On Love

by Charles Bukowski

  better or worse or

  anything

  so I relax around her and

  hear various astounding things

  about sex

  life in general and life in particular;

  mostly it’s very

  easy

  except I became a father when most men

  become grandfathers, I am a very late starter

  in everything,

  and I stretch on the grass and sand

  and she rips dandelions up

  and places them in my

  hair

  while I doze in the sea breeze.

  I awaken

  shake

  say, “what the hell?”

  and flowers fall over my eyes and over my nose

  and over my lips.

  I brush them away

  and she sits above me

  giggling.

  daughter,

  right or wrong,

  I do love you,

  it’s only that sometimes I act as if

  you weren’t there,

  but there have been fights with women

  notes left on dressers

  factory jobs

  flat tires in Compton at 3 a.m.,

  all those things that keep

  people from

  knowing each other and

  worse than

  that.

  thanks for the

  flowers.

  I can hear the sound of human lives being ripped to pieces

  strange warmth, hot and cold females,

  I make good love, but love isn’t just

  sex, and most females I’ve known are

  very ambitious, and I like to lie around

  on large pillows on mattresses at 3 o’clock

  in the afternoon, I like to watch the sun

  through the leaves of a bush outside

  while the world out there

  holds away from me, I know it so well, all

  those dirty pages, and I like to lie around

  my belly up to the ceiling after making love

  everything flowing in:

  nectarines, used boxing gloves, history books of the

  Crimean War;

  it’s so easy to be easy—if you like it, that’s all

  that’s necessary.

  but the female is strange, she is very

  ambitious—“Shit! I can’t sleep away the day!

  Eat! Make love! Sleep! Eat! Make love!”

  “My dear,” I tell her, “there are men out there now

  picking tomatoes, lettuce, even cotton,

  there are men and women dying under the sun,

  there are men and women dying in factories

  for nothing, a pittance . . .

  I can hear the sound of human lives being ripped to

  pieces . . .

  you don’t know how lucky we

  are . . .”

  “But you’ve got it made,” she says,

  “your poems . . .”

  my love gets out of bed.

  I hear her in the other room.

  the typewriter is working.

  I don’t know why people think effort and energy

  have anything to do with

  creation.

  I suppose that in matters like politics, medicine,

  history and religion

  they have been lied to

  also.

  I turn on my belly and fall asleep with my

  ass to the ceiling.

  for those 3

  going crazy

  sitting around listening to Chopin

  waltzes, having slept with 3 different women

  in 3 different states

  in two weeks, the pace has been

  difficult, sitting in airport bars

  holding hands with beautiful ladies

  who had read Tolstoy, Turgenev and

  Bukowski.

  amazing how completely a lady can give her

  love—when she wants

  to.

  now the ladies are far away

  and I sit here barefooted

  unshaven, drinking beer and

  listening to these Chopin

  waltzes, and

  thinking of each of the ladies

  and I wonder if they think of me

  or am I just a book of poems

  lost in with other books of poems?

  lost in with Turgenev and Tolstoy.

  no matter. they gave enough.

  when they touch my book now

  they will know the shape of my body

  they will know my laughter and my love and

  my sadness.

  my thanks.

  blue moon, oh bleweeww mooooon how I adore you!

  I care for you, darling, I love you,

  the only reason I fucked L. is because you fucked

  Z. and then I fucked R. and you fucked N.

  and because you fucked N. I had to fuck

  Y. But I think of you constantly, I feel you

  here in my belly like a baby, love I’d call it,

  no matter what happens I’d call it love, and so

  you fucked C. and then before I could move again

  you fucked W., so then I had to fuck D. But

  I want you to know that I love you, I think of you

  constantly, I don’t think I’ve ever loved anybody

  like I love you.

  bow wow bow wow wow

  bow wow bow wow wow.

  the first love

  at one time

  when I was 14

  the creators brought me

  my only feeling of

  chance.

  my father disliked

  books and

  my mother disliked

  books (because my father

  disliked books)

  especially those I brought back

  from the library:

  D. H. Lawrence

  Dostoyevsky

  Turgenev

  Gorky

  A. Huxley

  Sinclair Lewis

  others.

