“That? That was the mailman. He’d heard you were on the Red Sparrow caper and he wanted to pay you back one more time for the beating. He jimmied your door and left the thing there.”
“Now what, Lady?”
“I’m leaving you with the Red Sparrow. You’re in good hands.
Goodbye, Belane, it’s been fun.”
“Yeah…”
And there I was with that gigantic glowing bird. It stood there.
This can’t be true, I thought. This isn’t the way it is supposed to happen. No, this isn’t the way it is supposed to happen.
Then, as I watched, the Sparrow slowly opened its beak. A huge void appeared. And within the beak was a vast yellow vortex, more dynamic than the sun, unbelievable.
This isn’t the way it happens, I thought again.
The beak opened wide, the Sparrow’s head moved closer and the blaze and the blare of yellow swept over and enveloped me.
About the Author
CHARLES BUKOWSKI is one of America’s best-known contempor-ary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in Andernach, Germany, to an American soldier father and a German mother in 1920, and brought to the United States at the age of three. He was raised in Los Angeles and lived there for fifty years. He published his first story in 1944 when he was twenty-four and began writing poetry at the age of thirty-five. He died in San Pedro, California, on March 9, 1994, at the age of seventy-three, shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp (1994).
During his lifetime he published more than forty-five books of poetry and prose, including the novels Post Office (1971), Factotum (1975), Women (1978), Ham on Rye (1982), and Hollywood (1989).
Among his most recent books are the posthumous editions of What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire (1999), Open All Night: New Poems (2000), Beerspit Night and Cursing: The Correspondence of Charles Bukowski and Sheri Martinelli, 1960-1967 (2001), and The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps: New Poems (2001).
All of his books have now been published in translation in over a dozen languages and his worldwide popularity remains un-diminished. In the years to come, Ecco will publish additional volumes of previously uncollected poetry and letters.
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BY CHARLES BUKOWSKI
The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills (1969) Post Office (1971)
Mockingbird Wish Me Luck (1972)
South of No North (1973)
Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame: Selected Poems 1955-1973 (1974) Factotum (1975)
Love Is a Dog from Hell: Poems 1974-1977 (1977) Women (1978)
Play the Piano Drunk/Like a Percussion Instrument/
Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit (1979) Shakespeare Never Did This (1979) Dangling in the Tournefortia (1981) Ham on Rye (1982)
Bring Me Your Love (1983)
Hot Water Music (1983)
There’s No Business (1984)
War All the Time: Poems 1981-1984 (1984) You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense (1986) The Movie: “Barfly” (1987)
The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems 1946-1966 (1988) Hollywood (1989)
Septuagenarian Stew: Stories & Poems (1990) The Last Night of the Earth Poems (1992) Screams from the Balcony: Selected Letters 1960-1970 (1993) Pulp (1994)
Living on Luck: Selected Letters 1960s-1970s (Volume 2) (1995) Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories (1996) Bone Palace Ballet: New Poems (1997) The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship (1998) Reach for the Sun: Selected Letters 1978-1994 (Volume 3) (1999) What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire: New Poems (1999) Open All Night: New Poems (2000) The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps: New Poems (2001) Beerspit Night and Cursing: The Correspondence of Charles Bukowski & Sheri Martinelli 1960-1967 (2001)
Copyright
Pulp. Copyright © 1994 by Charles Bukowski. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader August 2007
ISBN 978-0-06-149262-4
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