The Pleasures of the Damned

Poems, 1951–1993

Charles Bukowski

Edited by John Martin

Contents

the mockingbird

something’s knocking at the door

his wife, the painter

on the sidewalk and in the sun

the elephants of Vietnam

dark night poem

the last days of the suicide kid

tabby cat

metamorphosis

a poem is a city

a smile to remember

a free 25-page booklet

they, all of them, know

a future congressman

eulogy

the drowning

fooling Marie (the poem)

the young man on the bus stop bench

for they had things to say

silly damned thing anyhow

upon reading an interview with a best-selling novelist in our metropolitan daily newspaper

harbor freeway south

schoolyards of forever

in the lobby

sex

a clean, well-lighted place

something for the touts, the nuns, the grocery clerks and you…

blue beads and bones

like a cherry seed in the throat

turnabout

mystery leg

the girl outside the supermarket

it is not much

2 Outside, As Bones Break in My Kitchen

The Japanese Wife

the harder you try

the lady in red

the shower

i was glad

the angel who pushed his wheelchair

a time to remember

the wrong way

no wonder

a threat to my immortality

my telephone

Carson McCullers

Mongolian coasts shining in light

putrefaction

where was Jane?

something about a woman

Sunday lunch at the Holy Mission

trashcan lives

school days

grass

crucifix in a deathhand

the screw-game

millionaires

when you wait for the dawn to crawl through the screen like a burglar to take your life away

the talkers

art

advice for some young man in the year 2064 A.D

ice for the eagles

girl in a mini skirt reading the Bible outside my window

hell is a lonely place

the girls and the birds

1813–1883

no leaders, please

song

one for Sherwood Anderson

bow wow love

the day the epileptic spoke

when Hugo Wolf went mad—

in a neighborhood of murder

the strangest sight you ever did see—

the 2nd novel

junk

Mademoi selle from Armentières

now

society should realize…

the souls of dead animals

the tragedy of the leaves

the birds

the loner

The Genius of the Crowd

German bar

the snow of Italy

for Jane: with all the love I had, which was not enough

notice

for Jane

eulogy to a hell of a dame

barfly

was Li Po wrong?

the night I saw George Raft in Vegas

I am eaten by butterflies

the veryest

man mowing the lawn across the way from me

oh, yes

poop

Phillipe’s 1950

downtown

elephants in the zoo

girl on the escalator

the shit shits

big time loser

commerce

come on in!

the bakers of 1935

secret laughter

Democracy

an empire of coins

what?

the American Flag Shirt

now she’s free

the simple truth

gold in your eye

a great writer

the smoking car

the shoelace

self-inflicted wounds

Verdi

the young lady who lives in Canoga Park

life of the king

my failure

a boy and his dog

liberated woman and liberated man

small talk

the crunch

fun house

the poetry reading

somebody

the colored birds

poem for personnel managers

my fate

my atomic stockpile

Bruckner (2)

hello, how are you?

vacancy

batting slump

bang bang

the pleasures of the damned

one more good one

the little girls hissed

ha ha ha ha ha, ha ha

thoughts from a stone bench in Venice

scene in a tent outside the cotton fields of Bakersfield

3:16 and one half…

a literary discussion

butterflies

the great escape

my friend William

safe

starve, go mad, or kill yourself

the beautiful lady

my life as a sitcom

who needs it?

riots

those marvelous lunches

The Look

the big one

the genius

about the PEN conference

what a man I was

Scarlet

like a flower in the rain

a killer

prayer in bad weather

melancholia

eat your heart out

I made a mistake

she comes from somewhere

The High-Rise of the New World

car wash

Van Gogh

the railroad yard

the girls at the green hotel

in other words

Destroying Beauty

peace

afternoons into night

we ain’t got no money, honey, but we got rain

marina

Trollius and trellises

beagle

coffee and babies

magical mystery tour

the last generation

about competition

a radio with guts

the egg

a killer gets ready

in the center of the action

poetry

notes upon the flaxen aspect

the fisherman

the 1930s

the burning of the dream

sit and endure

Goldfish

finish

dreaming

my special craving

A Love Poem

one writer’s funeral

the wine of forever

the pile-up

my big night on the town

close encounters of another kind

drying out

scene from 1940

the area of pause

I know you

relentless as the tarantula

the replacements

to lean back into it

eating my senior citizen’s dinner at the Sizzler

it’s strange

The Beast

woman on the street

lost in San Pedro

Manx

the history of a tough motherfucker

bad fix

one for the old boy

my cats

Death Wants More Death

the lisp

on being 20

meanwhile

the world’s greatest loser

human nature

the trash men

a gold pocket watch

talking to my mailbox…

I liked him

one for the shoeshine man

the proud thin dying

shot of red-eye

about pain

hot

who in the hell is Tom Jones?

the price

I’m in love

the girls

the ladies of summer

to night

shoes

hug the dark

face of a political candidate on a street billboard

white dog

on going out to get the mail

spring swan

how is your heart?

closing time

racetrack parking lot at the end of the day

there

Dinosauria, we

mind and heart

TB

crime does pay

the orderly

the nurses

cancer

first poem back

tired in the afterdusk

again

so now?

blue

a summation

sun coming down

twilight musings

my last winter

like a dolphin

the bluebird

if we take—

alphabetical index of poem titles

About the Author

Other Books by Charles Bukowski

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

the mockingbird

the mockingbird had been following the cat

all summer

mocking mocking mocking

teasing and cocksure;

the cat crawled under rockers on porches

tail flashing

and said something angry to the mockingbird

which I didn’t understand.

yesterday the cat walked calmly up the driveway

with the mockingbird alive in its mouth,

wings fanned, beautiful wings fanned and flopping,

feathers parted like a woman’s legs,

and the bird was no longer mocking,

it was asking, it was praying

but the cat

striding down through centuries

would not listen.

I saw it crawl under a yellow car

with the bird

to bargain it to another place.

summer was over.

something’s knocking at the door

a great white light dawns across the

continent

as we fawn over our failed traditions,

often kill to preserve them

or sometimes kill just to kill.

it doesn’t seem to matter: the answers dangle just

out of reach,

out of hand, out of mind.

the leaders of the past were insufficient,

the leaders of the present are unprepared.

we curl up tightly in our beds at night and wait.

it is a waiting without hope, more like

a prayer for unmerited grace.

it all looks more and more like the same old

movie.

the actors are different but the plot’s the same:

senseless.

we should have known, watching our fathers.

we should have known, watching our mothers.

they did not know, they too were not prepared to

teach.

we were too naive to ignore their

counsel

and now we have embraced their

ignorance as our

own.

we are them, multiplied.

we are their unpaid debts.

we are bankrupt

in money and

in spirit.

there are a few exceptions, of course, but these teeter on the

edge

and will

at any moment

tumble down to join the rest

of us,

the raving, the battered, the blind and the sadly

corrupt.

a great white light dawns across the

continent,

the flowers open blindly in the stinking wind,

as grotesque and ultimately

unlivable

our 21st century

struggles to beborn.

his wife, the painter

There are sketches on the walls of men and women and ducks,

and outside a large green bus swerves through traffic like

insanity sprung from a waving line; Turgenev, Turgenev,

says the radio, and Jane Austen, Jane Austen, too.

“I am going to do her portrait on the 28th, while you are at work.”

He is just this edge of fat and he walks constantly, he

fritters; they have him; they are eating him hollow like

a webbed fly, and his eyes are red-suckled with anger-fear.

He feels the hatred and discard of the world, sharper than

his razor, and his gut-feel hangs like a wet polyp; and he

self-decisions himself defeated trying to shake his hung beard from razor in water (like life), not warm enough.

Daumier. Rue Transnonain, le 15 Avril, 1843. (Lithograph.) Paris,

Bibliothe`que Nationale.

“She has a face unlike that of any woman I have ever known.”

“What is it? A love affair?”

“Silly. I can’t love a woman. Besides, she’s pregnant.”

I can paint—a flower eaten by a snake; that sunlight is a

lie; and that markets smell of shoes and naked boys clothed,

and under everything some river, some beat, some twist that

clambers along the edge of my temple and bites nip-dizzy…

men drive cars and paint their houses,

but they are mad; men sit in barber chairs; buy hats.

Corot. Recollection of Mortefontaine.

Paris, Louvre

“I must write Kaiser, though I think he’s a homosexual.”

“Are you still reading Freud?”

“Page 299.”

She made a little hat and he fastened two snaps under one

arm, reaching up from the bed like a long feeler from the

snail, and she went to church, and he thought now I h’ve

time and the dog.

About church: the trouble with a mask is it

never changes.

So rude the flowers that grow and do not grow beautiful.

So magic the chair on the patio that does not hold legs

and belly and arm and neck and mouth that bites into the

wind like the end of a tunnel.

He turned in bed and thought: I am searching for some

segment in the air. It floats about the people’s heads.

When it rains on the trees it sits between the branches

warmer and more blood-real than the dove.

Orozco. Christ Destroying the Cross.

Hanover, Dartmouth College, Baker Library.

He burned away in sleep.

on the sidewalk and in the sun

I have seen an old man around town recently

carrying an enormous pack.

he uses a walking stick

and moves up and down the streets

with this pack strapped to his back.

I keep seeing him.

if he’d only throw that pack away, I think,

he’d have a chance, not much of a chance

but a chance.

and he’s in a tough district—east Hollywood.

they aren’t going to give him a

dry bone in east Hollywood.

he is lost. with that pack.

on the sidewalk and in the sun.

god almighty, old man, I think, throw away that

pack.

then I drive on, thinking of my own

problems.

the last time I saw him he was not walking.

it was ten thirty a.m. on north Bronson and hot, very hot, and he sat on a little ledge, bent,

the pack still strapped to his back.

I slowed down to look at his face.

I had seen one or two other men in my life

with looks on their faces like

that.

I speeded up and turned on the

radio.

I knew that look.

I would never see him again.

the elephants of Vietnam

first they used to, he told me,

gun and bomb the elephants,

you could hear their screams over all the other sounds;

but you flew high to bomb the people,

you never saw it,

just a little flash from way up

but with the elephants

you could watch it happen

and hear how they screamed;

I’d tell my buddies, listen, you guys

stop that,

but they just laughed

as the elephants scattered

throwing up their trunks (if they weren’t blown off )

opening their mouths

wide and

kicking their dumb clumsy legs

as blood ran out of big holes in their bellies.

then we’d fly back,

mission completed.

we’d get everything:

convoys, dumps, bridges, people, elephants and

all the rest.

he told me later, I

felt bad about the

elephants.

dark night poem

they say that

nothing is wasted:

either that

or

it all is.

(uncollected)

the last days of the suicide kid

I can see myself now

after all these suicide days and nights,

being wheeled out of one of those sterile rest homes

(of course, this is only if I get famous and lucky)

by a subnormal and bored nurse…

there I am sitting upright in my wheelchair…

almost blind, eyes rolling backward into the dark part of my skull looking

for the mercy of death…

“Isn’t it a lovely day, Mr. Bukowski?”

“O, yeah, yeah…”

the children walk past and I don’t even exist

and lovely women walk by

with big hot hips

and warm buttocks and tight hot everything

praying to be loved

and I don’t even

exist…

“It’s the first sunlight we’ve had in 3 days,

Mr. Bukowski.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah.”

there I am sitting upright in my wheelchair,

myself whiter than this sheet of paper,

bloodless,

brain gone, gamble gone, me, Bukowski,

gone…

“Isn’t it a lovely day, Mr. Bukowski?”

“O, yeah, yeah…” pissing in my pajamas, slop drooling out of

my mouth.

2 young schoolboys run by—

“Hey, did you see that old guy?”

“Christ, yes, he made me sick!”

after all the threats to do so

somebody else has committed suicide for me

at last.

the nurse stops the wheelchair, breaks a rose from a nearby bush, puts it in my hand.

I don’t even know

what it is. it might as well be my pecker

for all the good

it does.

tabby cat

he has on blue jeans and tennis shoes

and walks with two young girls

about his age.

every now and then he leaps

into the air and

clicks his heels together.

he’s like a young colt

but somehow he also reminds me

more of a tabby cat.

his ass is soft and

he has no more on his mind

than a gnat.

he jumps along behind his girls

clicking his heels together.

then he pulls the hair of one

runs over to the other and

squeezes her neck.

he has fucked both of them and

is pleased with himself.

it has all happened

so easily for him.

and I think, ah,

my little tabby cat

what nights and days

wait for you.

your soft ass

will be your doom.

your agony

will be endless

and the girls

who are yours now

will soon belong to other men

who didn’t get their cookies

and cream so easily and

so early.

the girls are practicing on you

the girls are practicing for other men

for someone out of the jungle

for someone out of the lion cage.

I smile as

I watch you walking along

clicking your heels together.

my god, boy, I fear for you

on that night

when you first find out.

it’s a sunny day now.

jump

while you

can.

metamorphosis

a girlfriend came in

built me a bed

scrubbed and waxed the kitchen floor

scrubbed the walls

vacuumed

cleaned the toilet

the bathtub

scrubbed the bathroom floor

and cut my toenails and

my hair.

then

all on the same day

the plumber came and fixed the kitchen faucet

and the toilet

and the gas man fixed the heater

and the phone man fixed the phone.

now I sit here in all this perfection.

it is quiet.

I have broken off with all 3 of my girlfriends.

I felt better when everything was in

disorder.

it will take me some months to get back to

normal:

I can’t even find a roach to commune with.

I have lost my rhythm.

I can’t sleep.

I can’t eat.

I have been robbed of

my filth.

a poem is a city

a poem is a city filled with streets and sewers

filled with saints, heroes, beggars, madmen,

filled with banality and booze,

filled with rain and thunder and periods of

drought, a poem is a city at war,

a poem is a city asking a clock why,

a poem is a city burning,

a poem is a city under guns

its barbershops filled with cynical drunks,

a poem is a city where God rides naked

through the streets like Lady Godiva,

where dogs bark at night, and chase away

the flag; a poem is a city of poets,

most of them quite similar

and envious and bitter…

a poem is this city now,

50 miles from nowhere,

9:09 in the morning,

the taste of liquor and cigarettes,

no police, no lovers, walking the streets,

this poem, this city, closing its doors,

barricaded, almost empty,

mournful without tears, aging without pity,

the hardrock mountains,

the ocean like a lavender flame,

a moon destitute of greatness,

a small music from broken windows…

a poem is a city, a poem is a nation,

a poem is the world…

and now I stick this under glass

for the mad editor’s scrutiny,

and night is elsewhere

and faint gray ladies stand in line,

dog follows dog to estuary,

the trumpets bring on gallows

as small men rant at things

they cannot do.

a smile to remember

we had goldfish and they circled around and around

in the bowl on the table near the heavy drapes

covering the picture window and

my mother, always smiling, wanting us all

to be happy, told me, “be happy, Henry!”

and she was right: it’s better to be happy if you

can

but my father continued to beat her and me several times a week while

raging inside his 6-foot-2 frame because he couldn’t

understand what was attacking him from within.

my mother, poor fish,

wanting to be happy, beaten two or three times a

week, telling me to be happy: “Henry, smile!

why don’t you ever smile?”

and then she would smile, to show me how, and it was the

saddest smile I ever saw.

one day the goldfish died, all five of them,

they floated on the water, on their sides, their

eyes still open,

and when my father got home he threw them to the cat

there on the kitchen floor and we watched as my mother

smiled.

a free 25-page booklet

dying for a beer dying

for and of life

on a windy afternoon in Hollywood

listening to symphony music from my little red radio

on the floor.

a friend said,

“all ya gotta do is go out on the sidewalk

and lay down

somebody will pick you up

somebody will take care of you.”

I look out the window at the sidewalk

I see something walking on the sidewalk

she wouldn’t lay down there,

only in special places for special people with special $$$$

and

special ways

while I am dying for a beer on a windy afternoon in

Hollywood,

nothing like a beautiful broad dragging it past you on the

sidewalk

moving it past your famished window

she’s dressed in the finest cloth

she doesn’t care what you say

how you look what you do

as long as you do not get in her

way, and it must be that she doesn’t shit or

have blood

she must be a cloud, friend, the way she floats past us.

I am too sick to lay down

the sidewalks frighten me

the whole damned city frightens me,

what I will become

what I have become

frightens me.

ah, the bravado is gone

the big run through center is gone

on a windy afternoon in Hollywood

my radio cracks and spits its dirty music

through a floor full of empty beerbottles.

now I hear a siren

it comes closer

the music stops

the man on the radio says,

“we will send you a free 25-page booklet:

FACE THE FACTS ABOUT COLLEGE COSTS.”

the siren fades into the cardboard mountains

and I look out the window again as the clasped fist of

boiling cloud comes down—

the wind shakes the plants outside

I wait for evening I wait for night I wait sitting in a chair

by the window—

the cook drops in the live

red-pink salty

rough-tit crab and

the game works

on

come get me.

they, all of them, know

ask the sidewalk painters of Paris

ask the sunlight on a sleeping dog

ask the 3 pigs

ask the paperboy

ask the music of Donizetti

ask the barber

ask the murderer

ask the man leaning against a wall

ask the preacher

ask the maker of cabinets

ask the pickpocket or the

pawnbroker or the glass blower

or the seller of manure or

the dentist

ask the revolutionist

ask the man who sticks his head in

the mouth of a lion

ask the man who will release the next

atom bomb

ask the man who thinks he’s Christ

ask the bluebird who comes home

at night

ask the peeping Tom

ask the man dying of cancer

ask the man who needs a bath

ask the man with one leg

ask the blind

ask the man with the lisp

ask the opium eater

ask the trembling surgeon

ask the leaves you walk upon

ask a rapist or a

streetcar conductor or an old man

pulling weeds in his garden

ask a bloodsucker

ask a trainer of fleas

ask a man who eats fire

ask the most miserable man you can

find in his most

miserable moment

ask a teacher of judo

ask a rider of elephants

ask a leper, a lifer, a lunger

ask a professor of history

ask the man who never cleans his

fingernails

ask a clown or ask the first face you see

in the light of day

ask your father

ask your son and

his son to be

ask me

ask a burned-out bulb in a paper sack

ask the tempted, the damned, the foolish

the wise, the slavering

ask the builders of temples

ask the men who have never worn shoes

ask Jesus

ask the moon

ask the shadows in the closet

ask the moth, the monk, the madman

ask the man who draws cartoons for

The New Yorker

ask a goldfish

ask a fern shaking to a tapdance

ask the map of India

ask a kind face

ask the man hiding under your bed

ask the man you hate the most in this

world

ask the man who drank with Dylan Thomas

ask the man who laced Jack Sharkey’s gloves

ask the sad-faced man drinking coffee

ask the plumber

ask the man who dreams of ostriches every

night

ask the ticket taker at a freak show

ask the counterfeiter

ask the man sleeping in an alley under

a sheet of paper

ask the conquerors of nations and planets

ask the man who has just cut off his finger

ask a bookmark in the bible

ask the water dripping from a faucet while

the phone rings

ask perjury

ask the deep blue paint

ask the parachute jumper

ask the man with the bellyache

ask the divine eye so sleek and swimming

ask the boy wearing tight pants in

the expensive academy

ask the man who slipped in the bathtub

ask the man chewed by the shark

ask the one who sold me the unmatched

gloves

ask these and all those I have left out

ask the fire the fire the fire—

ask even the liars

ask anybody you please at any time

you please on any day you please

whether it’s raining or whether

the snow is there or whether

you are stepping out onto a porch

yellow with warm heat

ask this ask that

ask the man with birdshit in his hair

ask the torturer of animals

ask the man who has seen many bullfights

in Spain

ask the owners of new Cadillacs

ask the famous

ask the timid

ask the albino

and the statesman

ask the landlords and the poolplayers

ask the phonies

ask the hired killers

ask the bald men and the fat men

and the tall men and the

short men

ask the one-eyed men, the

oversexed and undersexed men

ask the men who read all the newspaper

editorials

ask the men who breed roses

ask the men who feel almost no pain

ask the dying

ask the mowers of lawns and the attenders

of football games

ask any of these or all of these

ask ask ask and

they’ll all tell you:

a snarling wife on the balustrade is more

than a man can bear.

a future congressman

in the men’s room at the

track

this boy of about

7 or 8 years old

came out of a stall

and the man

waiting for him

(probably his father)

asked,

“what did you do with the

racing program?

I gave it to you

to keep.”

“no,” said the boy,

“I ain’t seen it! I don’t

have it!”

they walked off and

I went into the stall

because it was the only one

available

and there

in the toilet

was the

program.

I tried to flush

the program

away

but it just swam

sluggishly about

and

remained.

I got out of

there and found

another

empty stall.

that boy was ready

for his life to come,

he would undoubtedly

be highly successful,

the lying little

prick.

eulogy

with old cars, especially when you buy them secondhand

and drive them for many years

a love affair is inevitable:

you even learn to

accept their little

eccentricities:

the leaking water pump

the failing plugs

the rusted throttle arm

the reluctant carburetor

the oily engine

the dead clock

the frozen speedometer and

other sundry

defects.

you also learn all the tricks to

keep the love affair alive:

how to slam the glove compartment so that

it will stay closed,

how to slap the headlight with an open palm

in order to have

light,

how many times to pump the gas pedal

and how long to wait before

touching the starter,

and you overlook each burn hole in the

upholstery

and each spring

poking through the fabric.

your car has been in and out of

police impounds,

has been ticketed for various

malfunctions:

broken wipers,

no turn signals, missing

brake light, broken tail lights, bad

brakes, excessive

exhaust and so forth

but in spite of everything

you knew you were in good hands,

there was never an accident, the

old car moved you from one place to

another,

faithfully

—the poor man’s miracle.

so when that last breakdown did occur,

when the valves quit,

when the tired pistons

cracked, or the

crankshaft failed and

you sold it for

junk

—you then had to watch it carted

away

hanging there

from the back of the tow truck

wheeled off

as if it had no

soul,

the bald rear tires

the cracked back window and

the twisted license plate

were the last things you

saw, and it

hurt

as if some woman you loved very

much

and lived with

year after year

had died

and now you

would never

again know

her music

her magic

her unbelievable

fidelity.

the drowning

for five years I have been looking

across the way

at the side of a red apartment house.

there must be people in there

even love in there

whatever that means.

here blows a horn, there sounds a

piano, and yesterday’s newspapers are as

yellow as the grass.

five years.

a man can drown in five years,

while the red bricks

stand forever.

I hear sounds now like dancing in the

air

great bladders of blood are being loosed in

Mariposa Ave.

sweat drenches my temple like beads on a

cold beer can

as armies fight in my head.

I see a woman come out of the redbrick

apartment house.

she is fat and comfortable

the slow horse of her body moves

under a dress of pink carnations

playing tricks with my better sense

and now she is gone and

the bricks look back at me

the bricks with their

windows and the windows look at me

and a bird on a telephone wire looks

and I feel naked as I

try to forget all the good dead.

a band plays wildly

LOOKAWAY, LOOKAWAY,

DIXIELAND!

as they empty bladders of poison

and bags of oranges over Mariposa Ave.

and the cars run through them like poor snow

and my pink woman comes back and I

try to tell her

wait! wait!

don’t go back in there!

but she goes inside as

my bird flies away

and it is just

another hot evening in

Los Angeles:

some bricks, a mongoose or two, Chimera and

disbelief.

(uncollected)

fooling Marie (the poem)

he met her at the racetrack, a strawberry

blonde with round hips, well-bosomed, long legs,

turned-up nose, flower mouth, in a pink dress,

wearing white high-heeled shoes.

she began asking him questions about various

horses while looking up at him with her pale blue

eyes.

he suggested the bar and they had a drink, then

watched the next race together.

he hit fifty-win on a sixty-to-one shot and she

jumped up and down.

then she whispered in his ear,

“you’re the magic man! I want to fuck you!”

he grinned and said, “I’d like to, but

Marie…my wife…”

she laughed, “we’ll go to a motel!”

so they cashed the ticket, went to the parking lot,

got into her car. “I’ll drive you back when

we’re finished,” she smiled.

they found a motel about a mile

west. she parked, they got out, checked in, went to

room 302.

they had stopped for a bottle of Jack Daniel’s

on the way. he stood and took the glasses out of the

cellophane. as she undressed he poured two.

she had a marvelous young body. she sat on the edge of

the bed sipping at the Jack Daniel’s as he

undressed. he felt awkward, fat and old

but knew he was lucky: it promised to be his best day

ever.

then he too sat on the edge of the bed with her and

his Jack Daniel’s. she reached over

and grabbed him between the legs, bent over

and went down on him.

he pulled her under the covers and they played some more.

finally, he mounted her and it was great, it was a

miracle, but soon it ended, and when she

went to the bathroom he poured two more drinks

thinking, I’ll shower real good, Marie will never

know.

she came out and they sat in bed

making small talk.

“I’m going to shower now,” he told her,

“I’ll be out soon.”

“o.k., cutie,” she said.

he soaped good in the shower, washing away all the

perfume, the woman-smell.

“hurry up, daddy!” he heard her say.

“I won’t be long, baby!” he yelled from the

shower.

he got out, toweled off, then opened the bathroom

door and stepped out.

the motel room was empty.

she was gone.

on some impulse he ran to the closet, pulled the door

open: nothing there but coat hangers.

then he noticed that his clothes were gone, his underwear, his shirt, his pants with the car keys and his wallet,

all the money, his shoes, his stockings, everything.

on another impulse he looked under the bed.

nothing.

then he saw the bottle of Jack Daniel’s, half full,

standing on the dresser.

he walked over and poured a drink.

as he did he saw the word scrawled on the dresser

mirror in pink lipstick: SUCKER.

he drank the whiskey, put the glass down and watched himself

in the mirror, very fat, very tired, very old.

he had no idea what to do next.

he carried the whiskey, back to the bed, sat down,

lifted the bottle and sucked at it as the light from the

boulevard came in through the dusty blinds. then he just sat

and looked out and watched the cars, passing back and

forth.

the young man on the bus stop bench

he sits all day at the bus stop

at Sunset and Western

his sleeping bag beside him.

he’s dirty.

nobody bothers him.

people leave him alone.

the police leave him alone.

he could be the 2nd coming of Christ

but I doubt it.

the soles of his shoes are completely

gone.

he just laces the tops on

and sits and watches traffic.

I remember my own youthful days

(although I traveled lighter)

they were similar:

park benches

street corners

tarpaper shacks in Georgia for

$1.25 a week

not wanting the skid row church

hand-outs

too crazy to apply for relief

daytimes spent laying in public parks

bugs in the grass biting

looking into the sky

little insects whirling above my head

the breathing of white air

just breathing and waiting.

life becomes difficult:

being ignored

and ignoring.

everything turns into white air

the head fills with white air

and as invisible women sit in rooms

with successful bright-eyed young men

conversing brilliantly about everything

your sex drive

vanishes and it really

doesn’t matter.

you don’t want food

you don’t want shelter

you don’t want anything.

sometimes you die

sometimes you don’t.

as I drive past

the young man on the bus stop bench

I am comfortable in my automobile

I have money in two different banks

I own my own home

but he reminds me of my young self

and I want to help him

but I don’t know what to do.

today when I drove past again

he was gone

I suppose finally the world wasn’t

pleased with him being there.

the bench still sits there on the corner
advertising something.

for they had things to say

the canaries were there, and the lemon tree

and the old woman with warts;

and I was there, a child

and I touched the piano keys

as they talked—

but not too loudly

for they had things to say,

the three of them;

and I watched them cover the canaries at night

with flour sacks:

“so they can sleep, my dear.”

I played the piano quietly

one note at a time,

the canaries under their sacks,

and there were pepper trees,

pepper trees brushing the roof like rain

and hanging outside the windows

like green rain,

and they talked, the three of them

sitting in a warm night’s semicircle,

and the keys were black and white

and responded to my fingers

like the locked-in magic

of a waiting, grown-up world;

and now they’re gone, the three of them

and I am old:

pirate feet have trod

the clean-thatched floors

of my soul,

and the canaries sing no more.

silly damned thing anyhow

we tried to hide it in the house so that the

neighbors wouldn’t see.

it was difficult, sometimes we both had to

be gone at once and when we returned

there would be excreta and urine all

about.

it wouldn’t toilet train

but it had the bluest eyes you ever

saw

and it ate everything we did

and we often watched tv together.

one evening we came home and it was

gone.

there was blood on the floor,

there was a trail of blood.

