New Poems Book Three

by Charles Bukowski

  the leader of that gang came up and

  said: “listen, man, we’re going to get you.”

  “maybe,” I said, “but it won’t be easy.”

  it wasn’t bad work

  the hangover had worn off

  and I liked the way the oakite brush dissolved the grime;

  also the cheap bars of the coming night beckoned to me

  and there was always a bottle of wine waiting in my room.

  at noon in the mess hall

  when I got up to put a coin in the soft drink machine

  all 3 stopped talking and watched.

  but as days and weeks went on

  nothing ever happened.

  I gave that job six weeks then took a Trailways bus to New Orleans

  and looking out the window at all that empty, wasted land

  while sucking at a pint of

  Cutty Sark

  I wondered when and where

  I might finally come to rest and then

  fit in.

  CLEOPATRA NOW

  she was one of the most beautiful actresses

  of our time

  once married to a series of

  rich and famous men

  and now she is in traction, in hospital, a fractured

  back, the painkillers at work.

  she is now 60

  and only a few years ago

  her room would have been bursting with flowers,

  the phone ringing, many visitors on the waiting

  list.

  now, the phone seldom rings, there

  are only a few obligatory flowers,

  and visitors are at a

  minimum.

  yet, with age the lady has matured, she knows more now, understands

  more, feels more deeply, relates to life much more

  kindly.

  all to no avail: if you are no longer a good young

  fuck, if you can’t play the

  temptress with

  legs crossed high and

  violet eyes glowing

  behind

  long dark lashes,

  if you’re not still beautiful

  if you ain’t in movies any longer

  if you aren’t photographed drunk and obnoxious

  in the best

  restaurants with new young

  lovers:

  it’s all to no

  avail.

  now she sits forgotten

  in hospital

  straddling a bedpan

  as new horizons open up for

  the new generation.

  in traction you’re pathetic at 60

  and

  nobody wants to sit in a room with

  you.

  it’s too

  depressing.

  this world wants only the young and the strong and the

  still beautiful.

  as this once-famous actress

  lies forgotten in hospital

  I wonder what thoughts she

  has

  about her x-lovers

  about her x-public

  about her vanished youth

  as the hours and the days

  crawl

  by.

  I truly wonder what thoughts she

  has.

  possibly she has discovered her real self,

  achieved real wisdom.

  but has it come too late?

  and when late wisdom

  finally arrives

  is that better than none at

  all?

  PLEASE

  in the night now thinking of the years and the

  women gone and lost forever

  not minding the women gone, not even minding the years

  lost forever

  if

  we could just have some peace now—a year of peace, a month of

  peace, a week of peace—

  not peace for the world—just a selfish bit of peace

  for me

  to loll in like in green warm

  water, just a bit of it, just an hour of it, some

  peace, yes, in the night in the night while thinking of

  the years lost and the women gone in this night in this very long

  dark and lonely

  night.

  THE BAROMETER

  your critics are always going to be

  there

  and the more successful you become

  the more criticism you’ll

  receive

  especially from those

  who are most desperate

  for a taste of the same success

  you have

  achieved.

  but the thing you must always remember

  regardless of the criticism

  is to try to continue to get

  better at whatever it is that

  you do.

  I think what bothers the critics the most

  however

  is to see someone succeed

  after coming out of

  nowhere

  instead of from their very

  special circle of the waiting-to-be-

  annointed.

  critics and failed creators

  dominate the landscape

  and the more you successfully harness

  the natural power of your

  art

  the more they are going to

  insist

  through intrigue and

  through their rankling

  pitiful

  malice

  that

  you were never very much

  to begin with

  and that now, of course, you’re even

  less than

  that.

  the critics are always going to be

  there and

  when they stop, if ever, then

  you will know

  that your own brief day in the sun

  is over.

  ENEMY OF THE KING, 1935

  I kept looking at him and thinking,

  the ears don’t fit and the mouth

  is foolish and the eyes are wrong.

  his shoes don’t look right and his tone of

  voice is an insult.

  his shirt hangs from his shoulders

  as if it dislikes him.

  he chews his food like a dog

  and look at that Adam’s apple!

  and why are his favorite subjects

  “money” and “work”?

  why does he splash angrily

  in the bathtub

  when he bathes?

  and why does he hate me?

  and why do I hate him?

  why are we enemies?

  why does he look like a fool?

  how can I get away from him?