  I had my own bedroom

  but at 8 p.m.

  we were all supposed to go to sleep:

  “Early to bed and early to rise

  makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise,”

  my father would say.

  “LIGHTS OUT!” he would shout.

  then I would take the bed lamp

  place it under the covers

  and with the heat and the hidden light

  I would continue to read:

  Ibsen

  Shakespeare

  Chekov

  Jeffers

  Thurber

  Conrad Aiken

  others.

  they brought me chance and hope and

  feeling in a place of no chance

  no hope, no feeling.

  I worked for it.

  it got hot under the covers.

  sometimes the lamp would begin to smoke

  or the sheets—there would be a

  burning;

  then I’d switch the lamp off,

  hold it outside to

  cool off.

  without those books

  I’m not quite sure

  how I would have turned

  out:

  raving; the

  murderer of the father;

  idiocy; imbecility;

  drab hopelessness.

  when my father shouted

  “LIGHTS OUT!”

  I’m sure he feared

  the well-written word

  that appeared with gentleness

  and reasonableness

  in our best and

  most interesting

  literature.

  and it was there

  close to me

  under the covers

  more woman than woman

  more man than man.

  I had it all

  and

  I took it.r />
  love

  Sally was a sloppy

  leaver. she was good with the

  notes,

  she wrote them with a large

  indignant hand, she was

  good at that.

  and she always took most of her

  clothes,

  but I’d open the bottle

  sit down and look about—

  and there’d be a pink slipper

  under the bed.

  I’d finish the drink

  and get down under the bed

  to get that pink slipper and

  throw it in the trash

  and next to the pink slipper

  I’d find a pair of shit-stained

  panties.

  and there were hairpins everywhere:

  in the ashtray, on the dresser, in the

  bathroom. and her magazines were

  everywhere with their exotic covers:

  “Man Rapes Girl, Then Throws Her Body from

  400 Foot Cliff.”

  “9 Year Old Boy Rapes 4 Women in Greyhound

  Bus-Stop Restroom, Sets Fire to Repository

  Disposal Units.”

  Sally was a sloppy leaver.

  in the top drawer next to the Kleenex

  I’d find all the notes I’d ever written her,

  neatly bound with 3 or 4 sets of rubber

  bands.

  and she was sloppy with

  photos:

  I’d find one of both of us

  crouched on the hood of our

  ’58 Plymouth—

  Sally showing a lot of leg

  and grinning like a Kansas City gun-moll

  from out of the

  twenties,

  and me

  showing the bottoms of my shoes

  with the circular waving holes

  in them.

  and, there were photos of dogs,

  all of them ours,

  and, photos of children,

  most of them

  hers.

  every hour and twenty minutes

  the phone would ring

  and it would be

  Sally

  and a song from the juke

  box, some song I

  hated, and she’d keep talking

  and I’d hear men’s

  voices:

  “Sally, Sally, forget the fuckin’ phone,

  come on and sit down back,

  baby!”

  “you see,” she’d say, “there are other men in the

  world besides you.”

  “your opinion only,” I’d answer.

  “I could have loved you forever, Bandini,” she’d say.

  “get fucked,” I’d say and hang

  up.

  Bandini is manure all right

  but it was also the name I had given myself

  after a rather emotional and rather childish character

  in a novel written by some

  Italian in the 1930s.

  I’d pour another drink

  and while looking for a scissors in the bathroom

  to trim the hair around my ears

  I’d find a brassiere in one of the drawers

  and hold it up to the light.

  the brassiere looked all right from the outside

  but inside—there was this stain of

  sweat and dirt, and the stain was darkened,

  molded in there

  as if no washing would ever

  take it

  out.

  I’d drink my drink

  then begin to trim the hair around my ears

  deciding that I was quite a handsome man.

  but I’d lift the weights

  go on a diet

  get a tan,

  anyhow.

  then the phone would ring again

  and I’d lift the receiver

  hang up

  lift the receiver again

  and let it

  dangle

  by the cord.