I followed it outside and into the garden

and there in the brush it was,

mutilated.

there was a sign hung about its severed

throat:

“we don’t want things like this in our

neighborhood.”

I walked to the garage for the shovel.

I told my wife, “don’t come out here.”

then I walked back with the shovel and

began digging.

I sensed

the faces watching me from behind

drawn blinds.

they had their neighborhood back,

a nice quiet neighborhood with green

lawns, palm trees, circular driveways, children,

churches, a supermarket, etc.

I dug into the earth.

upon reading an interview with a
best-selling novelist in our metropolitan
daily newspaper

he talks like he writes

and he has a face like a dove, untouched by

externals.

a little shiver of horror runs through me as I read

about

his comfortable assured success.

“I am going to write an important novel next year,” he says.

next year?

I skip some paragraphs

but the interview goes on for two and one-half pages

more.

it’s like milk spilled on a tablecloth, it’s as soothing as

talcum powder, it’s the bones of an eaten fish, it’s a damp

stain on a faded necktie, it’s a gathering hum.

this man is very fortunate that he is not standing

in line at a soup kitchen.

this man has no concept of failure because he is

paid so well for it.

I am lying on the bed, reading.

I drop the paper to the floor.

then I hear a sound.

it is a small fly buzzing.

I watch it flying, circling the room in an irregular

pattern.

life at last.

harbor freeway south

the dead dogs of nowhere bark

as you approach another

traffic accident.

3 cars

one standing on its

grill

the other 2 laying

on their sides

wheels turning slowly.

3 of them

at rest:

strange angles

in the dark.

it has just

happened.

I can see the still

bodies

inside.

these cars

scattered like toys

against the freeway

center

divider.

like spacecraft

they have landed

there

as you

drive past.

there’s no

ambulance yet

no police

cars.

the rain began

15 minutes

ago.

things occur.

volcanoes are

1500 times more

powerful than

the first a

bomb.

the dead dogs of

nowhere

those dogs keep

barking.

those cars

there like that.

obscene.

a dirty trick.

it’s like

somebody dying

of a heart

attack

in a crowded

elevator

everybody

watching.

I finally

reach my street

pull into

the driveway.

park.

get out.

she meets me

halfway

to the door.

“I don’t know

what to do,”

she says, “the

stove

went out.”

schoolyards of forever

the schoolyard was a horror show: the bullies, the

freaks

the beatings up against the wire fence

our schoolmates watching

glad that they were not the victim;

we were beaten well and good

time after time

and afterwards were

followed

taunted all the way home where often

more beatings awaited us.

in the schoolyard the bullies ruled well,

and in the restrooms and

at the water fountains they

owned and disowned us at will

but in our own way we held strong

never begged for mercy

we took it straight on

silently

we were toughened by that horror

a horror that would later serve us in good stead

and then strangely

as we grew stronger and bolder

the bullies gradually began to back off.

grammar school

jr. high

high school

we grew up like odd neglected plants

gathering nourishment where we could

blossoming in time

and later when the bullies tried to befriend us

we turned them away.

then college

where under a new regime

the bullies melted almost entirely away

we became more and they became much less.

but there were new bullies now

the professors

who had to be taught the hard lessons we’d learned

we glowed madly

it was grand and easy

the coeds dismayed at our gamble

and our nerve

but we looked right through them

to the larger fight waiting out there.

then when we arrived out there

it was back up against the fence

new bullies once again

deeply entrenched by society

bosses and the like

who kept us in our place for de cades to come

so we had to begin all over again

in the street

and in small rooms of madness

rooms that were always dim at noon

it lasted and lasted for years like that

but our former training enabled us to endure

and after what seemed like

an eternity

we finally found the tunnel at the end of the light.

it was a small enough victory

no songs of braggadocio because

we knew we had won very little from very little,

and that we had fought so hard to be free

just for the simple sweetness of it.

but even now we still can see the grade school janitor

with his broom

and sleeping face;

we can still see the little girls with their curls

their hair so carefully brushed and shining

in their freshly starched dresses;

see the faces of the teachers

fat folded forlorn;

hear the bell at recess;

see the grass and the baseball diamond;

see the volleyball court and its white net;

feel the sun always up and shining there

spilling down on us like the juice of a giant tangerine.

and we did not soon forget

Herbie Ashcroft

our principal tormentor

his fists as hard as rocks

as we crouched trapped against the steel fence

as we heard the sounds of automobiles passing but not stopping

and as the world went about doing what it does

we asked for no mercy

and we returned the next day and the next and the next

to our classes

the little girls looking so calm and secure

as they sat upright in their seats

in that room of blackboards and chalk

while we hung on grimly to our stubborn disdain

for all the horror and all the strife

and waited for something better

to come along and comfort us

in that never-to-be-forgotten

grammar school world.

in the lobby

I saw him sitting in a lobby chair

in the Patrick Hotel

dreaming of flying fish

and he said “hello friend

you’re looking good.

me, I’m not so well,

they’ve plucked out my hair

taken my bowels

and the color in my eyes

has gone back into the sea.”

I sat down and listened

to him breathe

his last.

a bit later the clerk came over

with his green eyeshade on

and then the clerk saw what I knew

but neither of us knew

what the old man knew.

the clerk stood there

almost surprised,

taken,

wondering where the old man had gone.

he began to shake like an ape

who’d had a banana taken from his hand.

and then there was a crowd

and the crowd looked at the old man

as if he were a freak

as if there was something wrong with him.

I got up and walked out of the lobby

I went outside on the sidewalk

and I walked along with the rest of them

bellies, feet, hair, eyes

everything moving and going

getting ready to go back to the beginning

or light a cigar.

and then somebody stepped on

the back of my heel

and I was angry enough to swear.

sex

I am driving down Wilton Avenue

when this girl of about 15

dressed in tight blue jeans

that grip her behind like two hands

steps out in front of my car

I stop to let her cross the street

and as I watch her contours waving

she looks directly through my windshield

at me

with purple eyes

and then blows

out of her mouth

the largest pink globe of

bubble gum

I have ever seen

while I am listening to Beethoven

on the car radio.

she enters a small grocery store

and is gone

and I am left with

Ludwig.

a clean, well-lighted place

the old fart, he used his literary reputation

to reel them in one at a time,

each younger than the last.

he liked to meet them for luncheon and

wine

and he’d talk and listen to them

talk.

what ever wife or girlfriend he had at the moment

was made to

understand that this sort of thing made him

feel “young again.”

and when the luncheons became more

than luncheons

the young ladies vied to bed down with

this

literary

genius.

in between, he continued to write,

and late at night in his favorite bar

he liked to talk about writing and his amorous

adventures.

actually, he was just a drunk

who liked young ladies,

writing itself,

and talking about writing.

it wasn’t a bad life.

it was certainly more interesting than

what most men were

doing.

at one time he was probably the

most famous writer in the

world.

many tried to write like he did

drink like he did

act like he did

but he was the original.

then life began to

catch up with him.

he began to age quickly.

his large bulk began to wither.

he was growing old

before his time.

finally it got to where he couldn’t

write anymore,

“it just wouldn’t come”

and the psychiatrists couldn’t

do anything for him but only

made it worse.

then he took his own cure,

early one morning,

alone

just as his father had done

many years

before.

a writer who can’t write any

more is dead

anyhow.

he knew that.

he knew that what he was

killing was already

dead.

and then the critics

and the hangers-on

and the publicists

and his heirs

moved in

like vultures.

something for the touts, the nuns,
the grocery clerks and you…

we have everything and we have nothing

and some men do it in churches

and some men do it by tearing butterflies

in half

and some men do it in Palm Springs

laying it into butterblondes

with Cadillac souls

Cadillacs and butterflies

nothing and everything,

the face melting down to the last puff

in a cellar in Corpus Christi.

there’s something for the touts, the nuns,

the grocery clerks and you…

something at 8 a.m., something in the library

something in the river,

everything and nothing.

in the slaughter house it comes running along

the ceiling on a hook, and you swing it—

one

two

three

and then you’ve got it, $200 worth of dead

meat, its bones against your bones

something and nothing.

it’s always early enough to die and

it’s always too late,

and the drill of blood in the basin white

it tells you nothing at all

and the gravediggers playing poker over

5 a.m. coffee, waiting for the grass

to dismiss the frost…

they tell you nothing at all.

we have everything and we have nothing—

days with glass edges and the impossible stink

of river moss—worse than shit;

checkerboard days of moves and countermoves,

fagged interest, with as much sense in defeat as

in victory; slow days like mules

humping it slagged and sullen and sun-glazed

up a road where a madman sits waiting among

blue jays and wrens netted in and sucked a flakey

gray.

good days too of wine and shouting, fights

in alleys, fat legs of women striving around

your bowels buried in moans,

the signs in bullrings like diamonds hollering

Mother Capri, violets coming out of the ground

telling you to forget the dead armies and the loves

that robbed you.

days when children say funny and brilliant things

like savages trying to send you a message through

their bodies while their bodies are still

alive enough to transmit and feel and run up

and down without locks and paychecks and

ideals and possessions and beetle-like

opinions.

days when you can cry all day long in

a green room with the door locked, days

when you can laugh at the breadman

because his legs are too long, days

of looking at hedges…

and nothing, and nothing. the days of

the bosses, yellow men

with bad breath and big feet, men

who look like frogs, hyenas, men who walk

as if melody had never been invented, men

who think it is intelligent to hire and fire and

profit, men with expensive wives they possess

like 60 acres of ground to be drilled

or shown off or to be walled away from

the incompetent, men who’d kill you

because they’re crazy and justify it because

it’s the law, men who stand in front of

windows 30 feet wide and see nothing,

men with luxury yachts who can sail around

the world and yet never get out of their vest

pockets, men like snails, men like eels, men

like slugs, and not as good…

and nothing. getting your last paycheck

at a harbor, at a factory, at a hospital, at an

aircraft plant, at a penny arcade, at a

barbershop, at a job you didn’t want

anyway.

income tax, sickness, servility, broken

arms, broken heads—all the stuffing

come out like an old pillow.

we have everything and we have nothing.

some do it well enough for a while and

then give way. fame gets them or disgust

or age or lack of proper diet or ink

across the eyes or children in college

or new cars or broken backs while skiing

in Switzerland or new politics or new wives

or just natural change and decay—

the man you knew yesterday hooking

for ten rounds or drinking for three days and

three nights by the Sawtooth mountains now

just something under a sheet or a cross

or a stone or under an easy delusion,

or packing a bible or a golf bag or a

briefcase: how they go, how they go!—all

the ones you thought would never go.

days like this. like your day today.

maybe the rain on the window trying to

get through to you. what do you see today?

what is it? where are you? the best

days are sometimes the first, sometimes

the middle and even sometimes the last.

the vacant lots are not bad, churches in

Europe on postcards are not bad. people in

wax museums frozen into their best sterility

are not bad, horrible but not bad. the

cannon, think of the cannon. and toast for

breakfast the coffee hot enough you

know your tongue is still there. three

geraniums outside a window, trying to be

red and trying to be pink and trying to be

geraniums. no wonder sometimes the women

cry, no wonder the mules don’t want

to go up the hill. are you in a hotel room

in Detroit looking for a cigarette? one more

good day. a little bit of it. and as

the nurses come out of the building after

their shift, having had enough, eight nurses

with different names and different places

to go—walking across the lawn, some of them

want cocoa and a paper, some of them want a

hot bath, some of them want a man, some

of them are hardly thinking at all. enough

and not enough. arcs and pilgrims, oranges,

gutters, ferns, antibodies, boxes of

tissue paper.

in the most decent sometimes sun

there is the softsmoke feeling from urns

and the canned sound of old battleplanes

and if you go inside and run your finger

along the window ledge you’ll find

dirt, maybe even earth.

and if you look out the window

there will be the day, and as you

get older you’ll keep looking

keep looking

sucking your tongue in a little

ah ah no no maybe

some do it naturally

some obscenely

everywhere.

blue beads and bones

as the orchid dies

and the grass goes

insane, let’s have one for the lost:

I met an old man

and a tired whore

in a bar

at 8:00 in the morning

across from MacArthur Park—

we were sitting over our beers

he and I and the old whore

who had slept in an unlocked car

the night before

and wore a blue necklace.

the old guy said to me:

“look at my arms. I’m all bone.

no meat on me.”

and he pulled back his sleeves

and he was right—

bone with just a layer of skin

hanging like paper.

he said, “I don’t eat

nothin’.”

I bought him a beer and the

whore a beer.

now there, I thought, is a man

who doesn’t eat

meat, he doesn’t eat

vegetables. kind of a saint.

it was like a church in there

as only the truly lost

sit in bars on Tuesday mornings

at 8:00 a.m.

then the whore said, “Jesus,

if I don’t score to night I’m

finished. I’m scared, I’m really

scared. you guys can go to skid row

when things get bad. but where can a

woman go?”

we couldn’t answer her.

she picked up her beer with one hand

and played with her blue beads with the

other.

I finished my beer, went to the

corner and got a Racing Form from Teddy the

newsboy—age 61.

“you got a hot one today?”

“no, Teddy, I gotta see the board; money

makes them run.”

“I’ll give you 4 bucks. bet one for

me.”

I took his 4 bucks. that would buy a sandwich,

pay parking, plus 2

coffees. I got into my car, drove

off. too early for the

track. blue beads and bones. the

universe was

bent. a cop rode his bike right up

behind me. the day had really

begun.

like a cherry seed in the throat

naked in that bright

light

the four horse falls

and throws a 112-pound

boy into the hooves

of 35,000 eyes.

good night, sweet

little

motherfucker.

turnabout

she drives into the parking lot while

I am leaning up against the fender of my car.

she’s drunk and her eyes are wet with tears:

“you son of a bitch, you fucked me when you

didn’t want to. you told me to keep phoning

you, you told me to move closer into town,

then you told me to leave you alone.”

it’s all quite dramatic and I enjoy it.

“sure, well, what do you want?”

“I want to talk to you, I want to go to your

place and talk to you…”

“I’m with somebody now. she’s in getting a

sandwich.”

“I want to talk to you…it takes a while

to get over things. I need more time.”

“sure. wait until she comes out. we’re not

inhuman. we’ll all have a drink together.”

“shit,” she says, “oh shit!”

she jumps into her car and drives off.

the other one comes out: “who was that?”

“an ex-friend.”

now she’s gone and I’m sitting here drunk

and my eyes seem wet with tears.

it’s very quiet and I feel like I have a spear

rammed into the center of my gut.

I walk to the bathroom and puke.

mercy, I think, doesn’t the human race know anything

about mercy?

mystery leg

first of all, I had a hard time, a very hard time

locating the parking lot for the building.

it wasn’t off the main boulevard where

the cars all driven by merciless killers

were doing 55 mph in a 25 mph zone.

the man riding my bumper so

close I could see his snarling face

in my rearview mirror caused me

to miss the narrow alley that would have

allowed me to circle the west

end of the building in search of parking.

I went to the next street, took a right, then

took another right, spotted the building, a blue

heartless-looking structure, then took

another right and finally saw it, a tiny

sign: parking.

I drove in.

the guard had the wooden red and white

barrier down.

he stuck his head out a little window.

“yeah?” he asked.

he looked like a retired hit man.

“to see Dr. Manx,” I said.

he looked at me disdainfully, then said,

“go ahead!”

the red and white barrier lifted.

I drove in,

drove around and around.

I finally found a parking spot a good distance away,

a football field away.

I walked in.

I finally found the entrance and the elevator

and the floor

and then the office number.

I walked in.

the waiting room was full.

there was an old lady talking to the

receptionist.

“but can’t I see him now?”

“Mrs. Miller, you are here at the right time

but on the wrong day.

this is Wednesday, you’ll have to come

back Friday.”

“but I took a cab. I’m an old lady, I have almost

no money, can’t I see him now?”

“Mrs. Miller, I’m sorry but your appointment

is on Friday, you’ll have to come back

then.”

Mrs. Miller turned away: unwanted,

old and poor, she walked to the

door.

I stepped up smartly, informed them who I was.

I was told to sit down and wait.

I sat with the others.

then I noticed the magazine rack.

I walked over and looked at the magazines.

it was odd: they weren’t of recent

vintage: in fact, all of them were over a

year old.

I sat back down.

30 minutes passed.

45 minutes passed.

an hour passed.

the man next to me spoke:

“I’ve been waiting an hour and a half,” he

said.

“that’s hell,” I said, “they shouldn’t do that!”

he didn’t reply.

just then the receptionist called my

name.

I got up and told her that the other man had

been waiting an hour and a half.

she acted as if she hadn’t heard.

“please follow me,” she said.

I followed her down a dark hall, then she

opened a door, pointed. “in there,” she said.

I walked in and she closed the door behind me.

I sat down and looked at a map of

the human body hanging from the wall.

I could see the veins, the heart, the

intestines, all that.

it was cold in there and dark, darker

than in the hall.

I waited maybe 15 minutes before the door

opened.

it was Dr. Manx.

he was followed by a tired-looking young lady

in a white gown; she held a clipboard;

she looked depressed.

“well, now,” said Dr. Manx, “what is it?”

“it’s my leg,” I said.

I saw the lady writing on the clipboard.

she wrote LEG.

“what is it about the leg?” asked the Dr.

“it hurts,” I said.

PAIN wrote the lady.

then she saw me looking at the clipboard and

turned away.

“did you fill out the form they gave you at

the desk?” the Dr. asked.

“they didn’t give me a form,” I said.

“Florence,” he said, “give him a form.”

Florence pulled a form out from her

clipboard, handed it to me.

“fill that out,” said Dr. Manx, “we’ll be right

back.”

then they were gone and I worked at the

form.

it was the usual: name, address, phone,

employer, relatives, etc.

there was also a long list of questions.

I marked them all “no.”

then I sat there.

20 minutes passed.

then they were back.

the doctor began twisting my leg.

“it’s the right leg,” I said.

“oh,” he said.

Florence wrote something on her

clipboard.

probably RIGHT LEG.

he switched to the right leg.

“does that hurt?”

“a little.”

“not real bad?”

“no.”

“does this hurt?”

“a little.”

“not real bad?”

“well, the whole leg hurts but when

you do that, it hurts more.”

“but not real bad?”

“what’s real bad?”

“like you can’t stand on it.”

“I can stand on it.”

“hmmm…stand up!”

“all right.”

“now, rock on your toes, back and

forth, back and forth.”

I did.

“hurt real bad?” he asked.

“just medium.”

“you know what?” Dr. Manx asked.

“no.”

“we’ve got a Mystery Leg here!”

Florence wrote something on the

clipboard.

“I have?”

“yes, I don’t know yet what’s wrong with

it.

I want you to come back in 30 days.”

“30 days?”

“yes, and stop at the desk on your

way out, see the girl.”

then they walked out.

at the checkout desk there was a long

row of bottles waiting, white bottles with

bright orange labels.

the girl at the desk looked at me.

“take 4 of those bottles.”

I did.

she didn’t offer me a bag so I stuck

them in my pockets.

“that’ll be $143,” she said.

“$143?” I asked.

“it’s for the pills,” she said.

I pulled out my credit card.

“oh, we don’t take credit cards,” she told

me.

“but I don’t have that much money on

me.”

“how much do you have?”

I looked in my wallet.

“23 dollars.”

“we’ll take that and bill you for the

rest.”

I handed her the money.

“see you in 30 days,” she smiled.

I walked out and into the waiting room.

the man who had been waiting an hour and

a half was still there.

I walked out into the hall, found the

elevator.

then I was on the first floor and out

into the parking lot.

my car was still a football field

away

and my right leg began to hurt like hell,

after all that twisting Dr.

Manx had done to it.

I moved slowly to my car, got in.

it started and soon I was out on the

boulevard again.

the 4 bottles of pills bulged painfully in my

pockets as I drove along.

now I only had one problem left, I had

to tell my wife

I had a Mystery Leg.

I could hear her already:

“what? you mean he couldn’t tell

you what was wrong with your

leg?

what do you mean, he didn’t

know?

and what are those PILLS?

here, let me see those!”

as I drove along, I switched on the

radio in search of some soothing

music.

there wasn’t any.

the girl outside the supermarket

a very tall girl lifts her nose at me

outside a supermarket

as if I were a walking garbage

can; and I had no desire for her,

no more desire

than for a

phone pole.

what was her message?

that I would never see the top of her

pantyhose?

I am a man in his 50s

sex is no longer an aching mystery

to me, so I can’t understand

being snubbed by a

phone pole.

I’ll leave young girls to young

men.

it’s a lonely world

of frightened people,

just as it has always

been.

(uncollected)

it is not much

I suppose like others

I have come through fire and sword,

love gone wrong,

head-on crashes, drunk at sea,

and I have listened to the simple sound of water running

in tubs

and wished to drown

but simply couldn’t bear the others

carrying my body down three flights of stairs

to the round mouths of curious biddies;

the psyche has been burned

and left us senseless,

the world has been darker than lights out

in a closet full of hungry bats,

and the whiskey and wine entered our veins

when blood was too weak to carry on;

and it will happen to others,

and our few good times will be rare

because we have a critical sense

and are not easy to fool with laughter;

small gnats crawl our screen

but we see through

to a wasted landscape

and let them have their moment;

we only asked for leopards to guard

our thinning dreams.

I once lay in a

white hospital

for the dying and the dying

self, where some god pissed a rain of

reason to make things grow

only to die, where on my knees

I prayed for LIGHT,

I prayed for 1*i*g*h*t,

and praying

crawled like a blind slug into the

web

where threads of wind stuck against my mind

and I died of pity

for Man, for myself,

on a cross without nails,

watching in fear as

the pig belches in his sty, farts,

blinks and eats.

2 Outside, As Bones Break
in My Kitchen

they get up on their garage roof

both of them 80 or 90 years old

standing on the slant

she wanting to fall really

all the way

but hacking at the old roofing

with a hoe

and he

more coward

on his knees praying for more days

gluing chunks of tar

his ear listening

for more green rain

more green rain

and he says

mama be careful

and she says nothing

and hacks a hole

where a tulip

never grew.

The Japanese Wife

O lord, he said, Japanese women,

real women, they have not forgotten,

bowing and smiling

closing the wounds men have made;

but American women will kill you like they

tear a lampshade,

American women care less than a dime,

they’ve gotten derailed,

they’re too nervous to make good:

always scowling, belly-aching,

disillusioned, overwrought;

but oh lord, say, the Japanese women:

there was this one,

I came home and the door was locked

and when I broke in she broke out the bread knife

and chased me under the bed

and her sister came

and they kept me under that bed for two days,

and when I came out, at last,

she didn’t mention attorneys,

just said, you will never wrong me again,

and I didn’t; but she died on me,

and dying, said, you can wrong me now,

and I did,

but you know, I felt worse then

than when she was living;

there was no voice, no knife,

nothing but little Japanese prints on the wall,

all those tiny people sitting by red rivers

with flying green birds,

and I took them down and put them face down

in a drawer with my shirts,

and it was the first time I realized

that she was dead, even though I buried her;

and some day I’ll take them all out again,

all the tan-faced little people

sitting happily by their bridges and huts

and mountains—

but not right now,

not just yet.

the harder you try

the waste of words

continues with a stunning

persistence

as the waiter runs by carrying the loaded

tray

for all the wise white boys who laugh at

us.

no matter. no matter,

as long as your shoes are tied and

nobody is walking too close

behind.

just being able to scratch yourself and

be nonchalant is victory

enough.

those constipated minds that seek

larger meaning

will be dispatched with the other

garbage.

back off.

if there is light

it will find

you.

the lady in red

people went into vacant lots and pulled up greens to cook and the men rolled Bull Durham or smoked Wings (10¢ a pack) and the dogs were thin and the cats were thin and the cats learned how to catch mice and rats and the dogs caught and killed the cats (some of the cats), and gophers tore up the earth and people killed them by attaching garden hoses to the exhaust pipes of their cars and sticking the hoses into the gopher holes and when the gophers came out the cats and the dogs and the people were afraid of them, they circled and showed their long thin teeth, then they stopped and shivered and as they did the cats rushed in followed by the dogs. people raised chickens in their back yards and the roosters were weak and the hens were thin and the people ate them if they didn’t lay eggs fast enough, and the best time of all was when John Dillinger escaped from jail, and one of the saddest times of all was when the Lady in Red fingered him and he was gunned down coming out of that movie.

Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, Machine Gun Kelly, Ma Barker, Alvin Karpis, we loved them all. and there were always wars starting in China and they never lasted long but the newspapers had big black headlines: WAR IN CHINA! the ’30s were a time when people had very little and there was nothing to hide behind, and that Bull Durham tag dangling from the string coming out of your pocket—that showed you had it, you could roll with one hand—plenty of time to practice and if somebody looked at you wrong or said something you didn’t like you cracked him one right in the mouth. it was a glorious non-bullshit time, especially after we got rid of Herbert Hoover.

the shower

we like to shower afterwards

(I like the water hotter than she)

and her face is always soft and peaceful

and she’ll wash me first

spread the soap over my balls

lift the balls

squeeze them,

then wash the cock:

“hey, this thing is still hard!”

then get all the hair down there,—

the belly, the back, the neck, the legs,

I grin grin grin,

and then I wash her…

first the cunt, I

stand behind her, my cock in the cheeks of her ass

I gently soap up the cunt hairs,

wash there with a soothing motion,

I linger perhaps longer than necessary,

then I get the backs of the legs, the ass,

the back, the neck, I turn her, kiss her,

soap up the breasts, get them and the belly, the neck,

the fronts of the legs, the ankles, the feet,

and then the cunt, once more, for luck…

another kiss, and she gets out first,

toweling, sometimes singing while I stay in

turn the water on hotter

feeling the good times of love’s miracle

I then get out…

it is usually mid-afternoon and quiet,

and getting dressed we talk about what else

there might be to do,

but being together solves most of it,

in fact, solves all of it

for as long as those things stay solved

in the history of woman and

man, it’s different for each

better and worse for each—

for me, it’s splendid enough to remember

past the marching of armies

and the horses that walk the streets outside

past the memories of pain and defeat and unhappiness:

Linda, you brought it to me,

when you take it away

do it slowly and easily

make it as if I were dying in my sleep instead of in

my life, amen.

i was glad

I was glad I had money in the Savings and Loan

Friday afternoon hungover

I didn’t have a job

I was glad I had money in the Savings and Loan

I didn’t know how to play a guitar

Friday afternoon hungover

Friday afternoon hungover

across the street from Norm’s

across the street from The Red Fez

I was glad I had money in the Savings and Loan

split with my girlfriend and blue and demented

I was glad to have my passbook and stand in line

I watched the buses run up Vermont

I was too crazy to get a job as a driver of buses

and I didn’t even look at the young girls

I got dizzy standing in line but I

just kept thinking I have money in this building

Friday afternoon hungover

I didn’t know how to play the piano

or even hustle a damnfool job in a carwash

I was glad I had money in the Savings and Loan

finally I was at the window

it was my Japanese girl

she smiled at me as if I were some amazing god

back again, eh? she said and laughed

as I showed her my withdrawal slip and my passbook

as the buses ran up and down Vermont

the camels trotted across the Sahara

she gave me the money and I took the money

Friday afternoon hungover

I walked into the market and got a cart

and I threw sausages and eggs and bacon and bread in there

I threw beer and salami and relish and pickles and mustard in there

I looked at the young house wives wiggling casually

I threw t-bone steaks and porter house and cube steaks in my cart

and tomatoes and cucumbers and oranges in my cart

Friday afternoon hungover

split with my girlfriend and blue and demented

I was glad I had money in the Savings and Loan.

the angel who pushed his wheelchair

long ago he edited a little magazine

it was up in San Francisco

during the beat era

during the reading-poetry-with-jazz experiments

and I remember him because he never returned my manuscripts

even though I wrote him many letters,

humble letters, sane letters, and, at last, violent letters;

I’m told he jumped off a roof

because a woman wouldn’t love him.

no matter. when I saw him again

he was in a wheelchair and carried a wine bottle to piss in;

he wrote very delicate poetry

that I, naturally, couldn’t understand;

he autographed his book for me

(which he said I wouldn’t like)

and once at a party I threatened to punch him and

I was drunk and he wept and

I took pity and instead hit the next poet who walked by

on the head with his piss bottle; so,

we had an understanding after all.

he had this very thin and intense woman

pushing him about, she was his arms and legs and

maybe for a while

his heart.

it was almost commonplace

at poetry readings where he was scheduled to read

to see her swiftly rolling him in,

sometimes stopping by me, saying,

“I don’t see how we are going to get him up on the stage!”

sometimes she did. often she did.

then she began writing poetry, I didn’t see much of it,

but, somehow, I was glad for her.

then she injured her neck while doing her yoga

and she went on disability, and again I was glad for her,

all the poets wanted to get disability insurance

it was better than immortality.

