at us as if he hated us and pretty soon we began to hate him
his money, his hate, his hate of us without as much money
or as much hate, and my friend threw his glass against Harry’s
mirror and then he did hate us, and we ran out down the alley
and the dogs barked, and the only essence that was left
was remembering
the time
the last time I was asleep
and the earth obeyed
everything.
The Millionaire
look at him
a withered man
sure
he’s been thru a
bit
he was under the covers and the house shook with the
bombardment
he smiled out at
us
I hope I never get that
old
a slice of wall shook free and fell across his
bed
they say he was a tough boy
they say he was worth millions
sunlight poked thru a hole in the
wall
sunlight and smoke and a
treebranch
I had almost finished ripping out the plumbing
looking for something valuable
but there was nothing
left
somebody had been there
earlier
“let’s go”
when we got to the top of the hill
a shell landed right in the middle of where we’d
left
it was boards flying and him down in there
and then a fire came—
fast
red
perfect
we went into the woods and Harry threw a rock at a
squirrel and
missed.
Dow Jones: Down
how can we endure?
how can we talk about roses
or Verlaine?
this is a hungry band
that likes to work and count
and knows the special laws,
that likes to sit in parks
thinking of nothing valuable.
this is where the stricken bagpipes blow
upon the chalky cliffs
where faces go mad as sunburned violets
where brooms and ropes and torches fail,
squeezing shadows…
where walls come down en masse.
tomorrow the bankers set the time
to close the gates against our flood
and prevaricate the waters;
bang, bang the time,
remember now
the flowers are opening in the wind
and it doesn’t matter finally
except as a twitch in the back of the head
when back in our broad land
dead again
we walk among the dead.
As I Lay Dying
The time comes to go deeper
into self and the time comes
when it is more innocent
or easier to die
like bombers over
Santa Monica,
and I remember
laying there in the sand,
myself 20 years old,
reading Faulkner
because the name sounded good
and being vaguely excited
by something
that was not myself
and closing the book
and getting
sick of the sea
and the sky
blue blue blue
spots of white,
all dizzy in the trap,
wanting out
but knowing
I was nailed
like the sand-fleas
I slapped at,
and Mr. Faulkner
laying on his side
immortal and burning
with my toes
and everything tilting
and not quite
true.
A Minor Impulse to Complain
well
it’s interesting what does go on,
and what doesn’t go on
that should,
and the world’s quite a sight
spun through spiders and webs
that catch us half asleep
and do us in
before we’re even old enough
to know we’re through
if it isn’t a whore it’s a wife,
and if it isn’t a wife
it’s a jam over taxes
or bread or liquor,
or somebody’s slipping it into her
while you’re down at the shop
sweating your nuggets to keep her in silk.
or you’re on horses or pot
or crossword puzzles,
or you’re on vitamins or Beethoven.
but you oughta see
what goes on on a 75 foot yacht:
it would make you give up
liberty and little magazines
and Tolstoy
to see what beautiful young ladies can do
to somebody else.
and he doesn’t even care,
and he’ll tell you
pouring a short shot,
that bitch’d outscrew a rabbit,
and unless you’ve got money
by the time you got it figured out
you’re either so old you’re senseless
or you’re so old you’re dead.
and there she stands by the rail
looking good
golden sun and real gold,
the fish going by in the largest swimming pool
in the world, and she even smiles at you
as you go below to get more bottles and boots
and to scrape the barnacles from the master;
but, ah, you pig!—he told me all you did,
as men will do—which is another way of saying
you and I ain’t living well,
or enough.
Buffalo Bill
whenever the landlord and landlady get
beer-drunk
she comes down here and knocks on my door
and I go down and drink beer with them.
they sing old-time songs and
he keeps drinking until
he falls over backwards in his chair.
then I get up
tilt the chair up
and then he’s back at the table again
grabbing at a
beercan.
the conversation always gets around to
Buffalo Bill. they think Buffalo Bill is
very funny. so I always ask,
what’s new with Buffalo Bill?
oh, he’s in again. they locked him
up. they came and got him.
why?
same thing. only this time it was a
woman from the Jehovah’s Witness. she
rang his bell and was standing there
talking to him and he showed her his
thing, you know.
she came down and told me about it
and I asked her, “why did you bother that
man? why did you ring his bell? he wasn’t
doing anything to you!” but no, she had to
go and tell the authorities.
he phoned me from the jail, “well, I did it
again!” “why do you keep doing that?” I
asked him. “I dunno,” he said, “I dunno
what makes me do that!” “you shouldn’t do
that,” I told him. “I know I shouldn’t do
that,” he told me.
how many times has he done
that?
Oh, god, I dunno, 8 or 10 times. he’s
always doin’ it. he’s got a good lawyer, tho,
he’s got a damn good
lawyer.
who’d you rent his place to?
oh, we
don’t rent his place, we always keep his
place for him. we like him. did I tell you about
the night he was drunk and out on the lawn
naked and an airplane went overhead and he
pointed to the lights, all you could see
was the taillights and stuff and he pointed to
the lights and yelled, “I AM GOD,
I PUT THOSE LIGHTS IN THE SKY!”
no, you didn’t tell me about
that.
have a beer first and I’ll
tell you about it.
I had a beer
first.