  “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU LOOKING

  AT?” he screams.

  “GO TO YOUR ROOM!

  I’LL DEAL WITH YOU LATER!”

  “have it your way.”

  “WHAT?”

  “have it your way.”

  “YOU CAN’T TALK TO ME LIKE

  THAT!

  GO TO YOUR ROOM!”

  the room was beautiful.

  I couldn’t see him anymore.

  I couldn’t hear his voice.

  I looked at the dresser.

  the dresser was beautiful.

  I looked at the rug.

  the rug was beautiful.

  I sat in a chair and waited.

  hours passed.

  it was dark.

  now he was listening to the

  radio

  in the living room.

  I kicked the screen open and

  dropped out the window.

  then I was out in the cool night,

  walking.

  I was 15 years old,

  looking for something,

  anything.

  it wasn’t there.

  NIGHTS OF VANILLA MICE

  unshaven, yellow-toothed, sweating in my only sh
orts

  and undershirt (full of cigarette holes),

  I was sure that I was better than F. Scott or Faulkner or

  even my buddy, Turgenev.

  ah, not as good as Céline or Li Po

  but, man, I had faith, felt I was more on fire

  than

  any 3 dozen mortals.

  and I typed and lived with women that you

  would shrink from, I

  brought love back to those faded eyes as vanilla mice

  slept below our bed.

  I starved and starved and typed and

  loved it, I

  reached into my mouth and plucked rotten teeth

  out of my gums

  and laughed

  as the rejections came back as fast as I could send my stories

  out, I

  felt marvelous, I felt like I owned a piece of the

  sun, I listened to all the crazy classical music from previous

  centuries, I sympathized with those who had suffered

  in the past like

  Mozart, Verdi, others,

  and when things got really bad

  I thought of Van Gogh and his ear and even

  sometimes

  his shotgun, I

  jollied myself along as best I could, and Jesus I

  got very thin

  and still during the sleepless nights I would

  tell my ladies about how I was

  going to make it as a writer some day

  and from all of them (as if with one voice) they would complain:

  “shit, are you going to talk about that

  again?”

  (my voice): “you saw how I punched that guy out

  in the alley the other night?”

  (again, as with one voice): “what has that to do with

  writing?”

  (my voice): “I don’t know …”

  of course, there were many nights with no voices,

  there were many nights alone and those were fine

  too, of course, but the worst nights were the nights

  without a room and that hurt because a writer needed

  an address in order to receive those rejection

  slips.

  but the ladies (bless them!)

  always told me, “you’re crazy but you’re

  nice.”

  being a starving writer is

  treacherous

  great

  fun.

  LARK IN THE DARK

  all teeth, big nose

  coming directly at me

  in the middle of the night.

  I am frozen in the bed

  as it comes roaring down at me

  from the ceiling.

  I roll away at the last

  moment

  and it hits the bed

  between me and my white

  cat.

  the cat jumps straight up,

  hits the ceiling,

  bounces back, hits the

  bed, leaps off, jumps through

  the screen and lands two floors

  below in the Jacuzzi.

  I get up, watch it swim to the

  edge, crawl out.

  it sits there licking itself in the

  moonlight.

  “whatcha doin’?” I hear my wife

  say.

  “gotta go to the bathroom,”

  I tell her.

  I walk to the bathroom,

  come back,

  climb under the

  covers.

  “don’t snore,” says my wife.

  I stare at the spot in the ceiling

  from where the apparition first

  appeared.

  for two hours I do this.

  then I am asleep again.

  I am dreaming.

  I am naked and driving one of

  those old-fashioned steam locomotives

  through a shopping

  mall.

  I smile and wave

  to the crowds but

  nobody seems to notice

  me.

