glazed recordings

  and I think too of old men sick of music

  sick of everything, and death like suicide

  I think is sometimes voluntary, and to get your

  hold on the land here it is best to return to the

  Grand Central Market, see the old Mexican women,

  the poor…I am sure you have seen these same women

  many years before

  arguing

  with the same young Japanese clerks

  witty, knowledgeable and golden

  among their soaring store of oranges, apples

  avocados, tomatoes, cucumbers—

  and you know how these look, they do look good

  as if you could eat them all

  light a cigar and smoke away the bad world.

  then it’s best to go back to the bars, the same bars

  wooden, stale, merciless, green

  with the young policeman walking through

  scared and looking for trouble,

  and the beer is still bad

  it has an edge that already mixes with vomit and

  decay, and you’ve got to be strong in the shadows

  to ignore it, to ignore the poor and to ignore yourself

  and the shopping bag between your legs

  down there feeling good with its avocados and

  oranges and fresh fish and wine bottles, who needs

  a Fort Lauderdale winter?

  25 years ago there used to be a whore there

  with a film over one eye, who was too fat

  and made little silver bells out of cigarette

  tinfoil. the sun seemed warmer then

  although this was probably not

  true, and you take your shopping bag

  outside and walk along the street

  and the green beer hangs there

  just above your stomach like

  a short and shameful shawl, and

  you look around and no longer

  see any

  old men.

  grass

  at the window

  I watch a man with a

  power mower

  the sounds of his doing race like

  flies and bees

  on the wallpaper,

  it is like a warm fire, and

  better than eating steak,

  and the grass is green enough

  and the sun is sun enough

  and what’s left of my life

  stands there

  checking glints of green flying;

  it is a giant disrobing of

  care, stumbling away from

  doing.

  suddenly I understand

  old men in rockers

  bats in Colorado caves

  tiny lice crawling into

  the eyes of dead birds.

  back and forth

  he follows his gasoline

  sound. it is

  interesting enough,

  with

  the streets

  flat on their Spring backs

  and smiling.

  fuzz

  3 small boys run toward me

  blowing whistles

  and they scream

  you’re under arrest!

  you’re drunk!

  and they begin

  hitting me on the legs with

  their toy clubs.

  one even has a

  badge. another has

  handcuffs but my hands are high in the air.

  when I go into the liquor store

  they whirl around outside

  like bees

  shut out from their nest.

  I buy a fifth of cheap

  whiskey

  and

  3

  candy bars.

  no lady godiva

  she came to my place drunk

  riding a deer up on the front porch:

  so many women want to save the world

  but can’t keep their own kitchens straight,

  but me…

  we went inside where I lit three red

  candles

  poured the wine and I took notes on

  her:

  latitude behind,

  longitude in

  front. and the

  rest. amazing.

  a woman such as this

  could find

  a zinnia in Hot Springs

  Arkansas.

  we ate venison for three weeks.

  then she slept with the landlord to help pay

  the rent.

  then I found her a job as a waitress.

  I slept all day and when she came home

  I was full of the brilliant conversation that she

  so much

  adored.

  she died quickly one night leaving the world

  much the way it had

  been.

  now I get up early and

  go down to the loading docks and wait for

  cabbages

  oranges

  potatoes

  to fall from the trucks or to be

  thrown away.

  by noon I have eaten and am asleep

  dreaming of paying the rent

  with numbered chunks of plastic

  issued by a better

  world.

  the workers

  they laugh continually

  even when

  a board falls down

  and destroys a face

  or distorts a

  body

  they continue to

  laugh,

  when the color of the eye

  becomes a fearful pale

  because of the poor

  light

  they still laugh;

  wrinkled and imbecile

  at an early age

  they joke about it:

  a man who looks sixty

  will say

  I’m 32, and

  then they’ll laugh

  they’ll all laugh;

  they are sometimes let

  outside for a little air

  but are chained to return

  by chains they would not

  break

  if they could;

  even outside, among

  free men

  they continue to laugh,

  they walk about

  with a hobbled and inane

  gait

  as if they’d lost their

  senses; outside

  they chew a little bread,

  haggle, sleep, count their pennies,

  gaze at the clock

  and return;

  sometimes in the
confines

  they even grow serious

  a moment, they speak of

  Outside, of how horrible

  it must be

  to be

  shut Outside

  forever, never to be let

  back in;

  it’s warm as they work

  and they sweat a

  bit,

  but they work hard and

  well, they work so hard

  the nerves revolt

  and cause trembling,

  but often they are

  praised by those

  who have risen up

  out of them

  like stars,

  and now the stars

  watch

  watch too

  for those few

  who might attempt a

  slower pace or

  show disinterest

  or falsify an

  illness

  in order to gain

  rest (rest must be

  earned to gain strength

  for a more perfect

  job).

  sometimes one dies

  or goes mad

  and then from Outside

  a new one enters

  and is given

  opportunity.