Experience
there is a lady down the hall who paints
butterflies and insects
and there are little statues in the room,
she works with clay
and I went in there
and sat on the couch and had something to drink,
then I noticed
one of the statues had his back turned to us,
he stood there brooding, poor bastard,
and I asked the lady
what’s wrong with him?
and she said, I messed him up,
in the front, sort of.
I see, I said, and finished my drink,
you haven’t had too much experience with men.
she laughed and brought me another drink.
we talked about Klee,
the death of cummings,
Art, survival and so forth.
you ought to know more about men,
I told her.
I know, she said. do you like me?
of course, I told her.
she brought me another drink.
we talked about Ezra Pound.
Van Gogh.
all those things.
she sat down next to me.
I remember she had a small white mustache.
she told me I had a good life-flow
and was manly.
I told her she had nice legs.
we talked about Mahler.
I don’t remember leaving.
I saw her a week later
and she asked me in.
I fixed him, she said.
who? I asked.
my man in the corner, she told me.
good, I said.
want to see? she asked
sure, I said.
she walked to the corner and turned
him around.
he was fixed, all right
my god, it was ME!
then I began to laugh and she laughed
and the work of Art stood there,
a very beautiful thing.
I Am Visited by an Editor and a Poet
I had just won $115 from the headshakers and
was naked upon my bed
listening to an opera by one of the Italians
and had just gotten rid of a very loose lady
when there was a knock upon the wood,
and since the cops had just raided a month or so ago,
I screamed out rather on edge—
who the hell is it? what you want, man?
I’m your publisher! somebody screamed back,
and I hollered, I don’t have a publisher,
try the place next door, and he screamed back,
you’re Charles Bukowski, aren’t you? and I got up and
peeked through the iron grill to make sure it wasn’t a cop,
and I placed a robe upon my nakedness,
kicked a beercan out of the way and bade them enter,
an editor and a poet.
only one would drink a beer (the editor)
so I drank two for the poet and one for myself
and they sat there sweating and watching me
and I sat there trying to explain
that I wasn’t really a poet in the ordinary sense,
I told them about the stockyards and the slaughterhouse
and the racetracks and the conditions of some of our jails,
and the editor suddenly pulled five magazines out of a portfolio
and tossed them in between the beercans
and we talked about Flowers of Evil, Rimbaud, Villon,
and what some of the modern poets looked like:
J. B. May and Wolf the Hedley are very immaculate, clean
fingernails, etc.;
I apologized for the beercans, my beard, and everything on the
floor
and pretty soon everybody was yawning
and the editor suddenly stood up and I said,
are you leaving?
and then the editor and the poet were walking out the door,
and then I thought well hell they might not have liked
what they saw
but I’m not selling beercans and Italian opera and
torn stockings under the bed and dirty fingernails,
I’m selling rhyme and life and line,
and I walked over and cracked a new can of beer
and I looked at the five magazines with my name on the cover
and wondered what it meant,
wondered if we are writing poetry or all huddling in
one big tent
clasping assholes.
The Mexican Girls
whichever way you turn
there is gauze and the needle,
the back turned to light,
scars like valleys
scars like pits of terror,
and the peach falls to
the dirt.
the hospitals are the same
most grey like old balloons,
these sidewalks
they are so sweet
leading to the beds
where they shit upon
themselves,
my hands again locked,
sick twigs of limbs,
hurricane here:
minds going out
like lighthouse lamps
hell hell
so much sick
and they come up to change
the sheets, 2 mexican girls
without even a sneeze
or pause
and one of them points at
me: “I’ll take this one
and you take that one
and we’ll make them well
and then we’ll
all
shack-up together!”
and they laugh
and the clean sheet comes
down bringing in the cool
air, and I hear them
walk away laughing
and the trees are filled
with fruit, the sun
brings gophers peeking
from their holes; stones
are these which stick in
shoes, that pounce upon
the hollow head
that cannot bleed or
kiss; I touch the sheets,
I touch the sheets…
The New Place
I type at a window that faces the street
on ground level and
if I fall out
the worst that can happen is a dirty shirt
under a tiny banana tree.
as I type people go by
mostly women
and I sit in my shorts
(sometimes without top)
and going by they
can’t be sure I am not entirely
naked. so
I get these faces
which pretend they don’t see
anything
but I think they do:
they see me as I
sweat over the poem like beating a
hog to death
as the sun begins to fail over
Sunset Blvd.
over the motel sign
where tired people from Arkansas and Iowa
pay too much to sleep while
dreaming of movie stars.
there is a religionist next door
and he plays his
radio loud
and it seems to have
very good volume
so I am getting the
message.
and there’s a white cat
chewed-up and neurotic
who calls 2 or 3 times a day
eats and leaves
but just looking at him
lifts the soul a little
like something on strings.
and the same young man from the girlie
magazine phones and we talk
and I get the idea
that we each hang up
mildly thinking each other
somewhat the fool.
now the woman calls me to dinner.
it’s good to have food.
when you’ve starved
food always remains a
miracle.
the rent is a little higher here
but so far I’ve been able to
pay it
and that’s a miracle too
like still maybe being sane
while thinking of guns and sidewalks
and old ladies in libraries.
there are still
small things to do
like rip this sheet from the typer
go in and eat
stay alive this way.
there are lots of curtains waving here
and now the woman has walked in
she’s rocking back and forth
in the rocker behind me
a bit angry
the food is getting cold and
I’ve got to go
The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966 Page 13