I met her in the market one day

in the bread section, and she held my hands and

trembled all over

and I wondered if they ever had sex

those two. well, they had the muse anyhow

and she told me she was writing poetry and articles

but really more poetry, she was really writing a lot,

and that’s the last I saw of her

until one night somebody told me she’d o.d.’d

and I said, no, not her

and they said, yes, her.

it was a day or so later

sometime in the afternoon

I had to go to the Los Feliz post office

to mail some dirty stories to a sex mag.

coming back

outside a church

I saw these smiling creatures

so many of them smiling

the men with beards and long hair and wearing

blue jeans

and most of the women blonde

with sunken cheeks and tiny grins,

and I thought, ah, a wedding,

a nice old-fashioned wedding,

and then I saw him on the sidewalk

in his wheelchair

tragic yet somehow calm

looking grayer, a profile like a tamed hawk,

and I knew it was her funeral,

she had really o.d.’d

and he did look tragic out there.

I do have feelings, you know.

maybe to night I’ll try to read his book.

a time to remember

at North Avenue 21 drunk tank you slept on the floor and at night

there was always some guy who would step on your face on his

way to the crapper

and then you would curse him good, set him straight, so that

he would know enough to either be more careful or to

just lay there and hold it.

there was a large hill in back dense with foliage

you could see it through the barred window

and a few of the guys after being released would not go back to

skid row, they’d just walk up into that green hill where

they lived like animals.

part of it was a campground and some lived out of the

trash cans while others trekked back to skid row for meals but then

returned

and they all sold their blood each week for

wine.

there must have been 18 or 20 of them up there and

they were more or less just as happy as corporate lawyers

stockbrokers or airline

pi lots.

civilization is divided into parts, like an orange, and when you

peel the skin off, pull the sections apart, chew it, the

final result is a mouthful of pale pulp which you can either

swallow or spit

out.

some just swallow it

like the guys down at North Avenue

21.

the wrong way

luxury ocean liners

crossing the water

full of the indolent

and rich

passing from this place to that

with their hearts gone

and their guts empty

like Xmas turkeys

the great blue sky above

wasted

all that water

wasted

all those

fingers, heads, toes, buttocks,

eyes, ears, legs, feet

asleep in

their American Express Card

staterooms.

it’s like a floating tomb

going nowhere.

these are the floating dead.

yet the dead are not ugly

but the near-dead surely

are

most

surely are.

when do they laugh?

what do they think about

love?

what are they

doing

midst all that water?

and where do they seek

to go?

no wonder

Tony phoned and told me that

Jan had left him but that he was all right;

it helped him he said to think about other great men

like D. H. Lawrence

pissed off with life in general but still

milking his cow;

or to think about

T. Dreiser with his masses of copious

notes

painfully constructing his novels which then made

the very walls applaud;

or I think about van Gogh, Tony continued, a madman

who continued to make great paintings as the

village children threw rocks at his

window;

or, there was Harry Crosby and his mistress

in that fancy hotel room, dying together, swallowed by

the Black Sun;

or, take Tchaikovsky, that homo, marrying a

female opera singer and then standing in a freezing

river hoping to catch pneumonia while she went mad;

or Dos Passos, after all those left-wing books,

putting on a suit and a necktie and voting Republican;

or that homo Lorca, shot dead in the road, supposedly

for his politics but really because the mayor of that

town thought his wife had the hots for the poet;

or that other homo Crane, jumping over the rail of the boat

and into the propellor because while drunk he had

promised to marry some woman;

or Dostoyevsky crucified on the roulette wheel with

Christ on his mind;

or Hemingway, getting his ass kicked by Callaghan

(but Hem was correct in maintaining that F.

Scott couldn’t write);

or sometimes, Tony continued, I remember that guy

with syphilis who went mad and just kept rowing in

circles on some lake—a Frenchman—anyhow, he

wrote great short stories…

listen, I asked, you gonna be all

right?

sure, sure, he answered, just thought I’d phone, good

night.

and he hung up

and I hung up, thinking Jesus

Christ no wonder Jan left

him.

a threat to my immortality

she undressed in front of me

keeping her pussy to the front

while I lay in bed with a bottle of

beer.

where’d you get that wart on

your ass? I asked.

that’s no wart, she said,

that’s a mole, a kind of

birthmark.

that thing scares me, I said,

let’s call

it off.

I got out of bed and

walked into the other room and

sat on the rocker

and rocked.

she walked out. now, listen, you

old fart. you’ve got warts and scars and

all kinds of things all over

you. I do believe you’re the ugliest

old man

I’ve ever seen.

forget that, I said, tell me some more

about that

mole on your butt.

she walked into the other room

and got dressed and then ran past me

slammed the door

and was

gone.

and to think,

she’d read all my books of

poetry too.

I just hoped she wouldn’t tell

anybody that

I wasn’t pretty.

my telephone

the telephone has not been kind of late,

of late there have been more and more calls

from people who want to come over and talk

from people who are depressed

from people who are lonely

from people who just don’t know what to do

with their time;

I’m no snob, I try to help, try to suggest something that

might be of assistance

but there have been more calls

more and more calls

and what the callers don’t realize is that

I too have

problems

and even when I don’t

it’s

necessary for me

sometimes

just to be alone and quiet and

doing nothing.

so the other day

after many days of listening to depressed and lonely people

wanting me to assuage their grief,

I was lying there

enjoying looking at the ceiling

when the phone rang

and I picked it up and said,

“listen, what ever your problem is or what ever it is you want,

I can’t help you.”

after a moment of silence

whoever it was hung up

and I felt like a man who had escaped.

I napped then, perhaps an hour, when the phone rang

again and I picked it up:

“what ever your problem is

I can’t help you!”

“is this Mr. Chinaski?”

“yes.”

“this is Helen at your dentist’s

office to remind you

that you have an appointment at

3:30 tomorrow

afternoon.”

I told her I’d be

there for her.

Carson McCullers

she died of alcoholism

wrapped in a blanket

on a deck chair

on an ocean

steamer.

all her books of

terrified loneliness

all her books about

the cruelty

of loveless love

were all that was left

of her

as the strolling vacationer

discovered her body

notified the captain

and she was quickly dispatched

to somewhere else

on the ship

as everything

continued just

as

she had written it.

Mongolian coasts shining in light

Mongolian coasts shining in light,

I listen to the pulse of the sun,

the tiger is the same to all of us

and high oh

so high on the branch

our oriole

sings.

putrefaction

of late

I’ve had this thought

that this country

has gone backwards

4 or 5 de cades

and that all the

social advancement

the good feeling of

person toward

person

has been washed

away

and replaced by the same

old

bigotries.

we have

more than ever

the selfish wants of power

the disregard for the

weak

the old

the impoverished

the

helpless.

we are replacing want with

war

salvation with

slavery.

we have wasted the

gains

we have become

rapidly

less.

we have our Bomb

it is our fear

our damnation

and our

shame.

now

something so sad

has hold of us

that

the breath

leaves

and we can’t even

cry.

where was Jane?

one of the first actors to play Tarzan was living at the

Motion Picture Home.

he’d been there for years waiting to die.

he spent much of his time

running in and out of the wards

into the cafeteria and out into the yard where he’d yell,

“ME TARZAN!”

he never spoke to anyone or said anything else, it was always just

“ME TARZAN!”

everybody liked him: the old actors, the retired directors,

the ancient script writers, the aged cameramen, the prop men, stunt men, the old

actresses, all of whom were also there

waiting to die; they enjoyed his verve,

his antics, he was harmless and he took them back to the time when they

were still in the business.

then the doctors in authority decided that Tarzan was possibly dangerous

and one day he was shipped off to a mental institution.

he vanished as suddenly as if he’d been eaten by a

lion.

and the other patients were outraged, they instituted legal proceedings

to have him returned at once but

it took some months.

when Tarzan returned he was changed.

he would not leave his room.

he just sat by the window as if he had

forgotten

his old role

and the other patients missed

his antics, his verve, and

they too felt somehow defeated and

diminished.

they complained about the change in Tarzan

doped and drugged in his room

and they knew he would soon die like that

and then he did

and then he was back in that other jungle

(to where we will all someday retire)

unleashing the joyful primal call they could no longer

hear.

there were some small notices in the

newspapers

and the paint continued to chip from the hospital

walls,

many plants died, there was an unfortunate

suicide,

a growing lack of trust and

hope, and

a pervasive sadness:

it wasn’t so much Tarzan’s death the others mourned,

it was the cold, willful attitude of the

young and powerful doctors

despite the wishes of the

helpless old.

and finally they knew the truth

while sitting in their rooms

that it wasn’t only the attitude of the doctors

they had to fear,

and that as silly as all those Tarzan films had been,

and as much as they would miss their own lost

Tarzan,

that all that was much kinder than the final vigil

they would now have to sit and patiently endure

alone.

something about a woman

ah, Merryman,

a fighter on the docks,

killed a man while they were unloading

bananas.

I mean the man he killed

clubbed him first

from behind

with an anchor chain

(something about a woman)

and we all circled around

while

Merryman

did him in

under a hard-on sun,

finally strangling him to death

throwing him into the

ocean.

Merryman leaped to the dock

and walked

away, nobody tried to stop

him.

then we went back to work and

unloaded the rest of the bananas.

nothing was ever said about the murder

between any of us

and I never saw anything about it

in the papers.

although I saw some of the bananas

later in the

markets:

2 lbs. for a quarter

they seemed a

bargain.

(uncollected)

Sunday lunch at the Holy Mission

he got knifed in broad daylight, came up the street

holding his hands over his gut, dripping red

on the pavement.

nobody waiting in line left their place to help him.

he made it to the Mission doorway, collapsed in the

lobby where the desk clerk screamed, “hey, you

son-of-a-bitch, what are you doing?”

then he called an ambulance but the man was dead

when they got there.

the police came and circled the spots of blood

on the pavement

with white chalk

photographed everything

then asked the men waiting for their Sunday meal

if they had seen anything

if they knew anything.

they all said “no” to both.

while the police strutted in their uniforms

the others finally loaded the body into an ambulance.

afterwards the homeless men rolled cigarettes

as they waited for their meal

talking about the action

blowing farts and smoke

enjoying the sun

feeling quite like

celebrities.

trashcan lives

the wind blows hard to night

and it’s a cold wind

and I think about

the boys on the row.

I hope some of them have a bottle

of red.

it’s when you’re on the row

that you notice that

everything

is owned

and that there are locks on

everything.

this is the way a democracy

works:

you get what you can,

try to keep that

and add to it

if possible.

this is the way a dictatorship

works too

only they either enslave or

destroy their

derelicts.

we just forget

ours.

in either case

it’s a hard

cold

wind.

school days

I’m in bed.

it’s morning

and I hear:

where are your socks?

please get dressed!

why does it take you so long to

get dressed?

where’s the brush?

all right, I’ll give you a head

band!

what time is it?

where’s the clock?

where did you put the clock?

aren’t you dressed yet?

where’s the brush?

where’s your sandwich?

did you make a sandwich?

I’ll make your sandwich.

honey and peanut butter.

and an orange.

there.

where’s the brush?

I’ll use a comb.

all right, holler. you lost the brush!

where did you lose the brush?

all right. now isn’t that better?

where’s your coat?

go find your coat.

your coat has to be around somewhere!

listen, what are you doing?

what are you playing with?

now you’ve spilled it all!

I hear them open the door

go down the stairway,

get into the car.

I hear them drive away. they are gone, down the hill

on the way to

nursery school.

grass

at the window

I watch a man with a

power mower

the sounds of his doing race like

flies and bees

on the wallpaper,

it is like a warm fire, and

better than eating steak,

and the grass is green enough

and the sun is sun enough

and what’s left of my life

stands there

checking glints of green flying;

it is a giant disrobing of

care, stumbling away from

doing.

suddenly I understand

old men in rockers

bats in Colorado caves

tiny lice crawling into

the eyes of dead birds.

back and forth

he follows his gasoline

sound. it is

interesting enough,

with

the streets

flat on their Spring backs

and smiling.

crucifix in a deathhand

yes, they begin out in a willow, I think

the starch mountains begin out in the willow

and keep right on going without regard for

pumas and nectarines

somehow these mountains are like

an old woman with a bad memory and

a shopping basket.

we are in a basin. that is the

idea. down in the sand and the alleys,

this land punched-in, cuffed-out, divided,

held like a crucifix in a deathhand,

this land bought, resold, bought again and

sold again, the wars long over,

the Spaniards all the way back in Spain

down in the thimble again, and now

real estaters, subdividers, landlords, freeway

engineers arguing. this is their land and

I walk on it, live on it a little while

near Hollywood here I see young men in rooms

listening to glazed recordings

and I think too of old men sick of music

sick of everything, and death like suicide

I think is sometimes voluntary, and to get your

hold on the land here it is best to return to the

Grand Central Market, see the old Mexican women,

the poor…I am sure you have seen these same women

many years before

arguing

with the same young Japanese clerks

witty, knowledgeable and golden

among their soaring store of oranges, apples

avocados, tomatoes, cucumbers—

and you know how these look, they do look good

as if you could eat them all

light a cigar and smoke away the bad world.

then it’s best to go back to the bars, the same bars

wooden, stale, merciless, green

with the young policeman walking through

scared and looking for trouble,

and the beer is still bad

it has an edge that already mixes with vomit and

decay, and you’ve got to be strong in the shadows

to ignore it, to ignore the poor and to ignore yourself

and the shopping bag between your legs

down there feeling good with its avocados and

oranges and fresh fish and wine bottles, who needs

a Fort Lauderdale winter?

25 years ago there used to be a whore there

with a film over one eye, who was too fat

and made little silver bells out of cigarette

tinfoil. the sun seemed warmer then

although this was probably not

true, and you take your shopping bag

outside and walk along the street

and the green beer hangs there

just above your stomach like

a short and shameful shawl, and

you look around and no longer

see any

old men.

the screw-game

one of the terrible things is

really

being in bed

night after night

with a woman you no longer

want to screw.

they get old, they don’t look very good

anymore—they even tend to

snore, lose

spirit.

so, in bed, you turn sometimes,

your foot touches hers—

god, awful!—

and the night is out there

beyond the curtains

sealing you together

in the

tomb.

and in the morning you go to the

bathroom, pass in the hall, talk,

say odd things; eggs fry, motors

start.

but sitting across

you have 2 strangers

jamming toast into mouths

burning the sullen head and gut with

coffee.

in 10 million places in America

it is the same—

stale lives propped against each

other

and no place to

go.

you get in the car

and you drive to work

and there are more strangers there, most of them

wives and husbands of somebody

else, and besides the guillotine of work, they

flirt and joke and pinch, sometimes tend to

work off a quick screw somewhere—

they can’t do it at home—

and then

the drive back home

waiting for Christmas or Labor Day or

Sunday or

something.

millionaires

you

no faces

no faces

at all

laughing at nothing—

let me tell you

I have drunk in skid row rooms with

imbecile winos

whose cause was better

whose eyes still held some light

whose voices retained some sensibility,

and when the morning came

we were sick but not ill,

poor but not deluded,

and we stretched in our beds and rose

in the late afternoons

like millionaires.

when you wait for the dawn to crawl through the
screen like a burglar to take your life away

screen like a burglar to take your life away

the snake had crawled the hole,

and she said,

tell me about

yourself.

and

I said,

I was beaten down

long ago

in some alley

in another

world.

and she said,

we’re all

like pigs

slapped down some lane,

our

grassbrains

singing

toward the

blade.

by

god,

you’re an

odd one,

I said.

we

sat there

smoking

cigarettes

at

5

in the morning.

the talkers

the boy walks with his muddy feet across my

soul

talking about recitals, virtuosi, conductors,

the lesser known novels of Dostoyevsky;

talking about how he corrected a waitress,

a hasher who didn’t know that French dressing

was composed of so and so;

he gabbles about the Arts until

I hate the Arts,

and there is nothing cleaner

than getting back to a bar or

back to the track and watching them run,

watching things go without this

clamor and chatter,

talk, talk, talk,

the small mouth going, the eyes blinking,

a boy, a child, sick with the Arts,

grabbing at it like the skirt of a mother,

and I wonder how many tens of thousands

there are like him across the land

on rainy nights

on sunny mornings

on evenings meant for peace

in concert halls

in cafes

at poetry recitals

talking, soiling, arguing.

it’s like a pig going to bed

with a good woman

and you don’t want

the woman any more.

art

as the

spirit

wanes

the

form

appears.

advice for some young man in the year 2064 A.D.

let me speak as a friend

although the centuries hang

between us and neither you nor I

can see the moon.

be careful less the onion blind the eye

or the snake sting

or the beetle possess the house

or the lover your wife

or the government your child

or the wine your will

or the doctor your heart

or the butcher your belly

or the cat your chair

or the lawyer your ignorance of the law

or the law dressed as a uniformed man and killing you.

dismiss perfection as an ache of the

greedy

but do not give in to the mass modesty of

easy imperfection.

and remember

the belly of the whale is laden with

great men.

(uncollected)

ice for the eagles

I keep remembering the horses

under the moon

I keep remembering feeding the horses

sugar

white oblongs of sugar

more like ice,

and they had heads like

eagles

bald heads that could bite and

did not.

The horses were more real than

my father

more real than God

and they could have stepped on my

feet but they didn’t

they could have done all kinds of horrors

but they didn’t.

I was almost 5

but I have not forgotten yet;

o my god they were strong and good

those red tongues slobbering

out of their souls.

girl in a mini skirt reading the Bible
outside my window

outside my window

Sunday. I am eating a

grapefruit. church is over at the Russian

Orthodox to the

west.

she is dark

of Eastern descent,

large brown eyes look up from the Bible

then down. a small red and black

Bible, and as she reads

her legs keep moving, moving,

she is doing a slow rhythmic dance

reading the Bible…

long gold earrings;

2 gold bracelets on each arm,

and it’s a mini-suit, I suppose,

the cloth hugs her body,

the lightest of tans is that cloth,

she twists this way and that,

long young legs warm in the sun…

there is no escaping her being

there is no desire to…

my radio is playing symphonic music

that she cannot hear

but her movements coincide exactly

to the rhythms of the

symphony…

she is dark, she is dark

she is reading about God.

I am God.

hell is a lonely place

he was 65, his wife was 66, had

Alzheimer’s disease.

he had cancer of the

mouth.

there were

operations, radiation

treatments

which decayed the bones in his

jaw

which then had to be

wired.

daily he put his wife in

rubber diapers

like a

baby.

unable to drive in his

condition

he had to take a taxi to

the medical

center,

had difficulty speaking,

had to

write the directions

down.

on his last visit

they informed him

there would be another

operation: a bit more

left

cheek and a bit more

tongue.

when he returned

he changed his wife’s

diapers

put on the tv

dinners, watched the

evening news

then went to the

bedroom, got the

gun, put it to her

temple, fired.

she fell to the

left, he sat upon the

couch

put the gun into his

mouth, pulled the

trigger.

the shots didn’t arouse

the neighbors.

later

the burning tv dinners

did.

somebody arrived, pushed

the door open, saw

it.

soon

the police arrived and

went through their

routine, found

some items:

a closed savings

account and

a checkbook with a

balance of

$1.14

suicide, they

deduced.

in three weeks

there were two

new tenants:

a computer engineer

named

Ross

and his wife

Anatana

who studied

ballet.

they looked like another

upwardly mobile

pair.

the girls and the birds

the girls were young

and worked the

streets

but often couldn’t

score, they

ended up

in my hotel

room

3 or 4 of

them

sucking at the

wine,

hair in face,

runs in

stockings,

cursing, telling

stories…

somehow

those were

peaceful

nights

but really

they reminded me

of long

ago

when I was a

boy

watching my grandmother’s

canaries make

droppings

into their

seed

and into their

water

and the

canaries were

beautiful

and

chattered

but

never

sang.

1813–1883

listening to Wagner

as outside in the dark the wind blows a cold rain the

trees wave and shake lights go

off and on the walls creak and the cats run under the

bed…

Wagner battles the agonies, he’s emotional but

solid, he’s the supreme fighter, a giant in a world of

pygmies, he takes it straight on through, he breaks

barriers

an

astonishing FORCE of sound as

everything here shakes

shivers

bends

blasts

in fierce gamble

yes, Wagner and the storm intermix with the wine as

nights like this run up my wrists and up into my head and

back down into the

gut

some men never

die

and some men never

live

but we’re all alive

to night.

no leaders, please

invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,

don’t swim in the same slough.

invent yourself and then reinvent yourself

and

stay out of the clutches of mediocrity.

invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,

change your tone and shape so often that they can

never

categorize you.

reinvigorate yourself and

accept what is

but only on the terms that you have invented

and reinvented.

be self-taught.

and reinvent your life because you must;

it is your life and

its history

and the present

belong only to

you.

song

Julio came by with his guitar and sang his

latest song.

Julio was famous, he wrote songs and also

published books of little drawings and

poems.

they were very

good.

Julio sang a song about his latest love

affair.

he sang that

it began so well

then it went to

hell.

those were not the words exactly

but that was the meaning of the

words.

Julio finished

singing.

then he said, “I still care for

her, I can’t get her off my

mind.”

“what will I do?” Julio

asked.

“drink,” Henry said,

pouring.

Julio just looked at his

glass:

“I wonder what she’s doing

now?”

“probably engaging in oral

copulation,” Henry

suggested.

Julio put his guitar back in

the case and

walked to the

door.

Henry walked Julio to his car which

was parked in the

drive.

it was a nice moonlit

night.

as Julio started his car and

backed out the drive

Henry waved him a

farewell.

then he went inside

sat

down.

he finished Julio’s untouched

drink

then he

phoned

her.

“he was just by,” Henry told

her, “he’s feeling very

bad…”

“you’ll have to excuse me,”

she said, “but I’m busy right

now.”

she hung

up.

and Henry poured one of his

own

as outside the crickets sang

their own

song.

one for Sherwood Anderson

sometimes I forget about him and his peculiar

innocence, almost idiotic, awkward and mawkish,

he liked walking over bridges and through cornfields.

to night I think about him, the way the lines were,

one felt space between his lines, air

and he told it so the lines remained

carved there

something like van Gogh.

he took his time

looking about

sometimes running to save something

leaving everything to save something,

then at other times giving it all away.

he didn’t understand Hemingway’s neon tattoo,

found Faulkner much too clever.

he was a midwestern hick

he took his time.

he was as far away from Fitzgerald as he was

from Paris.

he told stories and left the meaning open

and sometimes he told meaningless stories

because that was the way it was.

he told the same story again and again

and he never wrote a story that was unreadable.

and nobody ever talks about his life or

his death.

bow wow love

here things are tough but

they’re mostly always tough.

basically I’m just trying to get along

with the female. when you

first meet them their eyes

are all moist with understanding;

laughter abounds

like sand fleas. then, Jesus,

time tinkles on and

things leak. they

start BOOMING out DEMANDS.

and, actually, what they

demand is basically contrary to whatever

you are or could be.

what’s so strange is the sudden

knowledge that they’ve never

read anything you’ve written,

not really read it at

all. or worse, if they have,

they’ve come to SAVE

you! which means mainly

wanting you to act like everybody

else and be just like them

and their friends. meanwhile

they’ve sucked

you up and wound you up

in a million webs, and

being somewhat of a

feeling person you can’t

help but remember their

good side or the side

that at first seemed to be good.

and so you find yourself

alone in your

bedroom grabbing your

gut and saying, o, shit

no, not again.

we should have known.

maybe we wanted cotton

candy luck. maybe we

believed. what trash.

we believed like dogs

believe.

(uncollected)

the day the epileptic spoke

the other day

I’m out at the track

betting Early Bird

(that’s when you bet at the

track before it opens)

I am sitting there having

a coffee and going over

the Form

and this guy slides toward

me—

his body is twisted

his head shakes

his eyes are out of

focus

there is spittle upon his

lips

he manages to get close to

me and asks,

“pardon me, sir, but could you

tell me the number of

Lady of Dawn in the

first race?”

“it’s the 7 horse,”

I tell him.

“thank you, sir,”

he says.

that night

or the next morning

really:

12:04 a.m.

Los Alamitos Quarter Horse

Results on radio

KLAC

the man told me

Lady of Dawn

won the first at

$79.80

that was two weeks

ago

and I’ve been there

every racing day since

and I haven’t seen that

poor epileptic fellow

again.

the gods have ways of

telling you things

when you think you know

a lot

or worse—

when you think

you know

just a

little.

when Hugo Wolf went mad—

Hugo Wolf went mad while eating an onion

and writing his 253rd song; it was rainy

April and the worms came out of the ground

humming Tannhäuser, and he spilled his milk

with his ink, and his blood fell out to the walls

and he howled and he roared and he screamed, and

downstairs

his landlady said, I knew it, that rotten son

of a

bitch has dummied up his brain, he’s jacked-off

his last piece

of music and now I’ll never get the rent, and someday

he’ll be famous

and they’ll bury him in the rain, but right now

I wish he’d shut

up that god damned screaming—for my money he’s

a silly pansy jackass

and when they move him out of here, I hope they

move in a good solid fisherman

or a hangman

or a seller of

biblical tracts.

in a neighborhood of murder

murder

the roaches spit out

paper clips

and the helicopter circles and circles

smelling for blood

searchlights leering down into our

bedroom

5 guys in this court have pistols

another a

machete

we are all murderers and

alcoholics

but there are worse in the hotel

across the street

they sit in the green and white doorway

banal and depraved

waiting to be institutionalized

here we each have a small green plant

in the window

and when we fight with our women at 3 a.m.

we speak

softly

and on each porch

is a small dish of food

always eaten by morning

we presume

by the

cats.

the strangest sight you ever did see—

I had this room in front on DeLongpre

and I used to sit for hours

in the daytime

looking out the front

window.

there were any number of girls who would

walk by

swaying;

it helped my afternoons,

added something to the beer and the

cigarettes.

one day I saw something

extra.

I heard the sound of it first.

“come on, push!” he said.

there was a long board

about 2½ feet wide and

8 feet long;

nailed to the ends and in the middle

were roller skates.

he was pulling in front

two long ropes attached to the board

and she was in back

guiding and also pushing.

all their possessions were tied to the

board:

pots, pans, bed quilts, and so forth

were roped to the board

tied down;

and the skate wheels were grinding.

he was white, red-necked, a

southerner—

thin, slumped, his pants about to

fall from his

ass—

his face pinked by the sun and

cheap wine,

and she was black

and walked upright

pushing;

she was simply beautiful

in turban

long green earrings

yellow dress

from

neck to

ankle.

her face was gloriously

indifferent.

“don’t worry!” he shouted, looking back

at her, “somebody will

rent us a place!”

she didn’t answer.

then they were gone

although I still heard the

skate wheels.

they’re going to make it,

I thought.

I’m sure they

did.

the 2nd novel

they’d come around and

they’d ask

“you finished your

2nd novel yet?”

“no.”

“whatsamatta? whatsamatta

that you can’t

finish it?”