  I’d trim my ear hairs, my nose, my

  eyebrows,

  drink another hour or two,

  then go to

  sleep.

  I’d be awakened by a sound I had never quite

  heard before—

  it felt and sounded like a warning of

  atomic attack.

  I’d get up and look for the sound.

  it would be the telephone

  still off the hook

  but the sound that came from it

  was much like a thousand wasps

  burning to death. I’d

  pick up the

  phone.

  “sir, this is the desk clerk. your phone is

  off the hook.”

  “all right sorry. I’ll

  hang up.”

  “don’t hang up, sir. your wife is on the

  elevator.”

  “my wife?”

  “she says she’s Mrs. Budinski . . .”

  “all right, it’s

  possible . . .”

  “sir, can you get her off the

  elevator? she doesn’t understand the

  controls . . . her language is abusive toward us

  but she says that you’ll

  help her . . . and, sir . . .”

  “yes? . . .”

  “we didn’t want to call the

  police . . .”

  “good . . .”

  “she’s lying down on the floor on the

  elevator, sir, and, and . . . she has . . .

  urinated upon

  herself . . .”

  “o.k.,” I’d say and

  hang up.

  I’d walk out in my shorts

  drink in hand

  cigar in mouth

  and press the elevator

  button.

  up it would come:

  one, two, three, four . . .

  the doors would open

  and there would be

  Sally . . . and little delicate

  trickles and ripples of water lines

  drifting about the elevator

  floor, and some blotchy

  pools.

  I’d finish the drink

  pick her up and

  carry her out of the

  elevator.

  I’d get her to the apartment

  throw her on the bed

  and pull off her wet

  panties, skirt and stockings.

  then I’d put a drink on the coffee table

  near her

  sit down on the couch

  and have another for

  myself.

  suddenly she’d sit straight up and

  look around the

  room.

  “Bandini?” she’d ask.

  “over here,” I’d

  wave my hand.

  “o, thank god . . .”

  then she’d see the drink and

  drink it right

  down. I’d get up,

  refill it, put cigarettes, ashtray and

  matches

  nearby.

  then she’d sit up again:

  “who took my panties

  off?”

  “me.”

  “me, who?”

  “Bandini . . .”

  “Bandini? you can’t

  fuck me . . .”

  “you pissed

  yourself . . .”

  “who?”

  “you . . .”

  she’d sit straight

  upright:

  “Bandini, you dance like a

  queer, you dance like a

  woman!”

  “I’ll break your god damned

  nose!”

  “you broke my arm, Bandini, don’t you go

  breaking my nose . . .”

  then she’d put her head back on the

  pillow: “I love you, Bandini, I really

  do . . .”

  then she’d start snoring. I’d d
rink another

  hour or two then

  I’d get into bed with

  her. I wouldn’t want to touch her

  at first. she needed a bath, at

  least. I’d get one leg up against hers;

  it didn’t seem too

  bad. I’d try the

  other.

  I’d start to remember all the good days and the

  good nights . . .

  slip one arm under her neck,

  then I’d have the other around her

  belly and my drunken penis

  gently up against her

  crotch.

  her hair would come back

  and climb into my nostrils.

  I’d feel her inhale heavily, then

  exhale. we’d sleep like that

  most of the night and into the

  next afternoon. then I’d get up and

  go to the bathroom and vomit

  and then she’d

  have her turn.

  raw with love (for N.W.)

  little dark girl of

  kindness

  when it comes time to

  put the knife

  I won’t blame

  you.

  and when I drive down the shore

  and the palms wave,

  the ugly heavy palms

  and the living do not arrive

  and the dead do not leave,

  I won’t blame you.

  I will remember the hours of kisses

  our lips raw with love

  and how you offered me

  your cunt your soul your insides

  and how I answered

  offering you whatever was left of

  me,

  and I will remember the shape of your room

  the shape of you

  your records

  your walls

  your coffee cups

  your mornings and your noons and your nights

  and your toilet and your

  bathtub.

  our bodies spilled together

  sleeping

  these tiny flowing currents

  immediate and forever

  crossing

  criss-crossing

  again and again.

  your leg my leg

  your arm my arm