  I have been there

  many years;

  at first I believed the work

  monotonous, even

  silly

  but now I see

  it all has meaning,

  and the workers

  without faces

  I can see are not really

  ugly, and that

  the heads without eyes—

  I know now that those eyes

  can see

  and are able to

  do the work.

  the women workers

  are often the best,

  adapting naturally,

  and some of these I

  made love to in our

  resting hours; at first

  they appeared to be

  like female apes

  but later

  with insight

  I realized

  that they were things

  as real and alive as

  myself.

  the other night

  an old worker

  grey and blind

  no longer useful

  was retired

  to the Outside.

  speech! speech!

  we demanded.

  it was

  hell, he said.

  we laughed

  all 4000 of us:

  he had kept his

  humor

  to the

  end.

  beans with garlic

  this is important enough:

  to get your feelings down,

  it is better than shaving

  or cooking beans with garlic.

  it is the little we can do

  this small bravery of knowledge

  and there is of course

  madness and terror too

  in knowing

  that some part of you

  wound up like a clock

  can never be wound again

  once it stops.

  but now

  there’s a ticking under your shirt

  and you whirl the beans with a spoon,

  one love dead, one love departed

  another love…

  ah! as many loves as beans

  yes, count them now

  sad, sad

  your feelings boiling over flame,

  get this down.

  mama

  here I am

  in the ground

  my mouth

  open

  and

  I can’t even say

  mama,

  and

  the dogs run by and stop and piss

  on my stone; I get it all

  except the sun

  and my suit is looking

  bad

  and yesterday

  the last of my left

  arm gone

  very little left, all harp-like

  without music.

  at least a drunk

  in bed with a cigarette

  might cause 5 fire

  engines and

  33 men.

  I can’t

  do

  any

  thing.

  but p.s.—Hector Richmond in the next

  tomb thinks only of Mozart and candy

  caterpillars.

  he is

  very bad

  company.

  machineguns towers & timeclocks

  I feel gypped by dunces

  as if reality were the property

  of little men

  with luck and a headstart,

  and I sit in the cold

  wondering about purple flowers

  along a fence

  while the rest of them

  stack gold

  and Cadillacs and

  ladyfriends,

  I wonder about palmleaves

  and gravestones

  and the preciousness of a

  cocoon-like sleep;

  to be a lizard would be

  bad enough

  to be scalding in the sun

  would be bad enough

  but not so bad

  as being built up to

  Man-size and Man-life

  and not wanting the

  game, not wanting

  machineguns and towers and

  timeclocks,

  not wanting a carwash

  a toothpull

  a wristwatch, cufflinks

  a pocket radio

  tweezers and cotton

  a cabinet full of iodine,

  not wanting cocktail parties

  a front lawn

  sing-togethers

  new shoes, Christmas presents

  life insurance, Newsweek

  162 baseball games

  a vacation in Bermuda.

  not wanting not wanting,

  and I judge the purple flowers

  better off than I

  the lizard better off

  the dark green hose

  the ever grass

  the trees the birds,

  the cats dreaming in the butter

  sun are

  better off than

  I, getting into this old coat now

  feeling for my cigarettes

  car keys

  a roadmap back,

  going out

  down the walk

  like a man to be executed

  walking toward it

  surely,

  going into it

  without guards

  driving toward it

  racing at it

  70 miles per hour,

  jockeying

  cussing

  dropping ashes

  deadly ashes of every

  deadly thing

  burning,

  the caterpillar knows less

  horror

  the armies of ants are

  braver

  the kiss of a snake

  less ravenous,

  I only want the sky

  to burn me more and more

  burn me out

  so that the sun begins at

  6 in the morning

  and goes past midnight

  like a drunken door always open,

  I drive toward it

  not wanting it

  getting it getting it

  as the cat stretches

  yawns

  and rolls over into

  another dream.

  something for the touts, the nuns, the grocery clerks and you…

  we have everything and we have nothing

  and some men do it in churches

  and some men do it by tearing butterflies

  in half

  and some men do it in Palm Springs

  laying it into butterblondes
r />   with Cadillac souls

  Cadillacs and butterflies

  nothing and everything,

  the face melting down to the last puff

  in a cellar in Corpus Christi.

  there’s something for the touts, the nuns,

  the grocery clerks and you…

  something at 8 a.m., something in the library

  something in the river,

  everything and nothing.

  in the slaughterhouse it comes running along

  the ceiling on a hook, and you swing it—

  one

  two

  three

  and then you’ve got it, $200 worth of dead

  meat, its bones against your bones

  something and nothing.

  it’s always early enough to die and

  it’s always too late,

  and the drill of blood in the basin white

  it tells you nothing at all

  and the gravediggers playing poker over

  5 a.m. coffee, waiting for the grass

  to dismiss the frost…

  they tell you nothing at all.

  we have everything and we have nothing—

  days with glass edges and the impossible stink

  of river moss—worse than shit;

  checkerboard days of moves and countermoves,

  fagged interest, with as much sense in defeat as

  in victory; slow days like mules

  humping it slagged and sullen and sun-glazed

  up a road where a madman sits waiting among

  bluejays and wrens netted in and sucked a flakey

  grey.

  good days too of wine and shouting, fights

  in alleys, fat legs of women striving around

  your bowels buried in moans,

  the signs in bullrings like diamonds hollering

  Mother Capri, violets coming out of the ground

  telling you to forget the dead armies and the loves

  that robbed you.

  days when children say funny and brilliant things

  like savages trying to send you a message through

  their bodies while their bodies are still

  alive enough to transmit and feel and run up

  and down without locks and paychecks and

  ideals and possessions and beetle-like

  opinions.

  days when you can cry all day long in

  a green room with the door locked, days