“hemorrhoids and

insomnia.”

“maybe you’ve lost

it?”

“lost what?”

“you know.”

now when they come

around I tell them,

“yeh. I finished

it. be out in Sept.”

“you finished it?”

“yeh.”

“well, listen, I gotta

go.”

even the cat

here in the courtyard

won’t come to my door

anymore.

it’s nice.

junk

sitting in a dark bedroom with 3 junkies,

female.

brown paper bags filled with trash are

everywhere.

it is one-thirty in the afternoon.

they talk about mad houses,

hospitals.

they are waiting for a fix.

none of them work.

it’s relief and food stamps and

Medi-Cal.

men are usable objects

toward the fix.

it is one-thirty in the afternoon

and outside small plants grow.

their children are still in school.

the females smoke cigarettes

and suck listlessly on beer and

tequila

which I have purchased.

I sit with them.

I wait on my fix:

I am a poetry junkie.

they pulled Ezra through the streets

in a wooden cage.

Blake was sure of God.

Villon was a mugger.

Lorca sucked cock.

T. S. Eliot worked a teller’s cage.

most poets are swans,

egrets.

I sit with 3 junkies

at one-thirty in the afternoon.

the smoke pisses upward.

I wait.

death is a nothing jumbo.

one of the females says that she likes my yellow shirt.

I believe in a simple violence.

this is

some of it.

Mademoiselle from Armentières

if you gotta have wars

I suppose World War One was the best.

really, you know, both sides were much more enthusiastic,

they really had something to fight for,

they really thought they had something to fight for,

it was bloody and wrong but it was Romantic,

those dirty Germans with babies stuck on the ends of their

bayonets, and so forth, and

there were lots of patriotic songs, and the women loved both the soldiers

and their money.

the Mexican war and those other wars hardly ever happened.

and the Civil War, that was just a movie.

the wars come too fast now

even the pro-war boys grow weary,

World War Two did them in,

and then Korea, that Korea,

that was dirty, nobody won

except the black marketeers,

and BAM!—then came Vietnam,

I suppose the historians will have a name and a meaning for it,

but the young wised up first

and now the old are getting wise,

almost everybody’s anti-war,

no use having a war you can’t win,

right or wrong.

hell, I remember when I was a kid it

was 10 or 15 years after World War One was over,

we built model planes of Spads and Fokkers,

we bought Flying Aces magazine at the newsstand

we knew about Baron Manfred von Richthofen

and Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker

and we fought in dream trenches with our dream rifles

and had dream

bayonet fights with the dirty

Hun…

and those movies, full of drama and excitement,

about good old World War One, where

we almost got the Kaiser, we almost kidnapped him

once,

and in the end

we finished off all those spike-helmeted bastards

forever.

the young kids now, they don’t build model warplanes

nor do they dream fight in dream rice paddies,

they know it’s all useless, ordinary,

just a job like

sweeping the streets or picking up the garbage,

they’d rather go watch a Western or hang out at the

mall or go to the zoo or a football game, they’re

already thinking of college and automobiles and wives

and homes and barbecues, they’re already trapped

in another kind of dream, another kind of war,

and I guess it won’t kill them as fast, at least not

physically.

it was wrong but World War One was fun for us

it gave us Jean Harlow and James Cagney

and “Mademoi selle from Armentières, Parley-Voo?”

it gave us

long afternoons and evenings of play

(we didn’t realize that many of us were soon to die in

another war)

yes, they fooled us nicely but we were young and loved it—

the lies of our elders—

and see how it has changed—

they can’t bullshit

even a kid anymore,

not about all that.

now

I had boils the size of tomatoes

all over me

they stuck a drill into me

down at the county hospital,

and

just as the sun went down

every day

there was a man in a nearby ward

he’d start hollering for his friend Joe.

JOE! he’d holler, OH JOE! JOE!…!

COME GET ME, JOE!

Joe never came by.

I’ve never heard such mournful

sounds.

Joe was probably working off a

piece of ass or

attempting to solve a crossword puzzle.

I’ve always said

if you want to find out who your friends are

go to a mad house or

jail.

and if you want to find out where love is not

be a perpetual

loser.

I was very lucky with my boils

being drilled and tortured

against the backdrop of the Sierra Madre mountains

while that sun went down;

when that sun went down I knew what I would do

when I finally got that drill in my hands

like I have it

now.

society should realize…

you consult psychiatrists and philosophers

when things aren’t going well

and whores when they are.

the whores are there for young boys and old

men; to the young boys they say,

“don’t be frightened, honey, here I’ll put it

in for you.”

and for the old guys

they put on an act

like you’re really hooking it home.

society should realize the value of the

whore—I mean, those girls who really enjoy their

work—those who make it almost an

art form.

I’m thinking of the time

in a Mexican whore house

this gal with her little bowl and her rag

washing my dick,

and it got hard and she laughed and I

laughed and she

kissed it, gently and slowly, then she walked over and

spread out

on the bed

and I got on and we worked easily, no effort, no

tension, and some guy beat on the door and

yelled,

“Hey! what the hell’s going on in there?

Hurry it up!”

but it was like a Mahler symphony—you just don’t

rush

it.

when I finished and she came back, there was

the bowl and the rag again

and we both laughed; then she kissed it

gently and

slowly, and I got up and put my clothes back on and

walked out—

“Jesus, buddy, what the hell were ya doin’ in

there?”

“Fuckin’,” I told the gentleman

and walked down the hall and down the steps and stood

outside in the road and lit one of those

sweet Mexican cigarettes in the moonlight.

liberated and human again

for a mere $3, I

loved the night, Mexico and

myself.

the souls of dead animals

after the slaughter house

there was a bar around the corner

and I sat in there

and watched the sun go down

through the window,

a window that overlooked a lot

full of tall dry weeds.

I never showered with the boys at the

plant

after work

so I smelled of sweat and

blood.

the smell of sweat lessens after a

while

but the blood-smell begins to fulminate

and gain power.

I smoked cigarettes and drank beer

until I felt good enough to

board the bus

with the souls of all those dead

animals riding with

me;

heads would turn slightly

women would rise and move away from

me.

when I got off the bus

I only had a block to walk

and one stairway up to my

room

where I’d turn on my radio and

light a cigarette

and nobody minded me

at all.

the tragedy of the leaves

I awakened to dryness and the ferns were dead,

the potted plants yellow as corn;

my woman was gone

and the empty bottles like bled corpses

surrounded me with their uselessness;

the sun was still good, though,

and my landlady’s note cracked in fine and

undemanding yellowness; what was needed now

was a good comedian, ancient style, a jester

with jokes upon absurd pain; pain is absurd

because it exists, nothing more;

I shaved carefully with an old razor

the man who had once been young and

said to have genius; but

that’s the tragedy of the leaves,

the dead ferns, the dead plants;

and I walked into a dark hall

where the landlady stood

execrating and final,

sending me to hell,

waving her fat, sweaty arms

and screaming

screaming for rent

because the world had failed us

both.

the birds

the acute and terrible air hangs with murder

as summer birds mingle in the branches

and warble

and mystify the clamor of the mind;

an old parrot

who never talks,

sits thinking in a Chinese laundry,

disgruntled

forsaken

celibate;

there is red on his wing

where there should be green,

and between us

the recognition of

an immense and wasted life.

….y 2nd wife left me

because I set our birds free:

one yellow, with crippled wing

quickly going down and to the left,

cat-meat,

cackling like an organ;

and the other,

mean green,

of empty thimble head,

popping up like a rocket

high into the hollow sky,

disappearing like sour love

and yesterday’s desire

and leaving me

forever.

and when my wife

returned that night

with her bags and plans,

her tricks and shining greeds,

she found me

glittering over a yellow feather

seeking out the music

which she,

oddly,

failed to

hear.

the loner

16 and one-half inch

neck

68 years old

lifts weights

body like a young

boy (almost)

kept his head

shaved

and drank port wine

from half-gallon jugs

kept the chain on the

door

windows boarded

you had to give

a special knock

to get in

he had brass knucks

knives

clubs

guns

he had a chest like a

wrestler

never lost his

glasses

never swore

never looked for

trouble

never married after the death

of his only

wife

hated

cats

roaches

mice

humans

worked crossword

puzzles

kept up with the

news

that 16 and one-half inch

neck

for 68 he was

something

all those boards

across the windows

washed his own underwear

and socks

my friend Red took me up

to meet him

one night

we talked a while

together

then we left

Red asked, “what do you

think?”

I answered, “more afraid to die

than the rest of us.”

I haven’t seen either of them

since.

The Genius of the Crowd

There is enough treachery, hatred,

violence,

Absurdity in the average human

being

To supply any given army on any given day.

AND The Best At Murder Are Those

Who Preach Against It.

AND The Best At Hate Are Those

Who Preach LOVE

AND THE BEST AT WAR

—FINALLY—ARE THOSE WHO PREACH

PEACE

Those Who Preach GOD

NEED God

Those Who Preach PEACE

Do Not Have Peace.

THOSE WHO PREACH LOVE

DO NOT HAVE LOVE

BEWARE THE PREACHERS Beware The Knowers.

Beware

Those Who

Are ALWAYS

READING

BOOKS

Beware Those Who Either Detest

Poverty Or Are Proud Of It

BEWARE Those Quick To Praise

For They Need PRAISE In Return

BEWARE Those Quick To Censure:

They Are Afraid Of What They Do

Not Know

Beware Those Who Seek Constant

Crowds; They Are Nothing

Alone

Beware

The Average Man

The Average Woman

BEWARE Their Love

Their Love Is Average, Seeks

Average

But There Is Genius In Their Hatred There Is Enough Genius In Their Hatred To Kill You, To Kill

Anybody.

Not Wanting Solitude

Not Understanding Solitude

They Will Attempt To Destroy Anything

That Differs

From Their Own

Not Being Able

To Create Art

They Will Not

Understand Art

They Will Consider Their Failure

As Creators

Only As A Failure

Of The World

Not Being Able To Love Fully

They Will BELIEVE Your Love

Incomplete

AND THEN THEY WILL HATE

YOU

And Their Hatred Will Be Perfect

Like A Shining Diamond

Like A Knife

Like A Mountain

LIKE A TIGER

LIKE Hemlock

Their Finest

ART

German bar

I had lost the last race big

somebody had stolen my coat

I could feel the flu coming on

and my tires were

low. I went in to get a

beer at the German bar

but the waitress was having a fit

her heart strangled by disappointment

grief and loss.

women get troubled all at once,

you know. I left a tip

and got out.

nobody wins.

ask Caesar.

the snow of Italy

over my radio now

comes the sound of a truly mad organ,

I can see some monk

drunk in a cellar

mind gone or found,

talking to God in a different way;

I see candles and this man has a red beard

as God has a red beard;

it is snowing, it is Italy, it is cold

and the bread is hard

and there is no butter,

only wine

wine in purple bottles

with giraffe necks,

and now the organ rises, again,

he violates it,

he plays it like a madman,

there is blood and spit in his beard,

he wants to laugh but there isn’t time,

the sun is going out,

then his fingers slow,

now there is exhaustion and the dream,

yes, even holiness,

man going to man,

to the mountain, the elephant, the star,

and a candle falls

but continues to burn upon its side,

a wax puddle shining in the eyes

of my red monk,

there is moss on the walls

and the stain of thought and failure and

waiting,

then again the music comes like hungry tigers,

and he laughs,

it is a child’s laugh, an idiot’s laugh,

laughing at nothing,

the only laugh that understands,

he holds the keys down

like stopping everything

and the room blooms with madness,

and then he stops, stops,

and sits, the candles burning,

one up, one down,

the snow of Italy is all that’s left,

it is over: the essence and the pattern.

I watch as

he pinches out the candles with his fingers,

wincing near the outer edge of each eye

and the room is dark

as everything has always been.

for Jane: with all the love I had, which was not enough:

which was not enough:

I pick up the skirt,

I pick up the sparkling beads

in black,

this thing that moved once

around flesh,

and I call God a liar,

I say anything that moved

like that

or knew

my name

could never die

in the common verity of dying,

and I pick

up her lovely

dress,

all her loveliness gone,

and I speak

to all the gods,

Jewish gods, Christ-gods,

chips of blinking things,

idols, pills, bread,

fathoms, risks,

knowledgeable surrender,

rats in the gravy of 2 gone quite mad

without a chance,

hummingbird knowledge, hummingbird chance,

I lean upon this,

I lean on all of this

and I know:

her dress upon my arm:

but

they will not

give her back to me.

notice

the swans drown in bilge water,

take down the signs,

test the poisons,

barricade the cow

from the bull,

the peony from the sun,

take the lavender kisses from my night,

put the symphonies out on the streets

like beggars,

get the nails ready,

flog the backs of the saints,

stun frogs and mice for the cat,

burn the enthralling paintings,

piss on the dawn,

my love

is dead.

for Jane

225 days under grass

and you know more than I.

they have long taken your blood,

you are a dry stick in a basket.

is this how it works?

in this room

the hours of love

still make shadows.

when you left

you took almost

everything.

I kneel in the nights

before tigers

that will not let me be.

what you were

will not happen again.

the tigers have found me

and I do not care.

eulogy to a hell of a dame

dame

some dogs who sleep at night

must dream of bones

and I remember your bones

in flesh

and best

in that dark green dress

and those high-heeled bright

black shoes,

you always cursed when you

drank,

your hair coming down you

wanted to explode out of

what was holding you:

rotten memories of a

rotten

past, and

you finally got

out

by dying,

leaving me with the

rotten

present;

you’ve been dead

28 years

yet I remember you

better than any of

the rest;

you were the only one

who understood

the futility of the

arrangement of

all the others were only

displeased with

trivial segments,

carped

nonsensically about

nonsense;

Jane, you were

killed by

knowing too much.

here’s a drink

to your bones

that

this dog

still

dreams about.

barfly

Jane, who has been dead for 31 years,

never could have

imagined that I would write a screenplay of our drinking

days together

and

that it would be made into a movie

and

that a beautiful movie star would play her

part.

I can hear Jane now: “A beautiful movie star? oh,

for Christ’s sake!”

Jane, that’s show biz, so go back to sleep, dear, because

no matter how hard they tried they

just couldn’t find anybody exactly like

you.

and neither can

I.

was Li Po wrong?

you know what Li Po said when asked if he’d rather be an

Artist or Rich?

“I’d rather be Rich,” he replied, “for Artists can usually be found

sitting on the doorsteps of the

Rich.”

I’ve sat on the doorsteps of some expensive and

unbelievable homes

myself

but somehow I always managed to disgrace myself and / or insult

my Rich hosts

(mostly after drinking large quantities of their fine

liquor).

perhaps I was afraid of the Rich?

all I knew then was poverty and the very poor,

and I felt instinctively that the Rich shouldn’t be so

Rich,

that it was some kind of clever

twist of fate

based on something rotten and

unfair.

of course, one could say the same thing

about being poor,

only there were so many poor, it all seemed completely

out of proportion.

and so when I, as an Artist, visited the

homes of the Rich, I felt ashamed to be

there, and I drank too much of their fine wines,

broke their expensive glassware and antique dishes,

burned cigarette holes in their Persian rugs and

mauled their wives,

reacting badly to the whole damned

situation.

yet I had no political or social solution.

I was just a lousy house guest,

I guess,

and after a while

I protected both myself and the Rich

by rejecting their

invitations

and everybody felt much better after

that.

I went back to

drinking alone,

breaking my own cheap glassware,

filling the room with cigar

smoke and feeling

wonderful

instead of feeling trapped,

used,

pissed on,

fucked.

the night I saw George Raft in Vegas

I bet on #6, I try red, I stare at the women’s legs and breasts,

I wonder what Chekhov would do, and over in the corner three men with

blue plates sit eating the carnage of my youth, they have beards

and look very much like Russians and I pat an imaginary pistol over

my left tit and try to smile like George Raft sizing up a French

tart. I play

the field, I pull out dollars like turnips from the good earth, the lights

blaze and nobody says stop.

Hank, says my whore, for Christ’s sake you’re losing everything except me,

and I say don’t forget, baby, I’m a shipping clerk. what’ve I got to lose

but a ball of string?

the gentlemen in the corner who look like Russians get up, knock

their plates and cups on the floor and wipe their mouths on the tablecloth.

some belch (and one farts). they laugh evilly and leave without anyone bothering

them. a ribbed and moiled cat comes out of somewhere,

begins licking the plates on the floor and then jumps up on the

table and walks around like his feet are wet.

I try black. the croupier’s eyes dart like beetles. he makes futile

almost habitual movements to brush them away.

I switch back to red. I look around for George Raft and spill my drink

against my chest. Hank, says my whore, let’s get out of here!

well, at least,

I say, I ought to get a blow job out of this. you needn’t get filthy,

the whore

says. I say, baby, I was born filthy. I try #14.

DEATH COMES SLOWLY LIKE ANTS TO A FALLEN FIG.

mirrors enclose us, I say to the croupier, ignoring the scenery of our despair.

I slap away a filthy thing that runs across my mouth. the cat

leaps and snatches it up as it spins upon its back kicking its

thousand legs.

then George Raft walks in. hello kid, he says, back again? I place

my last few coins on the chest of a dead elephant.

the lightning flares, they are stabbing grapefruit in the backroom, somebody

drops a glove and the place, the whole place, goes up in smoke.

we walk back to the car and fall asleep.

I am eaten by butterflies

maybe I’ll win the Irish Sweepstakes

maybe I’ll go nuts

maybe Harcourt Brace will call

or maybe unemployment insurance or

a rich lesbian at the top of a hill.

maybe reincarnation as a frog…

or $70,000 found floating in a plastic sack

in the bathtub.

I need help

I am a thin man being eaten by

green trees

butterflies and

you.

turn turn

light the lamp

my teeth ache the teeth of my soul ache

I can’t sleep I

pray for the dead

the white mice

engines on fire

blood on a green gown in an operating room

and I am caught

ow ow

wild: my body being there filled with nothing but

me

me caught halfway between suicide and

old age

hustling in factories next to the

young boys

keeping pace

burning my blood like gasoline and

making the foreman

grin.

my poems are only bits of scratchings

on the floor of a

cage.

(uncollected)

the veryest

here comes the fishhead singing

here comes the baked potato in drag

here comes nothing to do all day long

here comes another night of no sleep

here comes the phone ringing the wrong voice

here comes a termite with a banjo

here comes a flagpole with blank eyes

here comes a cat and a dog wearing nylons

here comes a machine gun singing

here comes bacon burning in the pan

here comes a voice saying something dull with authority

here comes a newspaper stuffed with small red birds

with flat brown beaks

here comes a woman carrying a torch

a grenade

a deathly love

here comes victory carrying one bucket of guts

and one bucket of blood

while stumbling over the berry bush

and here comes a little lamb

and here comes Mary at last

and the sheet hangs out the window

and the bombers head east west north south

get lost

get tossed like salad

all the fish in the sea line up and form

one line

one long line

one very long long line

the veryest longest line you could ever imagine

and we get lost

walking past purple mountains.

we walk lost

bare at last like the knife blade

or the electric shock

having given

having spit it out like an unexpected olive seed

as the girl at the call ser vice

screams over the phone:

“don’t call back! you sound like a jerk!”

(uncollected)

man mowing the lawn across the way from me

I watch you walking with your machine.

ah, you’re too stupid to be cut like grass,

you’re too stupid to let anything violate you—

the girls won’t use their knives on you

they don’t want to

their sharp edge is wasted on you,

you are interested only in baseball games and

western movies and grass blades.

can’t you take just one of my knives?

here’s an old one—stuck into me in 1955,

she’s dead now, it wouldn’t hurt much.

I can’t give you this last one—

I can’t pull it out yet,

but here’s one from 1964, how about taking

this 1964 one from me?

man mowing the lawn across the way from me

don’t you have a knife somewhere in your gut

where love left?

man mowing the lawn across the way from me

don’t you have a knife somewhere deep in your heart

where love left?

man mowing the lawn across the way from me

don’t you see the young girls walking down the sidewalks now

with knives in their purses?

don’t you see their beautiful eyes and dresses and

hair?

don’t you see their beautiful asses and knees and

ankles?

man mowing the lawn across the way from me

is that all you see—those grass blades?

is that all you hear—the drone of the mower?

I can see all the way to Italy

to Japan

to the Honduras

I can see the young girls sharpening their knives

in the morning and at noon and at night, and

especially at night, o,

especially at night.

oh, yes

there are worse things than

being alone

but it often takes de cades

to realize this

and most often

when you do

it’s too late

and there’s nothing worse

than

too late.

poop

I remember, he told me, that when I was 6 or

7 years old my mother was always taking me

to the doctor and saying, “he hasn’t pooped.”

she was always asking me, “have you

pooped?”

it seemed to be her favorite question.

and, of course, I couldn’t lie, I had real problems

pooping.

I was all knotted up inside.

my parents did that to me.

I looked at those huge beings, my father,

my mother, and they seemed really stupid.

sometimes I thought they were just pretending

to be stupid because nobody could really be that

stupid.

but they weren’t pretending.

they had me all knotted up inside like a pretzel.

I mean, I had to live with them, they told

me what to do and how to do it and when.

they fed, housed and clothed me.

and worst of all, there was no other place for

me to go, no other choice:

I had to stay with them.

I mean, I didn’t know much at that age

but I could sense that they were lumps

of flesh and little else.

dinnertime was the worst, a nightmare

of slurps, spittle and idiotic conversation.

I looked straight down at my plate and tried

to swallow my food but

it all turned to glue inside.

I couldn’t digest my parents or the food.

that must have been it, for it was hell for me

to poop.

“have you pooped?”

and there I’d be in the doctor’s office once again.

he had a little more sense than my parents but

not much.

“well, well, my little man, so you haven’t pooped?”

he was fat with bad breath and body odor and

had a pocket watch with a large gold chain

that dangled across his gut.

I thought, I bet he poops a load.

and I looked at my mother.

she had large buttocks,

I could picture her on the toilet,

sitting there a little cross-eyed, pooping.

she was so placid, so

like a pigeon.

poopers both, I knew it in my heart.

disgusting people.

“well, little man, you just can’t poop,

huh?”

he made a little joke of it: he could,

she could, the world could.

I couldn’t.

“well, now, we’re going to give you

these pills.

and if they don’t work, then guess

what?”

I didn’t answer.

“come on, little man, tell me.”

all right, I decided to say it.

I wanted to get out of there:

“an enema.”

“an enema,” he smiled.

then he turned to my mother.

“and are you all right, dear?”

“oh, I’m fine, doctor!”

sure she was.

she pooped whenever she wanted.

then we would leave the office.

“isn’t the doctor a nice man?”

no answer from me.

“isn’t he?”

“yes.”

but in my mind I changed it to, yes,

he can poop.

he looked like a poop.

the whole world pooped while I

was knotted up inside like a pretzel.

then we would walk out on the street

and I would look at the people passing

and all the people had behinds.

“that’s all I ever noticed,” he told me,

“it was horrible.”

“we must have had similar

childhoods,” I said.

“somehow, that doesn’t help at all,”

he said.

“we’ve both got to get over this

thing,” I said.

“I’m trying,” he

answered.

Phillipe’s 1950

Phillipe’s is an old time

cafe off Alameda street

just a little north and east of

the main post office.

Phillipe’s opens at 5 a.m.

and serves a cup of coffee

with cream and sugar

for a nickel.

in the early mornings

the bums come down off Bunker Hill,

as they say,

“with our butts wrapped

around our ears.”

Los Angeles nights have a way

of getting very

cold.

“Phillipe’s,” they say,

“is the only place that doesn’t

hassle us.”

the waitresses are old

and most of the bums are

too.

come down there some

early morning.

for a nickel

you can see the most beautiful faces

in town.

downtown

nobody goes downtown anymore

the plants and trees have been cut away around

Pershing Square

the grass is brown

and the street preachers are not as good

as they used to be

and down on Broadway

the Latinos stand in long colorful lines

waiting to see Latino action movies.

I walk down to Clifton’s cafeteria

it’s still there

the waterfall is still there

the few white faces are old and poor

dignified

dressed in 1950s clothing

sitting at small tables on the first

floor.

I take my food upstairs to the

third floor—

all Latinos at the tables there

faces more tired than hostile

the men at rest from their factory jobs

their once beautiful wives now

heavy and satisfied

the men wanting badly to go out and raise hell

but now the money is needed for

clothing, tires, toys, TV sets

children’s shoes, the rent.

I finish eating

walk down to the first floor and out,

and nearby is a penny arcade.

I remember it from the 1940s.

I walk in.

it is full of young Latinos and Blacks

between the ages of six and

fifteen

and they shoot machine guns

play mechanical soccer

and the piped-in salsa music is very

loud.

they fly spacecraft

test their strength

fight in the ring

have horse races

auto races

but none of them want their fortunes told.

I lean against a wall and

watch them.

I go outside again.

I walk down and across from the Herald-

Examiner building

where my car is parked.

I get in. then I drive away.

it’s Sunday. and it’s true

like they say: the old gang never

goes downtown anymore.

elephants in the zoo

in the afternoon

they lean against

one another

and you can see how much

they like the sun.

(uncollected)

girl on the escalator

as I go to the escalator

a young fellow and a lovely young girl

are ahead of me.

her pants, her blouse are skintight.

as we ascend

she rests one foot on the

step above and her behind

assumes a fascinating shape.

the young man looks all

around.

he appears worried.

he looks at me.

I look

away.

no, young man, I am not looking,

I am not looking at your girl’s behind.

don’t worry, I respect her and I respect you.

in fact, I respect everything: the flowers that grow, young women,

children, all the animals, our precious complicated

universe, everyone and everything.

I sense that the young man now feels

better and I am glad for

him. I know his problem: the girl has

a mother, a father, maybe a sister or

brother, and undoubtedly a bunch of

unfriendly relatives and she likes to

dance and flirt and she likes to

go to the movies and sometimes she talks

and chews gum at the same time and

she enjoys really dumb TV shows and

she thinks she’s a budding actress and she

doesn’t always look so good and she has a

terrible temper and sometimes she almost goes

crazy and she can talk for hours on the

telephone and she wants to go to

Europe some summer soon and she wants you to

buy her a near-new Mercedes and she’s in love with

Mel Gibson and her mother is a

drunk and her father is a racist

and sometimes when she drinks too much she

snores and she’s often cold in bed and

she has a guru, a guy who met Christ

in the desert in 1978, and she wants to

be a dancer and she’s unemployed and she

gets migraine headaches every time she

eats sugar or cheese.

I watch him take her

up

the escalator, his arm

protectively about her

waist, thinking he’s

lucky,

thinking he’s a real special

guy, thinking that

nobody in the world has

what he has.

and he’s right, terribly

terribly right, his arm around

that warm bucket of

intestine,

bladder,

kidneys,

lungs,

salt,

sulphur,

carbon dioxide

and

phlegm.

lotsa

luck.

the shit shits

yes, it’s dark in here.

can’t open the door.

can’t open the jam lid.

can’t find a pair of socks that match.

I was born in Andernach in 1920 and never thought it

would be like this.

at the races today I was standing in the 5-win line.

this big fat guy with body odor

kept jamming his binoculars into my ass and I turned and

said,

“pardon me, sir. could you please stop jamming those goddamned

binocs into my ass?”

he just looked at me with little pig eyes—

rather pink with olive pits for pupils—

and the eyes just kept looking at me until I stepped away and then

got sick, vomited into a

trash can.

I keep getting letters from an uncle in Andernach who must be

95 years old and he keeps asking,

“my boy, why don’t you WRITE?”

what can I write him? unfortunately

there is nothing that I can write.

I pull on my shorts and they rip.

sleep is impossible, I mean good sleep. I just get

small spurts of it, and then back to the job where the foreman

comes by:

“Chinaski, for a pieceworker you crawl like a snail!”

I’m sick and I’m tired and I don’t know where to go or what to do.

well, at lunchtime we all ride down the elevator together

making jokes and laughing

and then we sit in the employees’ cafeteria making jokes and

laughing and eating the recooked food;

first they buy it then they fry it

then they reheat it then they sell it, can’t be a germ left in there

or a vitamin either.

but we joke and laugh

otherwise we would start

screaming.

on Saturday and Sunday when I don’t have money to go to the track

I just lay in bed.