  LONELY HEARTS

  when you start boring yourself

  you know damn well

  you’re going to start

  boring other people;

  in fact, all the people you come

  into contact with:

  on the telephone, in the post

  office, over a bowl of

  spaghetti.

  oh, all the tiresome people with their

  tiresome stories:

  like how they got screwed by life’s

  Unkind Forces, how they are fucked

  and there isn’t much they can do

  now

  except tell you all about it.

  then they step back and wait for

  you to console them

  but what you really feel like doing

  is

  piss all over them,

  which might stop them from

  inviting themselves over for

  dinner

  and then telling you more about

  their tragic

  lives.

  there are more and more of

  them,

  they line up outside in the gloom

  waiting for you.

  nobody else will listen to

  them.

  they’ve alienated

  hundreds of former

  friends, lovers and acquaintances

  but they still need to whine and

  complain.

  I’m sending them all over to

  see you

  starting today.

  get your compassion and

  understanding

  ready.

  I might be there at the end of that

  line

  myself.

  B AS IN BULLSHIT

  B kind

  B a good listener

  B able to engage in physical combat

  B a lover of classical music

  B a tolerator of children

  B a good horseplayer

  B an agnostic

  B generous on the freeways of the world

  B a good sleeper

  B not fearful of death

  B unable to beg

  B able to love

  B able to feel superior

  B able to understand that too much education is a fart in the dark

  B able to dislike poets and poetry

  B able to understand that the rich can be poor in spirit

  B able to understand that the poor live better than the rich

  B able to understand that shit is necessary

  B aware that in every life a little bit of shit must fall B aware that a hell of a lot more shit falls on some more than on others

  B aware that many dumb bastards crawl the earth

  B aware that the human heart cannot be broken

  B able to stay away from movies

  B able to sit alone in a room and feel good

  B able to watch your cat cross the floor like a miracle

  B able to recognize bullshit even when you hear it from

  B ukowski.

  A RIOT IN THE STREETS

  it’s a good day, a good time, anybody can

  blow a hole through you at any minute.

  they are shooting from the rooftops now

  and the night sky is smoking,

  red.

  what more could you want?

  you can watch it on your tv or you

  can look outside, it’s the same

  thing.

  they are letting it all out again.

  airing it out.

  it’s healthy.

  the cops are hiding.

  nobody is bored tonight.

  the safest people are already in jail.

  everybody feels curiously alive,

  at last.

  it’s party time!

  this city is the whole world

  and it’s running right at you.

 
it’s a good day, a good time!

  hell is coming out to play

  with you.

  INTERLUDE

  it’s been raining forever

  and I haven’t had a drink in

  a week-and-a-half.

  I must be going crazy.

  I just sit in these green pajamas

  smoke cigars and stare at the walls.

  I try to read the newspapers but

  the print blurs and I can’t

  make sense out of any of

  it.

  I watch the second hand

  go around and around on my

  watch.

  I am waiting for the ghosts

  of tomorrow.

  I look at the telephone and

  thank it for not

  ringing.

  my life has been lived

  in vain;

  I should have been a

  shortstop, a race car driver,

  a matador.

  I sit in this room, I wait in this

  room.

  I rub my left hand over my

  face.

  my whiskers are sharp,

  they feel good.

  I think tomorrow I’ll get

  dressed, go outside,

  I’ll go to Thrifty’s,

  buy a roll of Scotch tape,

  a bag of orange slices,

  a flashlight and a

  pocket comb.

  then I’ll snap out of it,

  maybe.

  D.N.F.

  they shot the horse.

  he kicked 4 times

  with the bullet in his

  brain.

  his skin shone.

  his skin sweated.

  they pushed him into a green trailer

  pulled by a yellow tractor

  driven by a man in a grey

  felt hat.

  I walked back inside

  and looked up the legs of a young woman

  sitting and

  reading the Racing Form.

  she made me hot.

  the dead horse had been my last

  bet.

  my handicapping was gone sour.

  then she saw me looking.

  I turned around,

  walked away.

  walked to a white water fountain,

  bent and drank.

  READING LITTLE POEMS IN LITTLE MAGAZINES

  you get so sick finally of the personal,

  the relaxed and little personal

  things like a visit to mother

  or getting your car stolen

  or masturbating in a mortuary

  the personal, the personal things:

  like how big your breasts are

  or how you used to be a go-go

  dancer;

  or how you worked the night shift

  at your machine and got

  slivers of hot metal under your

  fingernails.

  personal, personal things:

  like how many wives or husbands

  you’ve had;

  or how your students ask

  questions and you answer them