You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense

by Charles Bukowski

  and

  all during the night as I have been drinking and typing these

  eleven or twelve poems

  the lights have gone off and on

  there is a wild wind outside

  and in between times

  I have sat in the dark here

  electric (haha) typer off lights out radio off

  drinking in the dark

  lighting cigarettes in the dark

  there was fire off the match

  we are all burning together

  burning brothers and sisters

  I like it I like it I like

  it.

  late late late poem

  you think about the time in

  Malibu

  after taking the tall girl

  to dinner and drinks

  you came out to the Volks

  and the clutch was

  gone

  (no Auto Club card)

  nothing out there but the

  ocean and

  25 miles to your

  room

  (her suitcase there

  after an air trip from somewhere

  in Texas)

  and you say to her, “well,

  maybe we’ll swim back in,” and

  she forgets to

  smile.

  and the problem with

  writing these poems

  as you get into number 7 or

  8 or 9

  into the second bottle near

  3 a.m.

  trying to light your

  cigarette with a book of

  stamps

  after already setting the

  wastebasket on fire

  once

  is

  that there is still some

  adventure and joy

  in typing

  as the radio roars its

  classical music

  but the content

  begins to get

  thin.

  3 a.m. games:

  the worst thing is

  being drunk

  all the lighters gone

  dumb

  matchbooks

  empty

  cigarette and cigar stubs

  all about

  you find a small pack of

  matches

  with 3 paper

  matches

  but the matches go

  limp against the worn match

  cover

  shit:

  drink without smoke is like

  cock without

  pussy

  you drink some

  more

  search about

  find one paper match of

  happiness

  carefully scratch it

  against the least-worn

  empty match

  pack

  it flares!

  you’ve got your

  smoke!

  you light

  up

  you flick the match

  toward a

  tray

  it misses

  and

  like that…

  a flame rises

  everything is BURNING

  at last!

  : an American Express customer

  receipt

  : some of the empty match

  books

  : even one of the dead

  lighters

  the flame whirls and

  leaps

  then the whole ashtray of

  cigarette and cigar stubs

  begins to smoke

  as if mouths were inhaling

  them

  you battle the flames with

  various and sundry objects

  including your

  hands

  until finally the flame is

  gone and there is nothing but

  smoke

  as again you get that

  re-occurring thought: I must be

  crazy.

  you hear your wife’s

  voice:

  “Hank, are you all

  right?”

  she’s on the other side of

  the wall in the

  bedroom

  “oh, I’m fine…”

  “I smell smoke…is the house burning

  down?”

  “just a small fire, Linda…I got

  it…go to sleep…”

  she is the one who got you

  the steel wastebasket

  after a similar

  occurrence

  soon she is asleep

  again

  and you’re searching

  for more

  matches.

  someday I’m going to write a primer for crippled saints but meanwhile…

  as the Bomb sits out there in the hands of a

  diminishing species

  all you want

  is me sitting next to you

  with popcorn and Dr. Pepper

  as those dull celluloid teeth

  chew away at

  my remains.

  I don’t worry too much about the

  Bomb—the madhouses are full

  enough

  and I always remember

  after one of the best pieces of ass

  I ever had

  I went to the bathroom and

  masturbated—hard to kill a man

  like that with a

  Bomb?

  anyhow, I’ve finally shaken

  R. Jeffers and Celine from my

  belltower

  and I sit there alone

  with you and

  Dostoevsky

  as the real and the

  artificial heart

  continues to

  falter,

  famished…

  I love you but

  don’t know what to

  do.

  help wanted

  I was a crazed young man and then found this book written by a

  crazed older man and I felt better because he was

  able to write it down

  and then I found a later book by this same crazed older

  man

  only to me

  he seemed no longer crazed he just appeared to be

  dull—

  we all hold up well for a while, then inherent with flaws and

  skips and misses

  most of us

  so often deteriorate overnight

  into a state so near defecation

  that the end result is almost unbearable to the

  senses.

  luckily, I found a few other crazed men who almost remained that

  way until they

  died.

  that’s more sporting, you know, and lends a bit more to our

  lives

  as we attend to our—

  inumbrate—

  tasks.

  sticks and stones…

  complaint is often the result of an insufficient

  ability

  to live within

  the obvious restrictions of this

  god damned cage.

  complaint is a common deficiency

  more prevalent than

  hemorrhoids

  and as these lady writers hurl their spiked shoes

  at me

  wailing that

  their poems will never be

  promulgated

  all that I can say to them

  is

  show me more leg

  show me more ass—

  that’s all you (or I) have

  while

  it lasts

  and for this common and obvious truth

  they screech at me:

  MOTHERFUCKER SEXIST PIG!

  as if that would stop the way fruit trees

  drop their fruit

  or the ocean brings in the coni and

  the dead spores of the Grecian

  Empire

  but I feel no grief for being called something

 
which

  I am not;

  in fact, it’s enthralling, somehow, like a good

  back rub

  on a frozen night

  behind the ski lift at

  Aspen.

  working

  ah, those days when I

  ran them

  in and out of my

  shabby apartment.

  god, I was a hairy

  ugly

  thing

  and I backed them

  all onto the

  springs

  flailing

  away

  I was the mindless

  drunken ape

  in a sad and

  dying

  neighborhood.

  but strangest

  of all

  were the

  new and continuous

  arrivals:

  it was a

  female

  parade

  and

  I exulted

  pranced and

  pounced

  with hardly

  an idea

  of what

  it

  meant.

  it was a well-

  remembered bed-

  room

  painted a strange

  blue.

  and

  most of the

  ladies

  left just before

  noon

  about the time

  the mailman

  arrived.

  he spoke to me

  one day, “my god,

  man, where do you

  get them all?”