I never get out of bed.

I don’t want to go to a movie;

it is shameful for a full-grown man to go to a movie alone.

and women are less than nothing. they terrify

me.

I wonder what Andernach is like?

I think that if they would let me just stay in bed I could

get well or strong or at least feel better;

but it’s always up and back to the machine,

searching for stockings that match,

shorts that won’t tear,

looking at my face in the mirror, disgusted with

my face.

my uncle, what is he thinking with his crazy

letters?

we are all little forgotten pieces of shit

only we walk and talk

laugh

make jokes

and

the shit shits.

some day I will tell that foreman off.

I will tell everybody off.

and walk down to the end of the road and

make swans out of the blackbirds and

lions out of berry leaves.

(uncollected)

big time loser

I was on the train to Del Mar and I left my seat

to go to the bar car. I had a beer and came

back and sat down.

“pardon me,” said the lady next to me, “but you’re

sitting in my husband’s seat.”

“oh yeah?” I said. I picked up my Racing Form

and began studying it. the first race looked tough. then a man was standing there. “hey, buddy,

you’re in my seat!”

“I already told him,” said the lady, “but he didn’t pay

any attention.”

“This is my seat!” I told the man.

“it’s bad enough he takes my seat,” said the man looking

around, “but now he’s reading my Racing Form!”

I looked up at him, he was puffing his chest out.

“look at you,” I said, “puffing your goddamned

chest out!”

“you’re in my seat, buddy!” he told me.

“look,” I said, “I’ve been in this seat since the

train left the station. ask anybody!”

“no, that’s not right,” said a man behind me,

“he had that seat when the train left the

station!” “are you sure?”

“sure I’m sure!”

I got up and walked to the next train car.

there was my empty seat by the window and there was

my Racing Form.

I went back to the other car. the

man was reading his Racing Form.

“hey,” I started to say…

“forget it,” said the man.

“just leave us alone,” said his wife.

I walked back to my car, sat down and

looked out the window

pretending to be interested in the land-

scape,

happy that the people in my car didn’t know what

the people in the other car knew.

commerce

I used to drive those trucks so hard

and for so long that

my right foot would

go dead from pushing down on the

accelerator.

delivery after delivery,

14 hours at a time

for $1.10 per hour

under the table,

up one-way alleys in the worst parts of

town.

at midnight or at high noon,

racing between tall buildings

always with the stink of something

dying or about to die

in the freight elevator

at your destination,

a self-operated elevator,

opening into a large bright room,

uncomfortably so

under unshielded lights

over the heads of many women

each bent mute over a machine,

crucified alive

on piecework,

to hand the package then

to a fat son of a bitch in red

suspenders.

he signs, ripping through the cheap

paper

with his ballpoint pen,

that’s power,

that’s America at work.

you think of killing him

on the spot

but discard that thought and

leave,

down into the urine-stinking

elevator,

they have you crucified too,

America at work,

where they rip out your intestines

and your brain and your

will and your spirit.

they suck you dry, then throw

you away.

the capitalist system.

the work ethic.

the profit motive.

the memory of your father’s words,

“work hard and you’ll be

appreciated.”

of course, only if you make

much more for them than they pay

you.

out of the alley and into the

sunlight again,

into heavy traffic,

planning the route to your next stop,

the best way, the time-

saver,

you knowing none of the tricks

and to actually think about

all the deliveries that still lie ahead

would lead to

madness.

it’s one at a time,

easing in and out of traffic

between other work-driven drivers

also with no concept of danger,

reality, flow or

compassion.

you can feel the despair

escaping from their

machines,

their lives as hopeless and

as numbed as

yours.

you break through the cluster

of them

on your way to the next

stop,

driving through teeming downtown

Los Angeles in 1952,

stinking and hungover,

no time for lunch,

no time for coffee,

you’re on route #10,

a new man,

give the new man the

ball-busting route,

see if he can swallow the

whale.

you look down and the

needle is on

red.

almost no gas left.

too fucking bad.

you gun it,

lighting a crushed cigarette with

one hand from a soiled pack of

matches.

shit on the world.

come on in!

welcome to my wormy hell.

the music grinds off-key.

fish eyes watch from the wall.

this is where the last happy shot was

fired.

the mind snaps closed

like a mind snapping

closed.

we need to discover a new will and a new

way.

we’re stuck here now

listening to the laughter of the

gods.

my temples ache with the fact of

the facts.

I get up, move about, scratch

myself.

I’m a pawn.

I am a hungry prayer.

my wormy hell welcomes you.

hello. hello there. come in, come on in!

plenty of room here for us all,

sucker.

we can only blame ourselves so

come sit with me in the dark.

it’s half-past

nowhere

everywhere.

the bakers of 1935

my mother, father and I

walked to the market

once a week

for our government relief food:

cans of beans, cans of

weenies, cans of hash,

some potatoes, some

eggs.

we carried the supplies

in large shopping

bags.

and as we left the market

we always stopped

outside

where there was a large

window

where we could see the

bakers

kneading

the flour into the

dough.

there were 5 bakers,

large young men

and they stood at

5 large wooden tables

working very hard,

not looking up.

they flipped the dough in

the air

and all the sizes and

designs were

different.

we were always hungry

and the sight of the men

working the dough,

flipping it in the

air was a wondrous

sight, indeed.

but then, it would come time

to leave

and we would walk away

carrying our heavy

shopping bags.

“those men have jobs,”

my father would say.

he said it each time.

every time we watched

the bakers he would say

that.

“I think I’ve found a new way

to make the hash,”

my mother would say

each time.

or sometimes it was

the weenies.

we ate the eggs all

different ways:

fried, poached, boiled.

one of our favorites was

poached eggs on hash.

but that favorite finally

became almost impossible

to eat.

and the potatoes, we fried

them, baked them, boiled

them.

but the potatoes had a way

of not becoming as tiresome

as the hash, the eggs, the

beans.

one day, arriving home,

we placed all our foodstuffs

on the kitchen counter and

stared at them.

then we turned away.

“I’m going to hold up a

bank!” my father suddenly

said.

“oh no, Henry, please!”

said my mother,

“please don’t!”

“we’re going to eat some

steak, we’re going to eat

steaks until they come out

of our ears!”

“but Henry, you don’t have

a gun!”

“I’ll hold something in my

coat, I’ll pretend it’s a gun!”

“I’ve got a water pistol,”

I said, “you can use that.”

my father looked at me.

“you,” he said, “SHUT UP!”

I walked outside.

I sat on the back steps.

I could hear them in there

talking but I couldn’t quite make it

out.

then I could hear them again, it was

louder.

“I’ll find a new way to cook everything!”

my mother said.

“I’m going to rob a goddamned

bank!” my father said.

“Henry, please, please don’t!”

I heard my mother.

I got up from the steps.

walked away into the

afternoon.

secret laughter

the lair of the hunted is

hidden in the last place

you’d ever look

and even if you find it

you won’t believe

it’s really there

in much the same way

as the average person

will not believe a great painting.

Democracy

the problem, of course, isn’t the Democratic System,

it’s the

living parts which make up the Democratic System.

the next person you pass on the street,

multiply

him or

her by

3 or 4 or 30 or 40 million

and you will know

immediately

why things remain non-functional

for most of

us.

I wish I had a cure for the chess pieces

we call Humanity…

we’ve undergone any number of political

cures

and we all remain

foolish enough to hope

that the one on the way

NOW

will cure almost

everything.

fellow citizens,

the problem never was the Democratic

System, the problem is

you.

an empire of coins

the legs are gone and the hopes—the lava of outpouring,

and I haven’t shaved in sixteen days

but the mailman still makes his rounds and

water still comes out of the faucet and I have a photo of

myself with glazed and milky eyes full of simple music

in golden trunks and 8 oz. gloves when I made the semi-finals

only to be taken out by a German brute who should have been

locked in a cage for the insane and allowed to drink blood.

Now I am insane and stare at the wallpaper as one would stare

at a Dalí (he has lost it) or an early Picasso, and I send

the girls out for beer, the old girls who barely bother to wipe

their asses and say, “well, I guess I won’t comb my hair today:

it might bring me luck.” well, anyway, they wash the dishes and

chop the wood, and the landlady keeps insisting “let me in, I can’t

get in, you’ve got the lock on, and what’s all that singing and

cussing in there?” but she only wants a piece of ass while she pretends

she wants the rent

but she’s not going to get either one of ’em.

meanwhile the skulls of the dead are full of beetles and Shakespeare

and old football scores like S.C. 16, N.D. 14 on a John

Baker field goal.

I can see the fleet from my window, the sails and the guns, always

the guns poking their eyes in the sky looking for trouble like young

L.A. cops too young to shave, and the younger sailors out

there sex-hungry, trying to act tough, trying to act like men

but really closer to their mother’s nipples than to a true evaluation

of existence. I say god damn it, that

my legs are gone and the outpourings too. inside my brain

they cut and snip and

pour oil

to burn and fire out early dreams.

“darling,” says one of the girls, “you’ve got to snap out of it,

we’re running out of MONEY. how do you want

your toast?

light or dark?”

a woman’s a woman, I say, and I put my binoculars between her

kneecaps and I can see where

empires have fallen.

I wish I had a brush, some paint, some paint and a brush, I say.

“why?” asks one of the

whores.

BECAUSE RATS DON’T LIKE OIL! I scream.

(I can’t go on. I don’t belong here.) I listen to radio programs and

people’s voices talking and I marvel that they can get excited

and interested over nothing and I flick out the lights, I

crash out the lights, and I pull the shades down, I

tear the shades down and I light my last cigar imagining

the dreamjump off the Empire State Building

into the thickheaded bullbrained mob with the hard-on attitude.

already forgotten are the dead of Normandy, Lincoln’s stringy beard,

all the bulls that have died to flashing red capes,

all the love that has died in real women and real men

while fools have been elevated to the trumpet’s succulent sneer

and I have fought red-handed and drunk

in slop-pitted alleys

the bartenders of this rotten land.

and I laugh, I can still laugh, who can’t laugh when the

whole thingis

so ridiculous

that only the insane, the clowns, the half-wits,

the cheaters, the whores, the horse players, the bankrobbers, the

poets…are interesting?

in the dark I hear the hands reaching for the last of my money

like mice nibbling at paper, automatic feeders on inbred

helplessness, a false drunken God asleep at the wheel…

a quarter rolls across the floor, and I remember all the faces

and

the football heroes, and everything has meaning, and an editor

writes me, you are good

but

you are too emotional

the way to whip life is to quietly frame the agony,

study it and put it to sleep in the abstract.

is there anything less abstract

than dying day by day?

The door closes and the last of the great whores are gone

and somehow no matter how they have

killed me, they are all great, and I smoke quietly

thinking of Mexico, the tired horses, of Havana

and Spain and Normandy, of the jabbering insane, of my dear

friends, of no more friends

ever; and the voice of my Mexican buddy saying, “you won’t die

you won’t die in the war, you’re too smart, you’ll take care

of yourself.”

I keep thinking of the bulls. the brave bulls dying every day.

the whores are gone. the bombing has stopped for a minute.

fuck everybody.

what?

sleepy now

at 4 a.m.

I hear the siren

of a white

ambulance,

then a dog

barks

once

in this tough-boy

Christmas

morning.

the American Flag Shirt

now more and more

all these people running around

wearing the American Flag Shirt

and it was more or less once assumed

(I think but I’m not sure)

that wearing an A.F.S. meant to

say you were pissing on

it

but now

they keep making them

and everybody keeps buying them

and wearing them

and the faces are just like

the American Flag Shirt—

this one has this face and that shirt

that one has that shirt and this face—

and somebody’s spending money

and somebody’s making money

and as the patriots become

more and more fashionable

it’ll be nice

when everybody looks around

and finds that they are all patriots now

and therefore

who is there left to

persecute

except their

children?

now she’s free

Cleo’s going to make it now

she’s got her shit together

she split with Barney

Barney wasn’t good for her

she got a bigger apartment

furnished it beautifully

and bought a new silver Camaro

she works afternoons in a dance joint

drives 30 miles to the job from

Redondo Beach

goes to night school

helps out at the AIDS clinic

reads the I Ching

does Yoga

is living with a 20-year-old boy

eats health food

Barney wasn’t good for her

she’s got her shit together now

she’s into T.M.

but she’s the same old fun-loving Cleo

she’s painted her nails green

got a butterfly tattoo

I saw her yesterday

in her new silver Camaro

her long blonde hair blowing

in the wind.

poor Barney.

he just doesn’t know what he’s

missing.

the simple truth

you just don’t know how to do it,

you know that,

and you can’t do a lot of other

useful things either.

it’s the fault of the

way you were raised,

some of it,

and you’ll never learn now,

it’s too late.

you just can’t do certain things.

I could show you how to do them

but you still wouldn’t do them

right.

I learned how to do a lot of necessary things

when I was a little girl

and I can still do them now.

I had good parents but

your parents never gave you enough

attention or love

so you never learned how to do

certain simple things.

I know it’s not your fault but

I think you should be aware of how

limited you are.

here, let me do that!

now watch me!

see how easy it is!

take your time!

you have no patience!

now look at you!

you’re mad, aren’t you?

I can tell.

you think I can’t tell?

I’m going downstairs now,

my favorite tv program is coming

on.

and don’t be mad because

I tell you the simple truth about

yourself.

do you want anything from

downstairs?

a snack?

no?

are you sure?

gold in your eye

I got into my BMW and drove down to my bank to

pick up my American Express Gold Card.

I told the girl at the desk what I

wanted.

“you’re Mr. Chinaski,” she

said.

“yes, you want some

i.d.?”

“oh no, we know you…”

I slipped the card into my wallet

went back to parking

got into the BMW (paid for, straight

cash)

and decided to drive down to the liquor store

for a case of fine

wine.

on the way, I further decided to write a poem

about the whole thing: the BMW, the bank, the

Gold Card

just to piss off the

critics

the writers

the readers

who much preferred the old poems about me

sleeping on park benches while

freezing and dying of cheap wine and

malnutrition.

this poem is for those who think that

a man can only be a creative

genius

at the very

edge

even though they never had the

guts to

try it.

a great writer

a great writer remains in bed

shades down

doesn’t want to see anyone

doesn’t want to write anymore

doesn’t want to try anymore;

the editors and publishers wonder:

some say he’s insane

some say he’s dead;

his wife now answers all the mail:

“….e does not wish to…”

and some others even walk up and down

outside his house,

look at the pulled-down

shades;

some even go up and ring the

bell.

nobody answers.

the great writer does not want to be

disturbed. perhaps the great writer is not

in? perhaps the great writer has gone

away?

but they all want to know the truth,

to hear his voice, to be told some good

reason for it all.

if he has a reason

he does not reveal it.

perhaps there isn’t any

reason?

strange and disturbing arrangements are

made; his books and paintings are quietly

auctioned off;

no new work has appeared now for

years.

yet his public won’t accept his

silence—

if he is dead

they want to know; if he is

insane they want to know; if he has a

reason, please tell us!

they walk past his house

write letters

ring the bell

they cannot understand and will not

accept

the way things are.

I rather like

it.

the smoking car

they stop out front here

it looks as if the car is on fire

the smoke blazes blue from the hood and exhaust

the motor sounds like cannon shots

the car humps wildly

one guy gets out,

Jesus, he says, he takes a long drink from a

canvas water bag

and gives the car an eerie look.

the other guy gets out and looks at the car,

Jesus, he says,

and he takes a drink from a pint of whiskey,

then passes the bottle to his

friend.

they both stand and look at the car,

one holding the whiskey, the other the water bag.

they are not dressed in conventional hippie garb

but in natural old clothes

faded, dirty and torn.

a butterfly goes past my window

and they get back in the

car

and it bucks off in low

like a rodeo bronc

they are both laughing

and one has the bottle

tilted…

the butterfly is gone

and outside there is a globe of smoke

40 feet in circumference.

first human beings I’ve seen in Los Angeles

in 15 years.

the shoelace

a woman, a

tire that’s flat, a

disease, a

desire; fears in front of you,

fears that hold so still

you can study them

like pieces on a

chessboard…

it’s not the large things that

send a man to the

mad house. death he’s ready for, or

murder, incest, robbery, fire, flood…

no, it’s the continuing series of small tragedies

that send a man to the

mad house…

not the death of his love

but a shoelace that snaps

with no time left…

the dread of life

is that swarm of trivialities

that can kill quicker than cancer

and which are always there—

license plates or taxes

or expired driver’s license,

or hiring or firing,

doing it or having it done to you, or

constipation

speeding tickets

rickets or crickets or mice or termites or

roaches or flies or a

broken hook on a

screen, or out of gas

or too much gas,

the sink’s stopped up, the landlord’s drunk,

the president doesn’t care and the governor’s

crazy.

lightswitch broken, mattress like a

porcupine;

$105 for a tune-up, carburetor and fuel pump at

Sears Roebuck;

and the phone bill’s up and the market’s

down

and the toilet chain is

broken,

and the light has burned out—

the hall light, the front light, the back light,

the inner light; it’s

darker than hell

and twice as

expensive.

then there’s always crabs and ingrown toenails

and people who insist they’re

your friends;

there’s always that and worse;

leaky faucet, Christ and Christmas;

blue salami, 9 day rains,

50 cent avocados

and purple

liverwurst.

or making it

as a waitress at Norm’s on the split shift,

or as an emptier of

bedpans,

or as a carwash or a busboy

or a stealer of old lady’s purses

leaving them screaming on the sidewalks

with broken arms at the age of

80.

suddenly

2 red lights in your rearview mirror

and blood in your

underwear;

toothache, and $979 for a bridge

$300 for a gold

tooth,

and China and Russia and America, and

long hair and short hair and no

hair, and beards and no

faces, and plenty of zigzag but no

pot, except maybe one to piss in and

the other one around your

gut.

with each broken shoelace

out of one hundred broken shoelaces,

one man, one woman, one

thing

enters a

mad house.

so be careful

when you

bend over.

self-inflicted wounds

he talked about Steinbeck and Thomas Wolfe and he

wrote like a cross between the two of them

and I lived in a hotel on Figueroa Street

close to the bars

and he lived further uptown in a small room

and we both wanted to be writers

and we’d meet at the public library, sit on the stone

benches and talk about that.

he showed me his short stories and he wrote well, he

wrote better than I did, there was a calm and a

strength in his work that mine did not have.

my stories were jagged, harsh, with self-inflicted wounds.

I showed him all my work but he was more impressed with

my drinking prowess and my worldly attitude

after talking a bit we would go to Clifton’s Cafeteria

for our only meal of the day

(for less than a dollar in 1941)

yet

we were in great health.

we lost jobs, found jobs, lost jobs.

mostly we didn’t work, we always envisioned we soon

would be receiving regular checks from

The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly and

Harper’s.

we ran with a gang of young men who didn’t envision

anything at all

but they had a gallant lawless charm

and we drank with them and fought with them and

had a hell of a wild good time.

then just like that he joined the Marine Corps.

“I want to prove something to myself” was what he told

me.

he did: right after boot camp the war came and in 3 months

he was dead.

and I promised myself that some day I would write a novel and that

I would dedicate it to him.

I have now written 5 novels, all dedicated to others.

you know, you were right, Robert Baun, when you once told

me, “Bukowski, about half of what you say is

bullshit.”

Verdi

and

so

we suck on a cigar

and a beer

attempting to mend the love

wounds of the soul.

a beer.

a cigar.

I listen to Verdi

scratch my hindquarters

and

stare out of

a cloud of

blue

smoke.

have you ever been to

Venice?

Madrid?

the stress of continually facing the

lowered

horn

is wearing.

then too

I sometimes think of a

less stressful kind of

love—

it can and should be so

easy

like falling asleep

in a chair or

like a church full of

windows.

sad enough,

I wish only for that careless love

which is sweet

gentle

and which is

now

(like

this light

over my head)

there only to serve me

while I

smoke smoke smoke

out of a certain center dressed

in an old brown shirt.

but I am caught under a pile of

bricks;

poetry is shot in the head

and walks down the alley

pissing on its legs.

friends, stop writing of

breathing

in this sky of fire.

small children,

walk well behind us.

but now Verdi

abides with the

wallpaper

with beerlove,

with the taste of wet gold as

my fingers dabble in ashes

as strange young ladies walk outside

my window

dreaming of broomsticks,

palaces

and

blueberry pie.

(uncollected)

the young lady who lives in Canoga Park

she only fucks the ones she doesn’t want

to marry.

to the others she says

you’ve got to marry me.

or maybe she just fucks the ones she wants

to fuck?

she talks about it freely

and lives in the apartment at the end

with a 9-year-old red-haired boy

and a 7-month-old baby.

she gets child support

and when she works

she works in the factories or as a

cocktail waitress.

she has a boyfriend 60 years old

who drinks a jug of wine a day

has a bad leg

and lives at the YMCA.

she smokes dope, mostly grass,

takes pills

wears large dark glasses

and talks talks talks

while not looking at you and

twisting a long beaded necklace with her thin

nervous fingers.

she has a neck like a swan,

could be a movie star,

twice in the mad house,

a mother in the mad house,

and a sister in prison.

you never know when she is going to

go mad again and

throw tiny fits

and 3 a.m. phone calls at you.

the kids trundle about the apartment

and she fucks and doesn’t fuck,

has an exercise chart on her wall

bends this way and that

touches her toes

leaps

stretches and so

forth. she goes from dope to religion

and from religion back to dope and

from black guys to white guys and from white to

black again.

when she takes off those dark glasses

her eyes are blue

and she tries to smile

as she twists that necklace

around and around.

there are 3 keys on the end of it:

her car key

her apartment key

and one that I’ve never

asked her about.

she’s not given up,

she’s not dead yet,

she’s hardly even old,

her air conditioner doesn’t

work and that’s really all I know

about her because I’m one of those

she wants to

marry.

(uncollected)

life of the king

I awaken at 11:30 a.m.

get into my chinos and a clean green shirt

open a Miller’s,

and nothing in the mailbox but the

Berkeley Tribe

which I don’t subscribe to,

and on KUSC there is organ music

something by Bach

and I leave the door open

stand on the porch

walk out front

hot damn

that air is good

and the sun like golden butter on my

body. no racetrack today, nothing but this

beastly and magic

leisure, rolled cigarette dangling

I scratch my belly in the sun

as Paul Hindemith

rides by on a bicycle,

and down the street a lady in a

very red dress

bends down into a laundry basket

rises

hangs a sheet on a line,

bends again, rises, in all that red,

that red like snake skin

clinging moving flashing

hot damn

I keep looking, and

she sees me

pauses bent over basket

clothespin in mouth

she rises with a pair of pink

pan ties

smiles around the

clothespin

waves to me.

what’s next? rape in the streets?

I wave back,

go in,

sit down at the machine

by the window, and now it’s someone’s

violin concerto in D,

and a pretty black girl in very tight pants

walking a hound,

they stop outside my window,

look in;

she has on dark shades

and her mouth opens a little, then she and the dog

move on.

someone might have bombed cities for this or

sold apples in the

rain.

but whoever is responsible, today I wish to

thank him

all the

way.

my failure

I think of de vils in hell

and stare at a

beautiful vase of

flowers

as the woman in my bedroom

angrily switches the light

on and off.

we have had a very bad

argument

and I sit in here smoking

cigarettes from

India

as on the radio an

opera singer’s prayers are

not in my

language.

outside, the window to

my left reveals the night

lights of the

city and I only wish

I had the courage to

break through this simple horror

and make things well

again

but my petty anger

prevents

me.

I realize hell is only what we

create,

smoking these cigarettes,

waiting here,

wondering here,

while in the other room

she continues to

sit and

switch the light

on and off,

on and

off.

a boy and his dog

there’s Barry in his ripped walking shorts

he’s on Thorazine

is 24

looks 38

lives with his mother in the same

apartment building

and they fight like married folk.

he wears dirty white t-shirts

and every time he gets a new dog

he names him “Brownie.”

he’s like an old woman really.

he’ll see me getting into my Volks.

“hey, ya goin’ ta work?”

“oh, no Barry, I don’t work. I’m going to

the racetrack.”

“yeah?”

he walks over to the car window.

“ya heard them last night?”

“who?”

“them! they were playin’ that shit all night!

I couldn’t sleep! they played until one-thirty!

didn’t cha hear ’em?”

“no, but I’m in the back, Barry, you’re up

front.”

we live in east Hollywood among the massage parlors,

adult bookstores and the sex film theatres.

“yeah,” says Barry. “I don’t know what this neighborhood

is comin’ to! ya know those other people in

the front

unit?”

“yes.”

“well, I saw through their curtains! and ya know what

they were doin’?”

“no, Barry.”

“this!” he says and then takes his right forefinger and

pokes it against a vein in his left arm.

“really?”

“yeah! and if it ain’t that, now we got all these

drunks in the neighborhood!”

“look, Barry, I’ve got to get to the racetrack.”

“aw’ right. but ya know what happened?”

“no, Barry.”

“a cop stopped me on my Moped. and guess why?”

“speeding?”

“no! he claimed I had to have a license to drive a Moped!

that’s stupid! he gave me a ticket! I almost smashed him

in the face!”

“oh yeah?”

“yeah! I almost smashed him!”

“Barry, I’ve got to make the first race.”

“how much does it cost you to get in?”

“four dollars and twenty-five cents.”

“I got into the Pomona County Fair for a dollar.”

“all right, Barry.”

the motor has been running. I put it into first and pull

out. in the rearview mirror I see him walk

back across the lawn.

Brownie is waiting for him,

wagging his tail.

his mother is inside waiting.

maybe Barry will slam her against the refrigerator

thinking about that cop.

or maybe they’ll play checkers.

I find the Hollywood freeway

then the Pasadena freeway.

life has been tough on Barry:

he’s 24

looks 38

but it all evens out finally:

he’s aged a good many other people

too.

liberated woman and liberated man

look there.

the one you considered killing yourself

for.

you saw her the other day

getting out of her car

in the Safeway parking lot.

she was wearing a torn green

dress and old dirty

boots

her face raw with living.

she saw you

so you walked over

and spoke and then

listened.

her hair did not glisten

her eyes and her conversation were

dull.

where was she?

where had she gone?

the one you were going to kill yourself

for?

the conversation finished

she walked into the store

and you looked at her automobile

and even that

which used to drive up and park

in front of your door

with such verve and in a spirit of

adventure

now looked

like a junkyard

joke.

you decide not to shop at

Safeway

you’ll drive 6 blocks

east and buy what you need

at Ralphs.

getting into your car

you are quite pleased that

you didn’t

kill yourself;

everything is delightful and

the air is clear.

your hands on the wheel,

you grin as you check for traffic in

the rearview mirror.

my man, you think,

you’ve saved yourself

for somebody else, but

who?

a slim young creature walks by

in a mini skirt and sandals

showing a marvelous leg.

she’s going in to shop at Safeway

too.

you turn off the engine and

follow her in.

small talk

all right, while we are gently celebrating to night

and while crazy classical music leaps at me from

my small radio, I light a fresh cigar

and realize that I am still very much alive and that

the 21st century is almost upon me!

I walk softly now toward 5 a.m. this dark night.

my 5 cats have been in and out, looking after

me, I have petted them, spoken to them, they

are full of their own private fears wrought by previous

centuries of cruelty and abuse

but I think that they love me as much as they

can, anyhow, what I am trying to say here

is that writing is just as exciting and mad and

just as big a gamble for me as it ever was, because Death

after all these years

walks around in the room with me now and speaks softly,

asking, do you still think that you are a genuine

writer? are you pleased with what you’ve done?

listen, let me have one of those

cigars.

help yourself, motherfucker, I say.

Death lights up and we sit quietly for a time.

I can feel him here with me.

don’t you long for the ferocity

of youth? He finally asks.

not so much, I say.

but don’t you regret those things

that have been lost?

not at all, I say.

don’t you miss, He asks slyly, the young girls

climbing through your window?

all they brought was bad news, I tell him.

but the illusion, He says, don’t you miss the

illusion?

hell yes, don’t you? I ask.

I have no illusions, He says sadly.

sorry, I forgot about that, I say, then walk

to the window

unafraid and strangely satisfied

to watch the warm dawn

unfold.

the crunch

too much

too little

too fat

too thin

or nobody.

laughter or

tears

haters

lovers

strangers with faces like

the backs of

thumb tacks

armies running through

streets of blood

waving winebottles

bayoneting and fucking

virgins.

or an old guy in a cheap room

with a photograph of M. Monroe.

there is a loneliness in this world so great

that you can see it in the slow movement of

the hands of a clock.

people so tired

mutilated

either by love or no love.

people just are not good to each other

one on one

the rich are not good to the rich

the poor are not good to the poor.

we are afraid.

our educational system tells us

that we can all be

big-ass winners.

it hasn’t told us

about the gutters

or the suicides.

or the terror of one person

aching in one place

alone

untouched

unspoken to

watering a plant.

people are not good to each other.

people are not good to each other.

people are not good to each other.

I suppose they never will be.

I don’t ask them to be.

but sometimes I think about

it.

the beads will swing

the clouds will cloud

and the killer will behead the child

like taking a bite out of an ice cream cone.

too much

too little

too fat

too thin

or nobody

more haters than lovers.

people are not good to each other.

perhaps if they were

our deaths would not be so sad.

meanwhile I look at young girls

stems

flowers of chance.

there must be a way.

surely there must be a way we have not yet

thought of.

who put this brain inside of me?

it cries

it demands

it says that there is a chance.

it will not say

“no.”

funhouse

I drive to the beach at night

in the winter

and sit and look at the burned-down amusement pier

wonder why they just let it sit there

in the water.

I want it out of there,

blown up,

vanished,

erased;

that pier should no longer sit there

with madmen sleeping inside

the burned-out guts of the fun house…

it’s awful, I say, blow the damn thing up,

get it out of my eyes,

that tombstone in the sea.

the madmen can find other holes

to crawl into.

I used to walk that pier when I was 8

years old.

the poetry reading

at high noon

at a small college near the beach

sober

the sweat running down my arms

a spot of sweat on the table

I flatten it with my finger

blood money blood money

my god they must think I love this like the others

but it’s for bread and beer and rent

blood money

I’m tense lousy feel bad

poor people I’m failing I’m failing

a woman gets up

walks out

slams the door

a dirty poem

somebody told me not to read dirty poems

here

it’s too late.

my eyes can’t see some lines

I read it

out—

desperate trembling

lousy

they can’t hear my voice

and I say,

I quit, that’s it, I’m

finished.

and later in my room

there’s scotch and beer:

the blood of a coward.

this then

will be my destiny:

scrabbling for pennies in dark tiny halls

reading poems I have long since become tired

of.

and I used to think

that men who drove buses

or cleaned out latrines

or murdered men in alleys were

fools.

somebody

god I got the sad blue blues,

this woman sat there and she

said

are you really Charles

Bukowski?

and I said

forget that

I do not feel good

I’ve got the sad sads

all I want to do is

fuck you

and she laughed

she thought I was being

clever

and…ust looked up her long slim legs of heaven

I saw her liver and her quivering intestine

I saw Christ in there

jumping to a folk-rock

all the long lines of starvation within me

rose

and I walked over

and grabbed her on the couch

ripped her dress up around her face

and I didn’t care

rape or the end of the earth

one more time

to be there

anywhere

real

yes

her pan ties were on the

floor

and my cock went in

my cock my god my cock went in

I was Charles

Somebody.

the colored birds

it is a highrise apt. next door

and he beats her at night and she screams and nobody stops it

and I see her the next day

standing in the driveway with curlers in her hair

and she has her huge buttocks jammed into black

slacks and she says, standing in the sun,

“god damn it, 24 hours a day in this place, I never go anywhere!”

then he comes out, proud, the little matador,

a pail of shit, his belly hanging over his bathing trunks—

he might have been a handsome man once, might have,

now they both stand there and he says,

“I think I’m goin’ for a swim.”

she doesn’t answer and he goes to the pool and

jumps into the fishless, sandless water, the peroxide-codeine water,

and I stand by the kitchen window drinking coffee

trying to unboil the fuzzy, stinking picture—

after all, you can’t live elbow to elbow to people without wanting to

draw a number on them.

every time my toilet flushes they can hear it. every time they

go to bed I can hear them.

soon she goes inside and then comes out with 2 colored birds

in a cage. I don’t know what they are. they don’t talk. they

just move a little, seeming to twitch their tail-feathers and

shit. that’s all they do.

she stands there looking at them.

he comes out: the little tuna, the little matador, out of the pool,

a dripping unbeautiful white, the cloth of his wet suit gripping.

“get those birds in the house!”

“but the birds need sun!”

“I said, get those birds in the house!”

“the birds are gonna die!”

“you listen to me, I said, GET THOSE BIRDS IN THE HOUSE!”

she bends and lifts them, her huge buttocks in the black slacks

looking so sad.

he slams the door behind them. then I hear it.

BAM!

she screams

BAM! BAM!

she screams

then: BAM!

and she screams.

I pour another coffee and decide that that’s a new

one: he usually only beats her at

night. it takes a man to beat his wife night and

day. although he doesn’t look like much

he’s one of the few real men around

here.

poem for personnel managers:

An old man asked me for a cigarette

and I carefully dealt out two.

“Been lookin’ for job. Gonna stand

in the sun and smoke.”

He was close to rags and rage

and he leaned against death.

It was a cold day, indeed, and trucks

loaded and heavy as old whores

banged and tangled on the streets…

We drop like planks from a rotting floor

as the world strives to unlock the bone

that weights its brain.

(God is a lonely place without steak.)

We are dying birds

we are sinking ships—

the world rocks down against us

and we

throw out our arms

and we

throw out our legs

like the death kiss of the centipede:

but they kindly snap our backs

and call our poison “politics.”

Well, we smoked, he and I—little men

nibbling fish-head thoughts…

All the horses do not come in,

and as you watch the lights of the jails

and hospitals wink on and out,

and men handle flags as carefully as babies,

remember this:

you are a great-gutted instrument of

heart and belly, carefully planned—

so if you take a plane for Savannah,

take the best plane;

or if you eat chicken on a rock,

make it a very special animal.

(You call it a bird; I call birds

flowers.)

And if you decide to kill somebody,

make it anybody and not somebody:

some men are made of more special, precious

parts: do not kill

if you will

a president or a King

or a man

behind a desk—

these have heavenly longitudes

enlightened attitudes.

If you decide,

take us

who stand and smoke and glower;

we are rusty with sadness and

feverish

with climbing broken ladders.

Take us:

we were never children

like your children.

We do not understand love songs

like your inamorata.

Our faces are cracked linoleum,

cracked through with the heavy, sure

feet of our masters.

We are shot through with carrot tops

and poppyseed and tilted grammar;

we waste days like mad blackbirds

and pray for alcoholic nights.

Our silk-sick human smiles wrap around

us like somebody else’s confetti:

we do not even belong to the Party.

We are a scene chalked-out with the

sick white brush of Age.

We smoke, asleep as a dish of figs.

We smoke, dead as a fog.

Take us.

A bathtub murder

or something quick and bright; our names

in the papers.

Known, at last, for a moment

to millions of careless and grape-dull eyes

that hold themselves private

to only flicker and flame

at the poor cracker-barrel jibes

of their conceited, pampered correct comedians.

Known, at last, for a moment,

as they will be known

and as you will be known

by an all-gray man on an all-gray horse

who sits and fondles a sword

longer than the night

longer than the mountain’s aching backbone

longer than all the cries

that have a-bombed up out of throats

and exploded in a newer, less-planned

land.

We smoke and the clouds do not notice us.

A cat walks by and shakes Shakespeare off of his back.

Tallow, tallow, candle like wax: our spines

are limp and our consciousness burns

guilelessly away

the remaining wick life has

doled out to us.

An old man asked me for a cigarette

and told me his troubles

and this

is what he said:

that Age was a crime

and that Pity picked up the marbles

and that Hatred picked up the

cash.

He might have been your father

or mine.

He might have been a sex-fiend

or a saint.

But what ever he was,

he was condemned

and we stood in the sun and

smoked

and looked around

in our leisure

to see who was next in

line.

my fate

like the fox

I run with the hunted

and if I’m not

the happiest man

on earth

I’m surely the

luckiest man

alive.

(uncollected)

my atomic stockpile

I cleaned my place the other day

first time in ten years

and found 100 rejected poems:

I fastened them all to a clipboard

(much bad reading).

now I will clean their teeth

fill their cavities

give them eye and ear examinations

weigh them

offer blood transfusions

then send them out again into the

sick world of posey.

either that

or I must burn down your cities,

rape your women,

murder your men,

enslave your children.

every time I clean my room

the world trembles in the balance.

that’s why I only do it once every

ten years.

(uncollected)

Bruckner (2)

Bruckner wasn’t bad

even though he got down

on his knees

and proclaimed Wagner

the master.

it saddens me, I guess,

in a small way

because while Wagner was

hitting all those homers

Bruckner was sacrificing

the runners to second

and he knew it.

and I know that

mixing baseball metaphors with classical

music

will not please the purists

either.

I prefer Ruth to most of his teammates

but I appreciate those others who did

the best they could

and kept on doing it

even when they knew they

were second best.

this is your club fighter

your back-up quarterback

the unknown jock who sometimes

brings one in

at 40-to-one.

this was Bruckner.

there are times when we should

remember

the strange courage

of the second-rate

who refuse to quit

when the nights

are black and long and sleepless

and the days are without

end.

hello, how are you?

this fear of being what they are:

dead.

at least they are not out on the street, they

are careful to stay indoors, those

pasty mad who sit alone before their TV sets,

their lives full of canned, mutilated laughter.

their ideal neighborhood

of parked cars

of little green lawns

of little homes

the little doors that open and close

as their relatives visit

throughout the holidays

the doors closing

behind the dying who die so slowly

behind the dead who are still alive

in your quiet average neighborhood

of winding streets

of agony

of confusion

of horror

of fear

of ignorance.

a dog standing behind a fence.

a man silent at the window.

vacancy

sun-stroked women

without men

on a Santa Monica Monday;

the men are working or in jail

or insane;

one girl floats in a rubber suit,

waiting…

houses slide off the edges of cliffs

and down into the sea.

the bars are empty

the lobster eating houses are empty;

it’s a recession, they say,

the good days are

over.

you can’t tell an unemployed man

from an artist any more,

they all look alike

and the women look the same,

only a little more desperate.

we stop at a hippie hole

in Topanga Canyon…

and wait, wait, wait;

the whole area of the canyon and the beach

is listless

useless

VACANCY, it says, PEOPLE WANTED.

the wood has no fire

the sea is dirty

the hills are dry

the temples have no bells

love has no bed

sun-stroked women without men

one sailboat

life drowned.

batting slump

the sun slides down through the shades.

I have a pair of black shoes and a pair of

brown shoes.

I can hardly remember the girls of my youth.

there is numb blood pulsing through the

falcon and the hyena and the pimp

and there’s no escaping this unreasonable

sorrow.

there’s crabgrass and razor wire and the snoring

of my cat.

there are lifeguards sitting in canvas-back chairs

with salt rotting under their toenails.

there’s the hunter with eyes like rose

petals.

sorrow, yes, it pulls at me

I don’t know why.

avenues of despair slide into my ears.

the worms won’t sing.

the Babe swings again

missing a 3-and-2 pitch

twisting around himself

leaning over his

whiskey gut.

cows give milk

dentists pull teeth

thermometers work.

I can sing the blues

it doesn’t cost a dime and

when I lay down to night

pull up the covers

there’s the dark factor

there’s the unknown factor

there’s this manufactured

staggering

black

empty

space.

I got to hit one out of here

pretty soon.

bang bang

absolutely sesamoid

said the skeleton

shoving his chalky foot

upon my desk,

and that was it,

bang bang,

he looked at me,

and it was my bone body

and I was what remained,

and there was a newspaper

on my desk

and somebody folded the newspaper

and I folded,

I was the newspaper

under somebody’s arm

and the sheet of me

had eyes

and I saw the skeleton

watching

and just before the door closed

I saw a man who looked

partly like Napoleon,

partly like Hitler,

fighting with my skeleton,

then the door closed

and we went down the steps

and outside

and I was under

the arm

of a fat little man

who knew nothing

and I hated him

for his indifference

to fact, how I hated him

as he unfolded me

in the subway

and I fell against the back

of an old woman.

the pleasures of the damned

the pleasures of the damned

are limited to brief moments

of happiness:

like the eyes in the look of a dog,

like a square of wax,

like a fire taking the city hall,

the county,

the continent,

like fire taking the hair

of maidens and monsters;

and hawks buzzing in peach trees,

the sea running between their claws,

Time

drunk and damp,

everything burning,

everything wet,

everything fine.

one more good one

to be writing poetry at the age of 50

like a schoolboy,

surely, I must be crazy;

racetracks and booze and arguments

with the landlord;

watercolor paintings under the bed

with dirty socks;

a bathtub full of trash

and a garbage can lined with

underground newspapers;

a record player that doesn’t work,

a radio that doesn’t work,

and I don’t work—

I sit between 2 lamps,

bottle on the floor

begging a 20-year-old typewriter

to say something, in a way and

well enough

so they won’t confuse me

with the more comfortable

practitioners;

this is certainly not a game for

flyweights or Ping-Pong players—

all arguments to the contrary.

—but once you get the taste, it’s good to get your

teeth into

words. I forgive those who

can’t quit.

I forgive myself.

this is where the action is,

this is the hot horse that

comes in.

there’s no grander fort

no better flag

no better woman

no better way; yet there’s much else to say—

there seems as much hell in it as

magic; death gets as close as any lover has,

closer,

you know it like your right hand

like a mark on the wall

like your daughter’s name,

you know it like the face on the corner

newsboy,

and you sit there with flowers and houses

with dogs and death and a boil on the neck,

you sit down and do it again and again

the machinegun chattering by the window

as the people walk by

as you sit in your undershirt,

50, on an indelicate March evening,

as their faces look in and help you write the next 5

lines,

as they walk by and say,

“the old man in the window, what’s the deal with

him?”

—fucked by the muse, friends,

thank you—

and I roll a cigarette with one hand

like the old bum

I am, and then thank and curse the gods

alike,

lean forward

drag on the cigarette

think of the good fighters

like poor Hem, poor Beau Jack, poor Sugar Ray,

poor Kid Gavilan, poor Villon, poor Babe, poor

Hart Crane, poor

me, hahaha.

I lean forward,

redhot ash

falling on my wrists,

teeth into the word.

crazy at the age of 50,

I send it

home.

the little girls hissed

since my last name was Fuch, he said to Raymond, you can

believe the school yard was tough: they put itching

powder down my neck, threw gravel at me, stung me

with rubber bands in class, and outside they called

me names, well, one name mainly, over and over,

and on top of all that my parents were poor, I wore

cardboard in my shoes to fill in the holes in the

soles, my pants were patched, my shirts threadbare;

and even my teachers ganged up

on me, they slammed my

palm with rulers and sent me to the principal’s office as

if I was really guilty of something;

and, of course, the abuse kept coming from my classmates;

I was stoned, beaten, pissed on;

the little girls hissed and stuck their tongues out

at me…

Fuch’s wife smiled sadly at Raymond: my poor darling husband had

such a terrible childhood!

(she was so beautiful it almost stunned one to look at

her.)

Fuch looked at Raymond: hey, your glass is empty.

yeah, said Raymond.

Fuch touched a button and the English butler silently

glided in. he nodded respectfully to Raymond and in his

beautiful accent asked, another drink, sir?

yes, please, Raymond answered.

the butler went off to prepare the drink.

what hurt most, of course, continued Fuch, was the name

calling.

Raymond asked, have you never forgotten it?

I did for a while, but then strangely I began to

miss the abuse…

the butler returned carrying Raymond’s

drink on a silver tray.

here is your drink, sir, said the butler.

thank you, said Raymond, taking it off the tray.

o.k., Paul, Fuch said to the butler, you can

start now.

now? asked the butler.

now, came the answer.

the butler stood in front of Fuch and screamed:

fucky-boy! fucky-baby! fuck-face! fuck-brain!

where did your name come from, fuck-head?

how come you’re such a fuck-up?

etc….

they all started laughing uncontrollably

as the butler delivered his tirade in that

beautiful British accent.

they couldn’t stop laughing, they fell out of their

chairs and got down on the rug, pounding it and

laughing, Fuch, his lovely young wife and Raymond

in that sprawling mansion overlooking the shining sea.

ha ha ha ha ha, ha ha

monkey feet

small and blue

walking toward you

as the back of a building falls off

and an airplane chews the white sky,

doom is like the handle of a pot,

it’s there,

know it,

have ice in your tea,

marry,

have children, visit your

dentist,

do not scream at night

even if you feel like screaming,

count ten

make love to your wife,

or if your wife isn’t there

if there isn’t anybody there

count 20,

get up and walk to the kitchen

if you have a kitchen

and sit there sweating

at 3 a.m. in the morning

monkey feet

small and blue

walking toward you.

thoughts from a stone bench in Venice

I sit on this bench and look

at the sea and the freaks and the

lovers.

I need new eyes a new mouth new

pillows, a new woman.

every old stud with half an eye in

his head loves to charm and ride

a new young calf.

when I think of womenless men mowing their

Saturday lawns and playing football,

baseball, basketball with their sons

I feel like vomiting into the far

horizon.

the family stinks of Christ

and the American Stock Exchange.

the family stinks of safety and

numbness and Thanksgiving turkeys.

the family stinks of airless packed

automobiles driving through

redwood forests.

I need new eyes a new woman new

ankles a new voice new betrayals.

I don’t want a long funeral

pro cession when I die.

I want to move on without weight

or obligation.

I want just the sullen darkness I want

a tomb like this night now:

me here undiluted—

solid, cranky, immaculate.

I hold fast to me. that’s all there

is.

(uncollected)

scene in a tent outside the cotton fields of Bakersfield:

we fought for 17 days inside that tent

thrusting and counter-thrusting

but finally she got away

and I walked outside

and spit

in the dirty sand.

Abdullah, I said, why don’t you

wash your shorts? you’ve been

wearing the same

shorts

for 17 years.

Effendi, he said, it’s the sun,

the sun cleans everything. what

went with the girl?

I don’t know if I couldn’t

please her

or if I couldn’t

catch her. she was

pretty young.

what did she cost, Effendi?

17 camel.

he whistled through his broken

teeth. aren’t you going

to catch her?

howinthehell how? can I get

my camels back?

you are an American, he said.

I walked into the tent

fell upon the ground

and held my head

within

my hands.

suddenly she burst within

the tent

laughing madly,

Americano,

Americano!

please

go away

I said quietly.

men are, she said sitting down and rolling down

her stockings, some parts titty and some parts

tiger. you don’t mind

if I roll down

my stockings?

I don’t mind, I said,

if you roll down the top

of your dress. whores are

always rolling down

their hose. please

go away. I read where

the cruiser crew passed the helmet

for the red cross; I think I’ll

have them pass it

to brace your flabby

butt.

have ’em pass the helmet twice, dad,

she said, howcum you don’t love me

no more?

I been thinking, I said,

how can Love have a urinary tract

and distended bowels?

pack up, daughter, and flow,

maneuver out of the mansions

of my sight!

you forget, daddy-o, we’re in

my tent!

oh, Christ, I said, the trivialities

of private ownership! where’s my

hat?

you were wearing a towel, dad, but

kiss me, daddy, hold me in your arms!

I walked over and mauled her breasts.

I drink too much beer, she said,

I can’t help it if I

piss.

we fucked for 17 days.

3:16 and one half…

here I’m supposed to be a great poet

and I’m sleepy in the afternoon

here I am aware of death like a giant bull

charging at me

and I’m sleepy in the afternoon

here I’m aware of wars and men fighting in the ring

and I’m aware of good food and wine and good women

and I’m sleepy in the afternoon

I’m aware of a woman’s love

and I’m sleepy in the afternoon,

I lean into the sunlight behind a yellow curtain

I wonder where the summer flies have gone

I remember the most bloody death of Hemingway

and I’m sleepy in the afternoon.

some day I won’t be sleepy in the afternoon

some day I’ll write a poem that will bring volcanoes

to the hills out there

but right now I’m sleepy in the afternoon

and somebody asks me, “Bukowski, what time is it?”

and I say, “3:16 and a half.”

I feel very guilty, I feel obnoxious, useless,

demented, I feel

sleepy in the afternoon,

they are bombing churches, o.k., that’s o.k.,

the children ride ponies in the park, o.k., that’s o.k.,

the libraries are filled with thousands of books of knowledge,

great music sits inside the nearby radio

and I am sleepy in the afternoon,

I have this tomb within myself that says,

ah, let the others do it, let them win,

let me sleep,

wisdom is in the dark

sweeping through the dark like brooms,

I’m going where the summer flies have gone,

try to catch me.

a literary discussion

Markov claims I am trying

to stab his soul

but I’d prefer his wife.

I put my feet on the coffee table

and he says,

I don’t mind you putting

your feet on the coffee table

except that the legs are wobbly

and the thing

will fall apart

any minute.

I leave my feet on the table

but I’d prefer his wife.

I would rather, says Markov,

entertain a ditchdigger

or a news vendor

because they are kind enough

to observe the decencies

even though

they don’t know

Rimbaud from rat poison.

my empty beercan

rolls to the floor.

that I must die

bothers me less than

a straw, says Markov,

my part of the game

is that I must live

the best I can.

I grab his wife as she walks by,

and then her can is against my belly,

and she has fine knees and breasts

and I kiss her.

it is not so bad, being old, he says,

a calmness sets in, but here’s the catch:

to keep calmness and deadness

separate; never to look upon youth

as inferior because you are old,

never to look upon age as wisdom

because you have experience. a

man can be old and a fool—

many are, a man can be young

and wise—few are. a—

for Christ’s all sake, I wailed,

shut up!

he walked over and got his cane and

walked out.

you’ve hurt his feelings, she said,

he thinks you are a great poet.

he’s too slick for me, I said,

he’s too wise.

I had one of her breasts out.

it was a monstrous

beautiful

thing.

butterflies

I believe in earning one’s own way

but I also believe in the unexpected

gift

and it is a wondrous thing

when a woman who has read your works

(or parts of them, anyhow)

offers her self to you

out of the blue

a total

stranger.

such an offer

such a communion

must be taken as

holy.

the hands

the fingers

the hair

the smell

the light.

one would like to be strong enough

to turn them away

those butterflies.

I believe in earning one’s own way

but I also believe in the unexpected gift.

I have no shame.

we deserve one

another

those butterflies

who flutter to my tiny

flame

and

me.

the great escape

listen, he said, you ever seen a bunch of crabs in a

bucket?

no, I told him.

well, what happens is that now and then one crab

will climb up on top of the others

and begin to climb toward the top of the bucket,

then, just as he’s about to escape

another crab grabs him and pulls him back

down.

really? I asked.

really, he said, and this job is just like that, none

of the others want anybody to get out of

here. that’s just the way it is

in the postal ser vice!

I believe you, I said.

just then the supervisor walked up and said,

you fellows were talking.

there is no talking allowed on this

job.

I had been there eleven and one-half

years.

I got up off my stool and climbed right up the

supervisor

and then I reached up and pulled myself right

out of there.

it was so easy it was unbelievable.

but none of the others followed me.

and after that, whenever I had crab legs

I thought about that place.

I must have thought about that place

maybe 5 or 6 times

before I switched to lobster.

my friend William

my friend William is a fortunate man:

he lacks the imagination to suffer

he kept his first job

his first wife

can drive a car 50,000 miles

without a brake job

he dances like a swan

and has the prettiest blankest eyes

this side of El Paso

his garden is a paradise

the heels of his shoes are always level

and his handshake is firm

people love him

when my friend William dies

it will hardly be from madness or cancer

he’ll walk right past the de vil

and into heaven

you’ll see him at the party to night

grinning

over his martini

blissful and delightful

as some guy

fucks his wife in the

bathroom.

safe

the house next door makes me

sad.

both man and wife rise early and

go to work.

they arrive home in early evening.

they have a young boy and a girl.

by 9 p.m. all the lights in the house

are out.

the next morning both man and

wife rise early again and go to

work.

they return in early evening.

by 9 p.m. all the lights are

out.

the house next door makes me

sad.

the people are nice people, I

like them.

but I feel them drowning.

and I can’t save them.

they are surviving.

they are not

homeless.

but the price is

terrible.

sometimes during the day

I will look at the house

and the house will look at

me

and the house will

weep, yes, it does, I

feel it.

the house is sad for the people living

there

and I am too

and we look at each other

and cars go up and down the

street,

boats cross the harbor

and the tall palms poke

at the sky

and to night at 9 p.m.

the lights will go out,

and not only in that

house

and not only in this

city.

safe lives hiding,

almost

stopped,

the breathing of

bodies and little

else.

starve, go mad, or kill yourself

I’m not going to die

easy;

I’ve sat on your suicide beds

in some of the worst

holes in America,

penniless and mad I’ve been,

I mean, insane, you know;

big tears, each one the size of your bastard hearts,

flowing down,

roaches crawling into my shoes,

one dirty 40-watt lightbulb overhead

and a room that smelled like piss;

while your rich

your falsely famous

laughed in safe stale places

far away,

you gave me a suicide bed and two choices,

no three:

starve, go mad, or kill yourself.

for now enjoy your trips to Paris where

you consort with great painters and dupes,

but I am getting ready for your eyes and your brain and

your dirty dishwater souls;

you men who have created a pigpen for millions

to choke soundlessly in—

from India to Los Angeles

from Paris to the tits of the Nile—

you’re fucked up

you rich you warty you insecure you pricky

damned imbecile pasty white

idiots with your starched shirts and your starched wives and, yes yes,

your starched lives,

get away get away

get away

go to Paris

while you can

while I let you.

the jolly damned man with the hoe (see Markham)

didn’t answer the call,

but your children will be raped and your pigs will be eaten

and the skies will burn black with crows and your cries,

as you answer for centuries of

unbearable indignity and bullshit.

you will be dealt with

we know you now

we’ve known you forever;

the might of the timorous

flies forth like a tremendous and ever beautiful swan,

no shit, friend,

look up look up look up look up

the jolly damned man with the hoe

is now flying over Milwaukee

grinning

more lovely than the sun

more graceful than all the ugly wounds

more real than you

or I or anything.

(uncollected)

the beautiful lady

we are gathered here now

to bury her in this

poem.

she did not marry an unemployed wino who

beat her every

night.

her several children will never wear

snot-stained shirts

or torn dresses.

the beautiful lady

simply

calmly

died.

and may the clean dirt of this poem

bury

her.

her and her womb

and her jewels

and her combs and her

poems

and her pale blue eyes

and her

grinning

rich

frightened

husband.

my life as a sitcom

stepped into the wrong end of the Jacuzzi and twisted my

right leg which was bad to begin with, then that night got drunk

with a tv writer and an actor, something about using my

life to make a sitcom and luckily that fell through and the next

day at the track I get a box seat in the dining area, get a

menu and a glass of water, my leg is really paining me, I

can barely walk to the betting window and back, then

about the 3rd race the waiter rushes by, asks, “can I

borrow your menu?” but he doesn’t wait for an answer,

he just grabs it and runs off.

a couple of races go by, I fight through my pain and continue to

make my bets, get back, sit down just as the waiter rushes by again.

he grabs all my silverware and my napkin and runs off.

“HEY!” I yell but he’s gone.

all around me people are eating, drinking and laughing.

I check my watch after the 6th race and it is 4:30 p.m.

I haven’t been served yet and I’m 72 years old with

a hangover and a leg from hell.

I pull myself to my feet by the edge of the table and manage

to hobble about looking for the maitre d’. I see him down

a far aisle and wave him in.

“can I speak to you?” I ask.