  “I don’t know,” I

  told him.

  “pardon me,” he went

  on, “but you don’t

  exactly look like

  God’s gift to

  women, how do you

  do it?”

  “I don’t know,”

  I said.

  and it was

  true: it just

  happened and I

  did it

  in my blue

  bedroom

  with my

  dead mother’s

  best lace table

  linen

  tacked up

  over the

  window.

  I was a

  fucking

  fool.

  over done

  he had somehow located me again—he was on the telephone—talking

  about the old days—

  wonder whatever happened to Michael or Ken or

  Julie Anne?—

  and remember…?

  —then

  there were his present problems—

  —he was a talker—he had always been a

  talker—

  and I had been a

  listener

  I had listened because I hadn’t wanted to

  hurt him

  by telling him to shut up

  like the others

  did

  in the old

  days

  now

  he was back

  and

  I held the phone out

  at arm’s length

  and could still hear the

  sound—

  I handed the phone to my girlfriend and

  she listened for a

  while—

  finally

  I took the phone and told him—

  hey, man, we’ve got to stop, the meat’s burning

  in the oven!

  he said, o.k., man, I’ll call you

  back—

  (one thing I remembered about my

  old buddy: he was good for his

  word)

  I put the phone back on the

  receiver—

  —we don’t have any meat in the

  oven, said my

  girlfriend—

  —yes, we do, I told her,

  it’s

  me.

  our laughter is muted by their agony

  as the child crosses the street as deep sea divers

  dive as the painters paint—

  the good fight against terrible odds is the vindication

  and the glory as the swallow rises toward

  the moon—

  it is so dark now with the sadness of

  people

  they were tricked, they were taught to expect the

  ultimate when nothing is

  promised

  now young girls weep alone in small rooms

  old men angrily swing their canes at

  visions as

  ladies comb their hair as

  ants search for survival

  history surrounds us

  and our lives

  slink away

  in

  shame.

  murder

  competition, greed, desire for fame—

  after great beginnings they mostly

  write when they don’t want to write, they write to

  order, they write for Cadillacs and younger

  girls—and to pay off

  old wives.

  they appear on talk shows, attend parties

  with their peers.

  most go to Hollywood, they become snipers and

  gossips

  and have more and more affairs with younger

  and younger girls and/or

  men.

  they write between Hollywood and the parties,

  it’s timeclock writing

  and in between the panties and/or the

  jockstraps

  and the cocaine

  many of them manage to screw up with the

  IRS.

  between old wives, new wives, newer and

  newer girls (and/or)

  all their royalties and residuals—

  the hundreds of thousands of

  dollars—

  are now suddenly

  debts.

  the writing becomes a useless

  spasm

  a jerk-off of a once

  mighty

  gift.

  it happens and happens and

  continues to:

  the mutilation of talent

  the gods seldom

  give

  but so quickly

  take.

  what am I doing?

  got to stop battling these wild speed jocks on the freeway as we

  roar through hairline openings with stereo blasting through

  noon and evening and darkness

  when actually all we want is to sit in cool green gardens

  talking quietly over drinks.

  what makes us this way?—ingrown toenails?—or that the ladies

  are not enough?—what foolishness makes us tweak the nose of

  Death continually?

  are we afraid of the slow bedpan?—or slobbering over half-

  cooked peas brought to us by a bored nurse with thick

  dumb legs?

  what wanton hare-brained impulse makes us floor it with

  only one hand on the wheel?

  don’t we realize the peace of aging

  gently?

  what hell-call is this to war?

  we are the sickest of the breed—as fine museums—great art—

  generations of knowledge—are all forgotten

  as we find profundity in being an

  asshole—

  we are going to end up as a

  photograph—almost life-sized—hanging

  as a warning on the

  Traffic Court wall

  and people will shudder just a bit and

  look the other way

  knowing that

  too much ego is not

  enough.

  nervous people

  you go in for an item—take it to the clerk at the register—he

  doesn’t know the price—begs leave—returns after a long

  time—stares at the electronic cash register—rings up the


  sale with some difficulty: $47,583.64—you don’t have it

  with you—he laughs—calls for help—another clerk

  arrives—after another long time he finds a new total:

  $1.27. I pay—then must ask for a bag—I thank the

  clerk—walk to parking with the lady I am with—“you

  make people nervous,” she tells me—

  we drive home with the item—we put the item to its task—it

  doesn’t work—the item has a factory

  defect—

  “I’ll take it back,” she says—

  I go to the bathroom and piss squarely in the center of the

  pot—warfare is just one of the problems which besets everyone

  during the life of a decent day.

  working out

  Van Gogh cut off his ear

  gave it to a

  prostitute

  who flung it away in

  extreme

  disgust.

  Van, whores don’t want

  ears

  they want

  money.

  I guess that’s why you were

  such a great

  painter: you

  didn’t understand

  much

  else.

  how is your heart?

  during my worst times

  on the park benches

  in the jails

  or living with

  whores

  I always had this certain

  contentment—

  I wouldn’t call it

  happiness—

  it was more of an inner

  balance

  that settled for

  whatever was occurring

  and it helped in the

  factories