“certainly, sir!”

“look, it’s the 7th race, they took my menu and my silverware

and I haven’t been served yet.”

“we’ll take care of it right away, sir!”

well, the 7th race went, the 8th race went, and

still no ser vice.

I purchase my ticket for the 9th race and take the

escalator down.

on the first floor, I purchase a sandwich.

I eat it going down another escalator to the parking lot.

the valet laughs as I slowly work my leg into the

car, making a face of pain as I do so.

“got a gimpy leg there, huh, Hank?” he asks.

I pull out, make it to the boulevard and onto the

freeway which immediately begins to slow down because

of a 3-car crash ahead.

I snap on the radio in time to find that my horse

has run out in the 9th.

a flash of pain shoots up my right leg.

I decide to tell my wife about my

misfortunes at the track

even though I know she will respond

by telling me that everything as always

was completely my fault

but when a man is in pain he can’t think right,

he only asks for

more.

and

gets it.

who needs it?

see this poem?

it was

written without drinking.

I don’t need to drink

to write.

I can write without

drinking.

my wife says I can.

I say that maybe I can.

I’m not drinking

and I’m writing.

see this poem?

it was

written without drinking.

who needs a drink now?

probably the reader.

riots

I’ve watched this city burn twice

in my lifetime

and the most notable event

was the reaction of the

politicians in the

aftermath

as they

proclaimed the injustice of

the system

and demanded a new

deal for the hapless and the

poor.

nothing was corrected last

time.

nothing will be changed this

time.

the poor will remain poor.

the unemployed will remain

so.

the homeless will remain

homeless

and the politicians,

fat upon the land, will thrive

forever.

those marvelous lunches

when I was in grammar school

my parents were

poor

and in my lunch bag there was

only a peanut butter sandwich.

Richardson didn’t have a

lunch bag,

he had a lunch pail with

compartments, a

thermos full of

chocolate milk.

he had ham sandwiches,

sliced beef sandwiches,

apples, bananas, a

pickle and a large bag of

potato chips.

I sat next to Richardson

as we ate.

his potato chips looked

so good—

large and crisp as the

sun blazed upon

them.

“you want some potato

chips?” he would

ask.

and each day

I would eat some.

as I went to school each

day

my thoughts

were on Richardson’s

lunch, and especially

those chips.

each morning as we

studied in class

I thought about

lunchtime.

and sitting next to

Richardson.

Richardson was the

sissy and the other

boys looked down

on me

for eating with

him

but I

didn’t care.

it was the potato

chips, I couldn’t

help myself.

“you want some

potato chips, Henry?”

he would

ask.

“yes.”

the other boys got

after me

when Richardson

wasn’t

around.

“hey, who’s your

sissy friend?

you one

too?”

I didn’t like that

but the potato

chips were more

important.

after a while

nobody spoke to

me.

sometimes I ate

one of Richardson’s

apples

or I got half a

pickle.

I was always

hungry.

Richardson was

fat,

he had a big

belly

and fleshy

thighs.

he was the only

friend I had in

grammar

school.

we seldom spoke

to each

other.

we just sat

together at

lunchtime.

I walked home with

him after school

and often some of

the boys would

follow us.

they

would gather around

Richardson,

gang up on him,

push him around,

knock him

down

again and

again.

after they were

finished

I would go

pick up his lunch

pail,

which was

spilled on its

side

with the lid

open.

I would place the

thermos back

inside,

close the

lid.

then I would

carry the pail as

I walked Richardson

back to his

house.

we never spoke.

as we got to his door

I would hand him

the lunch

pail.

then the door would

close and he would

be gone.

I was the only friend

he had.

sissies live a hard

life.

The Look:

I once bought a toy rabbit

at a department store

and now he sits and ponders

me with pink sheer eyes:

He wants golf balls and glass

walls.

I want quiet thunder.

Our disappointment sits between us.

the big one

he buys 5 cars a month, details them, waxes and buffs

them out, then

resells them at a profit of one or two grand.

he has a nice Jewish wife and he tells me that he

bangs her until the walls shake.

he wears a red cap, squints in the light, has a regular

job besides the car gig.

I have no idea of what he is trying to accomplish and maybe he

doesn’t either.

he’s a nicer fellow than most, always good to see him,

we laugh, say a few bright lines.

but

each time

after I see him

I get the blues for him, for me, for all of us:

for want of something to do

we keep slaying our small dragons

as the big one waits.

the genius

this man sometimes forgets who

he is.

sometimes he thinks he’s the

Pope.

other times he thinks he’s a

hunted rabbit

and hides under the

bed.

then

all at once

he’ll recapture total

clarity

and begin creating

works of

art.

then he’ll be all right

for some

time.

then, say,

he’ll be sitting with his

wife

and 3 or 4 other

people

discussing various

matters

he will be charming,

incisive,

original.

then he’ll do

something

strange.

like once

he stood up

unzipped

and began

pissing

on the

rug.

another time

he ate a paper

napkin.

and there was

the time

he got into his

car

and drove it

backwards

all the way to

the

grocery store

and back

again

backwards

the other motorists

screaming at

him

but he

made it

there and

back

without

incident

and without

being

stopped

by a patrol

car.

but he’s best

as the

Pope

and his

Latin

is very

good.

his works of

art

aren’t that

exceptional

but they allow him

to

survive

and to live with

a series of

19-year-old

wives

who

cut his hair

his toenails

bib

tuck and

feed

him.

he wears everybody

out

but

himself.

about the PEN conference

take a writer away from his typewriter

and all you have left

is

the sickness

which started him

typing

in the

beginning.

what a man I was

I shot off his left ear

then his right,

and then tore off his belt buckle

with hot lead,

and then

I shot off everything that counts

and when he bent over

to pick up his drawers

and his marbles

(poor critter)

I fixed it so he wouldn’t have

to straighten up

no more.

Ho Hum.

I went in for a fast snort

and one guy seemed

to be looking at me sideways,

and that’s how he died—

sideways,

lookin’ at me

and clutchin’

for his marbles.

Sight o’ blood made me kinda

hungry.

Had a ham sandwich.

Played a couple of sentimental songs…

Shot out all the lights

and strolled outside.

Didn’t seem to be no one around

so I shot my horse

(poor critter).

Then I saw the Sheerf

a standin’ at the end a’ the road

and he was shakin’

like he had the Saint Vitus’ dance;

it was a real sorrowful sight

so I slowed him to a quiver

with the first slug

and mercifully stiffened him

with the second.

Then I laid on my back awhile

and I shot out the stars one by one

and then

I shot out the moon

and then I walked around

and shot out every light

in town,

and pretty soon it began to get dark

real dark

the way I like it;

just can’t stand to sleep

with no light shinin’

on my face.

I laid down and dreamt

I was a little boy again

a playin’ with my toy six-shooter

and winnin’ all the marble games,

and when I woke up

my guns was gone

and I was all bound hand and foot

just like somebody

was scared a me

and they was slippin’

a noose around my ugly neck

just as if they

meant to hang me,

and some guy was pinnin’

a real pretty sign

on my shirt:

there’s a law for you

and a law for me

and a law that hangs

from the foot of a tree.

Well, pretty poetry always did

make my eyes water

and can you believe it

all the women was cryin’

and though they was moanin’

other men’s names

I just know they was cryin’

for me (poor critters)

and though I’d slept with all a them,

I’d forgotten

in all the big excitement

to tell ’em my name

and all the men looked angry

but I guess it was because the kids

was all being impolite

and a throwin’ tin cans at me,

but I told ’em not to worry

because their aim was bad anyhow

not a boy there looked like he’d turn

into a man—

90% homosexuals, the lot of them,

and some guy shouted

“let’s send him to hell!”

and with a jerk I was dancin’

my last dance,

but I swung out wide

and spit in the bartender’s eye

and stared down

into Nellie Adam’s breasts,

and my mouth watered again.

Scarlet

I’m glad when they arrive

and I’m glad when they leave

I’m glad when I hear their heels

approaching my door

and I’m glad when those heels

walk away

I’m glad to fuck

I’m glad to care

and I’m glad when it’s over

and

since it’s always either

starting or finishing

I’m glad

most of the time

and the cats walk up and down

and the earth spins around the sun

and the phone rings:

“this is Scarlet.”

“who?”

“Scarlet.”

“o.k., get it on over.”

and I hang up thinking

maybe this is it

go in

take a quick shit

shave

bathe

dress

dump the sacks

and cartons of empty

bottles

sit down to the sound of

heels approaching

more an army approaching than

victory

it’s Scarlet

and in my kitchen the faucet

keeps dripping

needs a washer.

I’ll take care of it

later.

like a flower in the rain

I cut the middle fingernail of the middle

finger

right hand

real short

and I began rubbing along her cunt

as she sat upright in bed

spreading lotion over her arms

face

and breasts

after bathing.

then she lit a cigarette:

“don’t let this put you off,”

and smoked and continued to rub the

lotion on.

I continued to rub the cunt.

“you want an apple?” I asked.

“sure,” she said, “you got one?”

but I got to her—

she began to twist

then she rolled on her side,

she was getting wet and open

like a flower in the rain.

then she rolled on her stomach

and her most beautiful ass

looked up at me

and I reached under and got the

cunt again.

she reached around and got my

cock, she rolled and twisted,

I mounted

my face falling into the mass

of red hair that overflowed

from her head

and my fattened cock entered

into the miracle.

later we joked about the lotion

and the cigarette and the apple.

then I went out and got some chicken

and shrimp and french fries and buns

and mashed potatoes and gravy and

cole slaw, and we ate. she told me

how good she felt and I told her

how good I felt and we ate

the chicken and the shrimp and the

french fries and the buns and the

mashed potatoes and the gravy and

the cole slaw too.

a killer

consistency is terrific:

shark-mouth

grubby interior with an

almost perfect body,

long blazing hair—

it confuses me

and others

she runs from man to man

offering endearments

she speaks of love

then breaks each man

to her will

shark-mouthed

grubby interior

we see it too late:

after the cock gets swallowed

the heart follows

her long blazing hair

her almost perfect body

walks down the street

as the same sun

falls upon flowers.

prayer in bad weather

by God, I don’t know what to

do.

they’re so nice to have around.

they have a way of playing with

the balls

and looking at the cock very

seriously

turning it

tweeking it

examining each part

as their long hair falls on

your belly.

it’s not the fucking and sucking

alone that reaches into a man

and softens him, it’s the extras,

it’s all the extras.

now it’s raining to night

and there’s nobody

they are elsewhere

examining things

in new bedrooms

in new moods

or maybe in old

bedrooms.

anyhow, it’s raining to night,

one hell of a dashing, pouring

rain….

very little to do.

I’ve read the newspaper

paid the gas bill

the electric co.

the phone bill.

it keeps raining.

they soften a man

and then let him swim

in his own juice.

I need an old-fashioned whore

at the door to night

closing her green umbrella,

drops of moonlit rain on her

purse, saying, “shit, man,

can’t you get better music

than that on your radio?

and turn up the heat…”

it’s always when a man’s swollen

with love and everything

else

that it keeps raining

splattering

flooding

rain

good for the trees and the

grass and the air…

good for things that

live alone.

I would give anything

for a female’s hand on me

tonight.

they soften a man and

then leave him

listening to the rain.

melancholia

the history of melancholia

includes all of us.

me, I writhe in dirty sheets

while staring at blue walls

and nothing.

I have gotten so used to melancholia

that

I greet it like an old

friend.

I will now do 15 minutes of grieving

for the lost redhead,

I tell the gods.

I do it and feel quite bad

quite sad,

then I rise

CLEANSED

even though nothing is

solved.

that’s what I get for kicking

religion in the ass.

I should have kicked the redhead

in the ass

where her brains and her bread and

butter are

at…

but, no, I’ve felt sad

about everything:

the lost redhead was just another

smash in a lifelong

loss…

I listen to drums on the radio now

and grin.

there is something wrong with me

besides

melancholia.

eat your heart out

I’ve come by, she says, to tell you

that this is it. I’m not kidding, it’s

over. this is it.

I sit on the couch watching her arrange

her long red hair before my bedroom

mirror.

she pulls her hair up and

piles it on top of her head—

she lets her eyes look at

my eyes—

then she drops the hair and

lets it fall down in front of her face.

we go to bed and I hold her

speechlessly from the back

my arm around her neck

I touch her wrists and hands

feel up to

her elbows

no further.

she gets up.

this is it, she says,

eat your heart out. you

got any rubber bands?

I don’t know.

here’s one, she says,

this will do. well,

I’m going.

I get up and walk her

to the door

just as she leaves

she says,

I want you to buy me

some high-heeled shoes

with tall thin spikes,

black high-heeled shoes.

no, I want them

red.

I watch her walk down the cement walk

under the trees

she walks all right and

as the poinsettias drip in the sun

I close the door.

I made a mistake

I reached up into the top of the closet

and took out a pair of blue pan ties

and showed them to her and

asked “are these yours?”

and she looked and said,

“no, those belong to a dog.”

she left after that and I haven’t seen

her since. she’s not at her place.

I keep going there, leaving notes stuck

into the door. I go back and the notes

are still there. I take the Maltese cross

cut it down from my car mirror, tie it

to her doorknob with a shoelace, leave

a book of poems.

when I go back the next night everything

is still there.

I keep searching the streets for that

blood-wine battleship she drives

with a weak battery, and the doors

hanging from broken hinges.

I drive around the streets

an inch away from weeping,

ashamed of my sentimentality and

possible love.

a confused old man driving in the rain

wondering where the good luck

went.

she comes from somewhere

probably from the belly button or from the shoe under the

bed, or maybe from the mouth of the shark or from

the car crash on the avenue that leaves blood and memories

scattered on the grass.

she comes from love gone wrong under an

asphalt moon.

she comes from screams stuffed with cotton.

she comes from hands without arms

and arms without bodies

and bodies without hearts.

she comes out of cannons and shotguns and old victrolas.

she comes from parasites with blue eyes and soft voices.

she comes out from under the organ like a roach.

she keeps coming.

she’s inside of sardine cans and letters.

she’s under your fingernails pressing blue and flat.

she’s the signpost on the barricade

smeared in brown.

she’s the toy soldiers inside your head

poking their lead bayonets.

she’s the first kiss and the last kiss and

the dog’s guts spilling like a river.

she comes from somewhere and she never stops

coming.

me, and that

old woman:

sorrow.

The High-Rise of the New World

it is an orange

animal

with

hand grenades

fire power

big teeth and

a horn of smoke

a colored man

with cigar

yanks at

gears and the damn thing never gets

tired

my neighbor

….n old man in blue

bathing trunks

….n old man

a fetid white obscene

thing—

the old man

lifts apart some purple flowers

and peeks through the fence at the

orange animal

and like a horror movie

I see the orange animal open its

mouth—

it belches it has teeth fastened onto a giraffe’s

neck—

and it reached over the fence and it gets the

old man in his blue

bathing trunks

neatly

it gets him

from behind the fence of purple flowers

and his whiteness is like

garbage in the air

and then

he’s dumped into a

shock of lumber

and then the orange animal

backs off

spins

turns

runs off into the Hollywood Hills

the palm trees the

boulevards as

the colored man

sucks red steam

from his

cigar

I’ll be glad when it’s all

over

the noise is

terrible and I’m afraid to go and

buy a

paper.

car wash

got out, fellow said, “hey!” walked toward

me, we shook hands, he slipped me 2 red

tickets for free car washes, “find you later,”

I told him, walked on through to waiting

area with wife, we sat on outside bench.

black fellow with a limp came up, said,

“hey, man, how’s it going?”

I answered, “fine, bro, you makin’ it?”

“no problem,” he said, then walked off to

dry down a Caddy.

“these people know you?” my wife asked.

“no.”

“how come they talk to you?”

“they like me, people have always liked me,

it’s my cross.”

then our car was finished, fellow flipped

his rag at me, we got up, got to the

car, I slipped him a buck, we got in, I

started the engine, the foreman walked

up, big guy with dark shades, huge guy,

he smiled a big one, “good to see you,

man!”

I smiled back, “thanks, but it’s your party,

man!”

I pulled out into traffic, “they know you,”

said my wife.

“sure,” I said, “I’ve been there.”

Van Gogh

vain vanilla ladies strutting

while van Gogh did it to

himself.

girls pulling on silk

hose

while van Gogh did it to

himself

in the field

unkissed, and

worse.

I pass him on the street:

“how’s it going, Van?”

“I dunno, man,” he says

and walks on.

there is a blast of color:

one more creature

dizzy with love.

he said,

then,

I want to leave.

and they look at his paintings

and love him

now.

for that kind of love

he did the right

thing

as for the other kind of love

it never arrived.

the railroad yard

the feelings I get

driving past the railroad yard

(never on purpose but on my way to somewhere)

are the feelings other men have for other things.

I see the tracks and all the boxcars

the tank cars the flat cars

all of them motionless and so many of them

perfectly lined up and not an engine anywhere

(where are all the engines?).

I drive past looking sideways at it all

a wide, still railroad yard

not a human in sight

then I am past the yard

and it wasn’t just the romance of it all

that gives me what I get

but something back there nameless

always making me feel better

as some men feel better looking at the open sea

or the mountains or at wild animals

or at a woman

I like those things too

especially the wild animals and the woman

but when I see those lovely old boxcars

with their faded painted lettering

and those flat cars and those fat round tankers

all lined up and waiting

I get quiet inside

I get what other men get from other things

I just feel better and it’s good to feel better

whenever you can

not needing a reason.

the girls at the green hotel

are more beautiful than

movie stars

and they lounge on the

lawn

sunbathing

and one sits in a short

dress and high

heels, legs crossed

exposing miraculous

thighs.

she has a bandanna

on her head

and smokes a

long cigarette.

traffic slows

almost stops.

the girls ignore

the traffic.

they are half

asleep in the afternoon

they are whores

they are whores without

souls

and they are magic

because they lie

about nothing.

I get in my car

wait for traffic to

clear,

drive across the street

to the green hotel

to my favorite:

she is

sunbathing on the

lawn nearest the

curb.

“hello,” I say.

she turns eyes like

imitation diamonds

up at me.

her face has no

expression.

I drop my latest

book of poems

out the car

window.

it falls

by her side.

I shift into

low,

drive off.

there’ll be some

laughs

to night.

in other words

the Egyptians loved the cat

were often entombed with it

instead of with the women

and never with the dog

but now

here

good people with

good eyes

are very few

yet fine cats

with great style

lounge about

in the alleys of

the universe.

about

our argument to night

what ever it was

about

and

no matter

how unhappy

it made us

feel

remember that

there is a

cat

somewhere

adjusting to the

space of itself

with a delightful

grace

in other words

magic persists

without us

no matter what

we may try to do

to spoil it.

Destroying Beauty

a rose

red sunlight;

I take it apart

in the garage

like a puzzle:

the petals are as greasy

as old bacon

and fall

like the maidens of the world

backs to floor

and I look up

at the old calendar

hung from a nail

and touch

my wrinkled face

and smile

because

the secret

is beyond me.

peace

near the corner table in the

cafe

a middle-aged couple

sit.

they have finished their

meal

and they are each drinking a

beer.

it is 9 in the evening.

she is smoking a

cigarette.

then he says something.

she nods.

then she speaks.

he grins, moves his

hand.

then they are

quiet.

through the blinds next to

their table

flashing red neon

blinks on and

off.

there is no war.

there is no hell.

then he raises his beer

bottle.

it is green.

he lifts it to his lips,

tilts it.

it is a coronet.

her right elbow is

on the table

and in her hand

she holds the

cigarette

between her thumb and

forefinger

and

as she watches

him

the streets outside

flower

in the

night.

afternoons into night

looking out the window

smoking rolled cigarettes

drinking Sanka

and watching the workers

come on in

I wonder, how much longer

can I get away with this?

stories and poems and

paintings

surviving on that.

an insane girlfriend

years younger

who loves me

types at her novel

in the kitchen.

my stories, my poems…

what is a poem?

a book by Céline sits on

the edge of the bathtub.

I read it when I bathe

and laugh.

the workers come in now

I see their faces,

the insides scraped away,

the outsides

missing.

I’ve had their jobs,

their goldfish

security.

Segovia plays to me

so softly from the

radio, the daylight’s going.

look here—

the trip’s been worth it,

while the jetliners go to New York and

Georgia and Texas

I sit surrounded by hymns that

nobody can ever take away

as the workers bend over

hot soup and cold

wives.

(uncollected)

we ain’t got no money, honey, but we got rain

call it the green house effect or what ever

but it just doesn’t rain like it

used to.

I particularly remember the rains of the

depression era.

there wasn’t any money but there was

plenty of rain.

it wouldn’t rain for just a night or

a day,

it would RAIN for 7 days and 7

nights

and in Los Angeles the storm drains

weren’t built to carry off that much

water

and the rain came down THICK and

MEAN and

STEADY

and you HEARD it banging against

the roofs and into the ground

waterfalls of it came down

from the roofs

and often there was HAIL

big ROCKS OF ICE

bombing

exploding

smashing into things

and the rain

just wouldn’t

STOP

and all the roofs leaked—

cooking pots

were placed all about;

they dripped loudly

and had to be emptied

again and

again.

the rain came up over the street curbings,

across the lawns, climbed the steps and

entered the houses.

there were mops and bathroom towels,

and the rain often came up through the

toilets: bubbling, brown, crazy, whirling,

and the old cars stood in the streets,

cars that had problems starting on a

sunny day,

and the jobless men stood

looking out the windows

at the old machines dying

like living things

out there.

the jobless men,

failures in a failing time

were imprisoned in their houses with their

wives and children

and their

pets.

the pets refused to go out

and left their waste in

strange places.

the jobless men went mad

confined with

their once beautiful wives.

there were terrible arguments

as notices of foreclosure

fell into the mailbox.

rain and hail, cans of beans,

bread without butter; fried

eggs, boiled eggs, poached

eggs; peanut butter

sandwiches, and an invisible

chicken

in every pot.

my father, never a good man

at best, beat my mother

when it rained

as I threw myself

between them,

the legs, the knees, the

screams

until they

separated.

“I’ll kill you,” I screamed

at him. “You hit her again

and I’ll kill you!”

“Get that son-of-a-bitching

kid out of here!”

“no, Henry, you stay with

your mother!”

all the house holds were under

siege but I believe that ours

held more terror than the

average.

and at night

as we attempted to sleep

the rains still came down

and it was in bed

in the dark

watching the moon against

the scarred window

so bravely

holding out

most of the rain,

I thought of Noah and the

Ark

and I thought, it has come

again.

we all thought

that.

and then, at once, it would

stop.

and it always seemed to

stop

around 5 or 6 a.m.,

peaceful then,

but not an exact silence

because things continued to

drip

drip

drip

and there was no smog then

and by 8 a.m.

there was a

blazing yellow sunlight,

van Gogh yellow—

crazy, blinding!

and then

the roof drains

relieved of the rush of

water

began to expand in

the warmth:

PANG! PANG! PANG!

and everybody got up

and looked outside

and there were all the lawns

still soaked

greener than green will ever

be

and there were the birds

on the lawn

CHIRPING like mad,

they hadn’t eaten decently

for 7 days and 7 nights

and they were weary of

berries

and

they waited as the worms

rose to the top,

half-drowned worms.

the birds plucked them

up

and gobbled them

down; there were

blackbirds and sparrows.

the blackbirds tried to

drive the sparrows off

but the sparrows,

maddened with hunger,

smaller and quicker,

got their

due.

the men stood on their porches

smoking cigarettes,

now knowing

they’d have to go out

there

to look for that job

that probably wasn’t

there, to start that car

that probably wouldn’t

start.

and the once beautiful

wives

stood in their bathrooms

combing their hair,

applying makeup,

trying to put their world back

together again,

trying to forget that

awful sadness that

gripped them,

wondering what they could

fix for

breakfast.

and on the radio

we were told that

school was now

open.

and

soon

there I was

on the way to school,

massive puddles in the

street,

the sun like a new

world,

my parents back in that

house,

I arrived at my classroom

on time.

Mrs. Sorenson greeted us

with, “we won’t have our

usual recess, the grounds

are too wet.”

“AW!” most of the boys

went.

“but we are going to do

something special at

recess,” she went on,

“and it will be

fun!”

well, we all wondered

what that would

be

and the two-hour wait

seemed a long time

as Mrs. Sorenson

went about

teaching her

lessons.

I looked at the little

girls, they all looked so

pretty and clean and

alert,

they sat still and

straight

and their hair was

beautiful

in the California

sunshine.

then the recess bell rang

and we all waited for the

fun.

then Mrs. Sorenson told

us:

“now, what we are going to

do is we are going to tell

each other what we did

during the rainstorm!

we’ll begin in the front

row and go right around!

now, Michael, you’re

first!…”

well, we all began to tell

our stories, Michael began

and it went on and on,

and soon we realized that

we were all lying, not

exactly lying but mostly

lying and some of the boys

began to snicker and some

of the girls began to give

them dirty looks and

Mrs. Sorenson said,

“all right, I demand a

modicum of silence

here!

I am interested in what

you did

during the rainstorm

even if you

aren’t!”

so we had to tell our

stories and they were

stories.

one girl said that

when the rainbow first

came

she saw God’s face

at the end of it.

only she didn’t say

which end.

one boy said he stuck

his fishing pole

out the window

and caught a little

fish

and fed it to his

cat.

almost everybody told

a lie.

the truth was just

too awful and

embarrassing to

tell.

then the bell rang

and recess was

over.

“thank you,” said Mrs.

Sorenson, “that was very

nice.

and tomorrow the grounds

will be dry

and we will put them

to use

again.”

most of the boys

cheered

and the little girls

sat very straight and

still,

looking so pretty and

clean and

alert,

their hair beautiful

in a sunshine that

the world might

never see

again.

marina:

majestic, magic

infinite

my little girl is

sun

on the carpet—

out the door

picking a

flower, ha!,

an old man,

battle-wrecked,

emerges from his

chair

and she looks at me

but only sees

love,

ha!, and I become

quick with the world

and love right back

just like I was meant

to do.

Trollius and trellises

of course, I may die in the next ten minutes

and I’m ready for that

but what I’m really worried about is

that my editor-publisher might retire

even though he is ten years younger than

I.

it was just 25 years ago (I was at that ripe

old age of 45)

when we began our unholy alliance to

test the literary waters,

neither of us being much

known.

I think we had some luck and still have some

of same

yet

the odds are pretty fair

that he will opt for warm and pleasant

afternoons

in the garden

long before I.

writing is its own intoxication

while publishing and editing,

attempting to collect bills

carries its own

attrition

which also includes dealing with the

petty bitchings and demands

of many

so-called genius darlings who are

not.

I won’t blame him for getting

out

and hope he sends me photos of his

Rose Lane, his

Gardenia Avenue.

will I have to seek other

promulgators?

that fellow in the Russian

fur hat?

or that beast in the East

with all that hair

in his ears, with those wet and

greasy lips?

or will my editor-publisher

upon exiting for that world of Trollius and

trellis

hand over the

machinery

of his former trade to a

cousin, a

daughter or

some Poundian from Big

Sur?

or will he just pass the legacy on

to the

Shipping Clerk

who will rise like

Lazarus,

fingering newfound

importance?

one can imagine terrible

things:

“Mr. Chinaski, all your work

must now be submitted in

Rondo form

and

typed

triple-spaced on rice

paper.”

power corrupts,

life aborts

and all you

have left

is a

bunch of

warts.

“no, no, Mr. Chinaski:

Rondo form!”

“hey, man,” I’ll ask,

“haven’t you heard of

the thirties?”

“the thirties? what’s

that?”

my present editor-publisher

and I

at times

did discuss the thirties,

the Depression

and

some of the little tricks it

taught us—

like how to endure on almost

nothing

and move forward

anyhow.

well, John, if it happens enjoy your

divertissement to

plant husbandry,

cultivate and aerate

between

bushes, water only in the

early morning, spread

shredding to discourage

weed growth

and

as I do in my writing:

use plenty of

manure.

and thank you

for locating me there at

5124 DeLongpre Avenue

somewhere between

alcoholism and

madness.

together we

laid down the gauntlet

and there are takers

even at this late date

still to be

found

as the fire sings

through the

trees.

beagle

do not bother the beagle lying there

away from grass and flowers and paths,

dreaming dogdreams, or perhaps dreaming

nothing, as men do awake;

yes, leave him be, in that simple juxtaposition,

out of the maelstrom, lucifugous as a bat,

searching bat-inward

for a state of grace.

it’s good. we’ll not ransom our fate

or his for doorknobs or rasps.

the east wind whirls the blinds,

our beagle snuffles in his sleep as

outside, outside,

hedges break, the night torn mad

with footsteps.

our beagle spreads a paw,

the lamp burns warm

bathed in the life of his

size.

coffee and babies

I sleep at Lila’s and in the morning

we get the breakfast special at the local cafe,

then it’s up to her friend Buffy’s.

Buffy has boy twins, father in doubt, and lives on relief

in a $150-a-month apt.

the twins wail, crawl about, I pick one up, he pulls at

my goatee.

“how nice,” I say, “to be sitting with 2 lovely ladies

at ten in the morning in the city of Burbank while

other men work.”

every time the twins get changed I note they have hard-ons

(their troubles begin at the age of one)

and their asses are red with rash and sadness.

“I used to open and close the bars,” I say,

“I used to whip men 20 years younger than myself. now I sit

with women and babies.”

we have our coffees. I borrow a cigarette. (Buffy knows I

am good for it. I’ll buy her a pack

later.) the girls joke about my ugly face.

I smoke. after this I need some profundities but

Buddha doesn’t help much.

Buffy gets up and shakes her behind at me:

“you can’t have me, Chinaski, you’re too old, you’re too

ugly.”

well, you see, it’s difficult for me. Lila and I finish

our coffees and climb down the green steps to the

blue-green

swimming pool. it is 11 a.m. India and Pakistan are at

war. we get into my smashed ’62 Comet. it

starts. well, we can go to the races, we can screw again,

we can sleep, we can have a Mexican marriage, we can argue

and split or she can read to me about fresh murders in the

Herald-Examiner.

it ends up

we argue and split and I forget to go get

Buffy her pack of

cigarettes.

(uncollected)

magical mystery tour

I am in this low-slung sports car

painted a deep, rich yellow

driving under an Italian sun.

I have a British accent.

I’m wearing dark shades

an expensive silk shirt.

there’s no dirt under my

fingernails.

the radio plays Vivaldi

and there are two women with

me

one with raven hair

the other a blonde.

they have small breasts and

beautiful legs

and they laugh at everything I

say.

as we drive up a steep road

the blonde squeezes my leg

and nestles closer

while raven hair

leans across and nibbles my

ear.

we stop for lunch at a quaint

rustic inn.

there is more laughter

before lunch

during lunch and after

lunch.

after lunch we will have a

flat tire on the other side of

the mountain

and the blonde will change the

tire

while

raven hair

photographs me

lighting my pipe

leaning against a tree

the perfect background

perfectly at peace

with

sunlight

flowers

clouds

birds

everywhere.

(uncollected)

the last generation

it was much easier to be a genius in the twenties, there were

only 3 or 4 literary magazines and if you got into them

4 or 5 times you could end up in Gertie’s parlor

you could possibly meet Picasso for a glass of wine, or

maybe only Miró.

and yes, if you sent your stuff postmarked from Paris

chances of publication became much better.

most writers bottomed their manuscripts with the

word “Paris” and the date.

and with a patron there was time to

write, eat, drink and take drives to Italy and sometimes

Greece.

it was good to be photo’d with others of your kind

it was good to look tidy, enigmatic and thin.

photos taken on the beach were great.

and yes, you could write letters to the 15 or 20

others

bitching about this and that.

you might get a letter from Ezra or from Hem; Ezra liked

to give directions and Hem liked to practice his writing

in his letters when he couldn’t do the other.

it was a romantic grand game then, full of the fury of

discovery.

now

now there are so many of us, hundreds of literary magazines,

hundreds of presses, thousands of titles.

who is to survive out of all this mulch?

it’s almost improper to ask.

I go back, I read the books about the lives of the boys

and girls of the twenties.

if they were the Lost Generation, what would you call us?

sitting here among the warheads with our electric-touch

typewriters?

the Last Generation?

I’d rather be Lost than Last but as I read these books about

them

I feel a gentleness and a generosity

as I read of the suicide of Harry Crosby in his hotel room

with his whore

that seems as real to me as the faucet dripping now

in my bathroom sink.

I like to read about them: Joyce blind and prowling the

bookstores like a tarantula, they said.

Dos Passos with his clipped newscasts using a pink typewriter

ribbon.

D.H. horny and pissed off, H.D. being smart enough to use

her initials which seemed much more literary than Hilda

Doolittle.

G. B. Shaw, long established, as noble and

dumb as royalty, flesh and brain turning to marble. a

bore.

Huxley promenading his brain with great glee, arguing

with Lawrence that it wasn’t in the belly and the balls,

that the glory was in the skull.

and that hick Sinclair Lewis coming to light.

meanwhile

the revolution being over, the Russians were liberated and

dying.

Gorky with nothing to fight for, sitting in a room trying

to find phrases praising the government.

many others broken in victory.

now

now there are so many of us

but we should be grateful, for in a hundred years

if the world is not destroyed, think, how much

there will be left of all of this:

nobody really able to fail or to succeed—just

relative merit, diminished further by

our numerical superiority.

we will all be cata logued and filed.

all right…

if you still have doubts of those other golden

times

there were other curious creatures: Richard

Aldington, Teddy Dreiser, F. Scott, Hart Crane, Wyndham Lewis, the

Black Sun Press.

but to me, the twenties centered mostly on Hemingway

coming out of the war and beginning to type.

it was all so simple, all so deliciously clear

now

there are so many of us.

Ernie, you had no idea how good it had been

four de cades later when you blew your brains into

the orange juice

although

I grant you

that was not your best work.

about competition

the higher you climb

the greater the pressure.

those who manage to

endure

learn

that the distance

between the

top and the

bottom

is

obscenely

great.

and those who

succeed

know

this secret:

there isn’t

one.

a radio with guts

it was on the 2nd floor on Coronado Street

I used to get drunk

and throw the radio through the window

while it was playing, and, of course,

it would break the glass in the window

and the radio would sit out there on the roof

still playing

and I’d tell my woman,

“Ah, what a marvelous radio!”

the next morning I’d take the window

off the hinges

and carry it down the street

to the glass man

who would put in another pane.

I kept throwing that radio through the window

each time I got drunk

and it would sit out there on the roof

still playing—

a magic radio

a radio with guts,

and each morning I’d take the window

back to the glass man.

I don’t remember how it ended exactly

though I do remember

we finally moved out.

there was a woman downstairs who worked in

the garden in her bathing suit

and her husband complained he couldn’t sleep nights

because of me

so we moved out

and in the next place

I either forgot to throw the radio out the window

or I didn’t feel like it

anymore.

I do remember missing the woman who worked in the

garden in her bathing suit,

she really dug with that trowel

and she put her behind up in the air

and I used to sit in the window

and watch the sun shine all over that thing

while the music played.

the egg

he’s 17.

mother, he said, how do I crack an

egg?

all right, she said to me, you don’t have to

sit there looking like that.

oh, mother, he said, you broke the yolk.

I can’t eat a broken yolk.

all right, she said to me, you’re so tough,

you’ve been in the slaughter houses, factories,

the jails, you’re so goddamned tough,

but all people don’t have to be like you,

that doesn’t make everybody else wrong and you

right.

mother, he said, can you bring me some cokes

when you come home from work?

look, Raleigh, she said, can’t you get the cokes

on your bike, I’m tired after

work.

but, mama, there’s a hill.

what hill, Raleigh?

there’s a hill,

it’s there and I have to pedal over

it.

all right, she said to me, you think you’re so

goddamned tough. you worked on a railroad track

gang, I hear about it every time you get drunk:

“I worked on a railroad track gang.”

well, I said, I did.

I mean, what difference does it make?

everybody has to work somewhere.

mama, said the kid, will you bring me those

cokes?

I really like the kid. I think he’s very

gentle. and once he learns how to crack an

egg he may do some

unusual things. meanwhile

I sleep with his mother

and try to stay out of

arguments.

a killer gets ready

he was a good one

say 18, 19,

a marine

and every time

a woman came down the train aisle

he seemed to stand up

so I couldn’t see

her

and the woman smiled at him

but I didn’t smile

at him

he kept looking at himself in the

train window

and standing up and taking off his

coat and then standing up

and putting it back

on

he polished his belt buckle with a

delighted vigor

and his neck was red and

his face was red and his eyes were a

pretty blue

but I didn’t like

him

and every time I went to the can

he was either in one of the cans

or he was in front of one of the mirrors

combing his hair or

shaving

and he was always walking up and down the

aisles

or drinking water

I watched his Adam’s apple juggle the water

down

he was always in my

eyes

but we never spoke

and I remembered all the other trains

all the other buses

all the other wars

he got off at Pasadena

vainer than any woman

he got off at Pasadena

proud and

dead

the rest of the train ride—

8 or 10 miles—

was perfect.

in the center of the action

in the center of the action

you have to lay down like an animal

until it

charges, you

have to lay down

in the center of the action

lay down and wait until it charges then you

must get

up

face it get

it before it gets

you

the whole pro cess is more

shy than

vulnerable so

lay down and wait sometimes it’s

ten minutes sometimes it’s years sometimes it

never arrives but you can’t rush it push

it

there’s no way to cheat or get a

jump on it you have to

lay down

lay down and wait like

an animal.

poetry

it

takes

a lot of

desperation

dissatisfaction

and

disillusion

to

write

a

few

good

poems.

it’s not

for

everybody

either to

write

it

or even to

read

it.

notes upon the flaxen aspect:

a John F. Kennedy flower knocks upon my door and is

shot through the neck;

the gladiolas gather by the dozens around the tip of

India

dripping into Ceylon;

dozens of oysters read Germaine Greer.

meanwhile, I itch from the slush of the Philippines

to the eye of the minnow

the minnow being eaten by the cumulative dreams of

Simón Bolívar. O,

freedom from the limitation of angular distance would be

delicious.

war is perfect,

the solid way drips and leaks,

Schopenhauer laughed for 72 years,

and I was told by a very small man in a New York City

pawnshop

one afternoon:

“Christ got more attention than I did

but I went further on less…”

well, the distance between 5 points is the same as the

distance between 3 points is the same as the distance

between one point:

it is all as cordial as a bonbon:

all this that we are wrapped

in:

eunuchs are more exact than sleep

the postage stamp is mad, Indiana is ridiculous

the chameleon is the last walking flower.

the fisherman

he comes out at 7:30 a.m. every day

with 3 peanut butter sandwiches, and

there’s one can of beer

which he floats in the bait bucket.

he fishes for hours with a small trout pole

three-quarters of the way down the pier.

he’s 75 years old and the sun doesn’t tan him,

and no matter how hot it gets

the brown and green lumberjack stays on.

he catches starfish, baby sharks, and mackerel;

he catches them by the dozen,

speaks to nobody.

sometime during the day

he drinks his can of beer.

at 6 p.m. he gathers his gear and his catch

walks down the pier

across several streets

where he enters a small Santa Monica apartment

goes to the bedroom and opens the evening paper

as his wife throws the starfish, the sharks, the mackerel

into the garbage

he lights his pipe

and waits for dinner.

the 1930s

places to hunt

places to hide are

getting harder to find, and pet

canaries and goldfish too, did you notice

that?

I remember when pool halls were pool halls

not just tables in

bars;

and I remember when neighborhood women

used to cook pots of beef stew for their

unemployed husbands

when their bellies were sick with

fear;

and I remember when kids used to watch the rain

for hours and

would fight to the end over a pet

rat; and

I remember when the boxers were all Jewish and Irish

and never gave you a

bad fight; and when the biplanes flew so low you

could see the pi lot’s face and goggles;

and when one ice cream bar in ten had a free coupon inside;

and when for 3 cents you could buy enough candy

to make you sick

or last a whole

afternoon; and when the people in the neighborhood raised

chickens in their backyards; and when we’d stuff a 5-cent

toy auto full of

candle wax to make it last

forever; and when we built our own kites and scooters;

and I remember

when our parents fought

(you could hear them for blocks)

and they fought for hours, screaming blood-death curses

and the cops never

came.

places to hunt and places to hide,

they’re just not around

anymore. I remember when

each 4th lot was vacant and overgrown, and the landlord

only got his rent

when you had

it, and each day was clear and good and each moment was

full of promise.

the burning of the dream

the old L.A. Public Library burned

down

that library downtown

and with it went

a large part of my

youth.

I sat on one of those stone

benches there with my friend

Baldy when he

asked,

“you gonna join the

Abraham Lincoln

Brigade?”

“sure,” I told

him.

but realizing that I wasn’t

an intellectual or a political

idealist

I backed off on that

one

later.

I was a reader

then

going from room to

room: literature, philosophy,

religion, even medicine

and geology.

early on

I decided to be a writer,

I thought it might be the easy

way

out

and the big boy novelists didn’t look

too tough to

me.

I had more trouble with

Hegel and Kant.

the thing that bothered

me

about everybody

is that they took so long

to finally say

something lively and /

or

interesting.

I thought I had it

over everybody

then.

I was to discover two

things:

a) most publishers thought that anything

boring had something to do with things

profound.

b) that it would take de cades of

living and writing

before I would be able to

put down

a sentence that was

anywhere near

what I wanted it to

be.

meanwhile

while other young men chased the

ladies

I chased the old

books.

I was a bibliophile, albeit a

disenchanted

one

and this

and the world

shaped me.

I lived in a plywood hut

behind a rooming house

for $3.50 a

week

feeling like a

Chatterton

stuffed inside of some

Thomas

Wolfe.

my greatest problem was

stamps, envelopes, paper

and

wine,

with the world on the edge

of World War II.

I hadn’t yet been

confused by the

female, I was a virgin

and I wrote from 3 to

5 short stories a week

and they all came

back

from The New Yorker, Harper’s,

The Atlantic Monthly.

I had read where

Ford Madox Ford used to paper

his bathroom with his

rejection slips

but I didn’t have a

bathroom so I stuck them

into a drawer

and when it got so stuffed with them

I could barely

open it

I took all the rejects out

and threw them

away along with the

stories.

still

the old L.A. Public Library remained

my home

and the home of many other

bums.

we discreetly used the

restrooms

and the only ones of

us

to be evicted were those

who fell asleep at the

library

tables—nobody snores like a

bum

unless it’s somebody you’re married

to.

well, I wasn’t quite abum. I had a library card

and I checked books in and

out

large

stacks of them

always taking the

limit

allowed:

Aldous Huxley, D. H. Lawrence,

e. e. cummings, Conrad Aiken, Fyodor

Dos, Dos Passos, Turgenev, Gorky,

H.D., Freddie Nietzsche, Art

Schopenhauer,

Steinbeck,

Hemingway,

and so

forth…

I always expected the librarian

to say, “you have good taste, young

man…”

but the old fried and wasted

bitch didn’t even know who she

was

let alone

me.

but those shelves held

tremendous grace: they allowed

me to discover

the early Chinese poets

like Tu Fu and Li

Po

who could say more in one

line than most could say in

thirty or

a hundred.

Sherwood Anderson must have

read

these

too.

I also carried the Cantos

in and out

and Ezra helped me

strengthen my arms if not

my brain.

that wondrous place

the L.A. Public Library

it was a home for a person who had had

a

home of

hell

BROOKS TOO BROAD FOR LEAPING

FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD

POINT COUNTER POINT

THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER

James Thurber

John Fante

Rabelais

de Maupassant

some didn’t work for

me: Shakespeare, G. B. Shaw,

Tolstoy, Robert Frost, F. Scott

Fitzgerald

Upton Sinclair worked better for

me

than Sinclair Lewis

and I considered Gogol and

Dreiser complete

fools

but such judgments come more

from a man’s

forced manner of living than from

his reason.

the old L.A. Public

most probably kept me from

becoming a

suicide

a bank

robber

a

wife-

beater

a butcher or a

motorcycle policeman

and even though some of these

might be fine

it is

thanks

to my luck

and my way

that this library was

there when I was

young and looking to

hold on to

something

when there seemed very

little

about.

and when I opened the

newspaper

and read of the fire

which

destroyed the

library and most of

its contents

I said to my

wife: “I used to spend my

time

there…”

THE PRUSSIAN OFFICER

THE DARING YOUNG MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE

TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT

YOU CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN.

sit and endure

well, first Mae West died

and then George Raft,

and Eddie G. Robinson’s

been gone

a long time,

and Bogart and Gable

and Grable,

and Laurel and

Hardy

and the Marx Brothers,

all those Saturday

afternoons

at the movies

as a boy

are gone now

and I look

around this room

and it looks back at me

and then out through

the window.

time hangs helpless

from the doorknob

as a gold

paperweight

of an owl

looks up at me

(an old man now)

who must sit and endure

these many empty

Saturday

afternoons.

Goldfish

my goldfish stares with watery eyes

into the hemisphere of my sorrow;

upon the thinnest of threads

we hang together,

hang hang hang

in the hangman’s noose;

I stare into his place and

he into mine…

he must have thoughts,

can you deny this?

he has eyes and hunger

and his love too

died in January; but he is

gold, really gold, and I am gray

and it is indecent to search him out,

indecent like the burning of peaches

or the rape of children,

and I turn and look elsewhere,

but I know that he is there behind me,

one gold goblet of blood,

one thing alone

hung between the reddest cloud

of purgatory

and apt. no. 303.

god, can it be

that we are the same?

finish

the hearse comes through the room filled with

the beheaded, the disappeared, the living

mad.

the flies are a glue of sticky paste

their wings will not

lift.

I watch an old woman beat her cat

with a broom.

the weather is unendurable

a dirty trick by

God.

the water has evaporated from the

toilet bowl

the telephone rings without

sound

the small limp arm petering against the

bell.

I see a boy on his

bicycle

the spokes collapse

the tires turn into

snakes and melt

away.

the newspaper is oven-hot

men murder each other in the streets

without reason.

the worst men have the best jobs

the best men have the worst jobs or are

unemployed or locked in

mad houses.

I have 4 cans of food left.

air-conditioned troops go from house to

house

from room to room

jailing, shooting, bayoneting

the people.

we have done this to ourselves, we

deserve this

we are like roses that have never bothered to

bloom when we should have bloomed and

it is as if

the sun has become disgusted with

waiting

it is as if the sun were a mind that has

given up on us.

I go out on the back porch

and look across the sea of dead plants

now thorns and sticks shivering in a

windless sky.

somehow I’m glad we’re through

finished—

the works of Art

the wars

the decayed loves

the way we lived each day.

when the troops come up here

I don’t care what they do for

we already killed ourselves

each day we got out of bed.

I go back into the kitchen

spill some hash from a soft

can, it is almost cooked

already

and I sit

eating, looking at my

fingernails.

the sweat comes down behind my

ears and I hear the

shooting in the streets and

I chew and wait

without wonder.

dreaming

I live alone in a small room

and read the newspapers

and sleep alone in the dark

dreaming of crowds.

(uncollected)

my special craving

what is it about lobsters and crabs?

those white-pink shells

that always make me hungry just

looking at them there

in the butcher’s display case

tossed casually one upon the other

so kind and pink and waiting.

even alive they make me hungry.

I used to unload them from trucks

for the kitchen at the Biltmore Hotel,

and they looked dangerous

moving about in their slatted boxes

but still they made me

hungry. there is something about

crabs and lobsters

they deserve to be eaten,

they go so well with

french fries, french bread, radishes

and beer. they tell me that they boil them

alive, and this does

cause some minor sense of disturbance within

me, but outside of that

lobsters and crabs are one of the few things

that make the earth a happy place.

I suppose that this is my special

craving. when driving along the beachfront

and I see a sign,

LOBSTER HOUSE, my car turns in of its own

accord. (if a man can’t allow himself a

few luxuries

he just isn’t going to last very

long.) crabs, beer, lobsters,

an occasional lady,

2 or 3 days a week at the track,

my small daughter bringing me a bottle of beer

from the refrigerator while

grinning proudly,

there are some wonderful things in life,

(let each man find his own)

I say lighting my cigar,

thinking about Sunday night lobster dinner,

love love love

running wild,

it feels good sometimes just to be living

with something so nice

in store.

(uncollected)

A Love Poem

all the women

all their kisses the

different ways they love and

talk and need.

their ears they all have

ears and

throats and dresses

and shoes and

automobiles and ex-

husbands.

mostly

the women are very

warm they remind me of

buttered toast with the butter

melted

in.

there is a look in the

eye: they have been

taken they have been

fooled. I don’t quite know what to

do for

them.

I am

a fair cook a good

listener

but I never learned to

dance—I was busy

then with larger things.

but I’ve enjoyed their different

beds

smoking cigarettes

staring at the

ceilings. I was neither vicious nor

unfair. only

a student.

I know they all have these

feet and barefoot they go across the floor as

I watch their bashful buttocks in the

dark. I know that they like me, some even

love me

but I love very

few.

some give me oranges and vitamin pills;

others talk quietly of

childhood and fathers and

landscapes; some are almost

crazy but none of them are without

meaning; some love

well, others not

so; the best at sex are not always the

best in other

ways; each has limits as I have

limits and we learn

each other

quickly.

all the women all the

women all the

bedrooms

the rugs the

photos the

curtains, it’s

something like a church only

at times there’s

laughter.

those ears those

arms those

elbows those eyes

looking, the fondness and

the wanting I have been

held I have been

held.

one writer’s funeral

there was a rock-and-mud slide

on the Pacific Coast Highway and we had to take a

detour and they directed us up into the Malibu hills

and traffic was slow and it was hot, and then

we were lost.

but I spotted a hearse and said, “there’s the

hearse, we’ll follow it,” and my woman said,

“that’s not the hearse,” and I said, “yes, that’s the

hearse.”

the hearse took a left and I followed

it as it went up

a narrow dirt road and then pulled over and I

thought, “he’s lost too.” there was a truck and a man

selling strawberries parked there

and I pulled over

and asked

where the church was and he gave me directions and

my woman told the strawberry man, “we’ll buy some

strawberries on the way back.” then I swung

onto the road and the hearse started up again

and we continued to drive along

until we reached that

church.

we were going

to the funeral of a great man

but

the crowd was very sparse: the

family, a couple of old screenwriter friends,

two or three others. we

spoke to the family and to the wife of the deceased

and then we went in and the ser vice began and the

priest wasn’t so good but one of the great man’s

sons gave a fine eulogy, and then it was over

and we were outside again, in our car,

following the hearse again, back down the steep

road

passing the strawberry truck again and my

woman said, “let’s not stop for strawberries,”

and as we continued to the graveyard, I thought,

Fante, you were one of the best writers ever

and this is one sad day.

finally we were at the graveside, the priest

said a few words and then it was over.

I walked up to the widow who sat very pale and

beautiful and quite alone on a folding metal chair.

“Hank,” she said, “it’s hard,” and I tried in vain

to say something that might comfort her.

we walked away then, leaving her there, and

I felt terrible.

I got a friend to drive my girlfriend back to

town while I drove to the racetrack, made it

just in time for the first race, got my bet

down as the mutuel clerk looked at me in wonder and

said, “Jesus Christ, how come you’re wearing a

necktie?”

the wine of forever

re-reading some of Fante’s

The Wine of Youth

in bed

this mid-afternoon

my big cat

BEAKER

asleep beside

me.

the writing of some

men

is like a vast bridge

that carries you

over

the many things

that claw and tear.

Fante’s pure and magic

emotions

hang on the simple

clean

line.

that this man died

one of the slowest and

most horrible deaths

that I ever witnessed or

heard

about…

the gods play no

favorites.

I put the book down

beside me.

book on one side,

cat on the

other…

John, meeting you,

even the way it

was was the event of my

life. I can’t say

I would have died for

you, I couldn’t have handled

it that well.

but it was good to see you

again

this

afternoon.

the pile-up

the 3 horse clipped the heels of

the 7, they both went down and

the 9 stumbled over them,

jocks rolling, horses’ legs flung

skyward.

then the jocks were up, stunned

but all right

and I watched the horses

rising in the late afternoon,

it had not been a good day for

me

and I watched the horses rise,

please, I said inside, no broken

legs!

and the 9 was all right

and the 7

and the 3 also,

they were walking,

the horses didn’t need the van,

the jocks didn’t need the

ambulance.

what a beautiful day,

what a perfectly beautiful day,

what a wondrously lovely

day—

3 winners in a

single race.

my big night on the town

sitting on a 2nd-floor porch at 1:30 a.m.

while

looking out over the city.

it could be worse.

we needn’t accomplish great things, we only

need to accomplish little things that make us feel

better or

not so bad.

of course, sometimes the fates will

not allow us to do

this.

then, we must outwit the fates.

we must be patient with the gods.

they like to have fun,

they like to play with us.

they like to test us.

they like to tell us that we are weak

and stupid, that we are

finished.

the gods need to be amused.

we are their toys.

as I sit on the porch a bird begins

to serenade me from a tree nearby in

the dark.

it is a mockingbird.

I am in love with mockingbirds.

I make bird sounds.

he waits.

then he makes them back.

he is so good that I laugh.

we are all so easily pleased,

all of us living things.

now a slight drizzle begins to

fall.

little chill drops fall on my

hot skin.

I am half asleep.

I sit in a folding chair with my

feet up on the railing

as the mockingbird begins

to repeat every bird song

he has heard that

day.

this is what we old guys do

for amusement

on Saturday

nights:

we laugh at the gods, we

settle old scores with

them,

we rejuvenate

as the lights of the city

blink below,

as the dark tree

holding the mockingbird

watches over us,

and as the world,

from here,

looks as good as it ever

will.

close encounters of another kind

are we going to the movies or not?

she asked him.

all right, he said, let’s go.

I’m not going to put any pan ties on

so you can finger-fuck me in the

dark, she said.

should we get buttered popcorn?

he asked.

sure, she said.

leave your pan ties on,

he said.

what is it? she asked.

I just want to watch the movie,

he answered.

look, she said, I could go out on

the street, there are a hundred men

out there who’d be delighted to have

me.

all right, he said, go ahead out there.

I’ll stay home and read the National

Enquirer.

you son of a bitch, she said, I am

trying to build a meaningful

relationship.

you can’t build it with a hammer,

he said.

are we going to the movies or not?

she asked.

all right, he said, let’s

go…

at the corner of Western and

Franklin he put on the blinker

to make his left turn

and a man in the on-coming lane

speeded up

as if to cut him off.

brakes grabbed. there wasn’t a

crash but there almost was one.

he cursed at the man in the other

car. the man cursed back. the

man had another person in the car with

him. it was his wife.

they were going to the movies

too.

drying out

we buy the scandal sheets at the supermarket

get into bed and eat pretzels and read as outside

the church bells ring and the dogs bark

we turn on the tv and watch very bad movies

then she goes down and brings up ice cream

and we eat the ice cream and she says,

“tomorrow night is trash night.”

then the cat jumps up on the bed

drops its tongue out and stands there

glistening cross-eyed

the phone rings and it is her mother and she

talks to her mother

she hands me the phone

I tell her mother that it’s too bad it’s freezing

back there

it’s about 85 here and,

yes, I’m feeling well and

I hope you’re feeling well too

I hand the phone back

she talks some more

then hangs up

“mother is a very brave woman,” she tells me

I tell her that I’m sure her mother is

the cat is still standing there glistening

cross-eyed

I push it down onto the covers

“well,” she says, “we’ve gone two nights without

drinking.”

“good,” I say, “but tomorrow night I’m going to

do it.”

“ah, come on,” she says

“you don’t have to drink,” I tell her, “just because

I do.”

“like hell,” she says

she flips the remote control switch until she comes to a

Japanese monster movie

“I think we’ve seen this one,” I say

“you didn’t see it with me,” she says, “who did you

see it with?”

“you were laying with me, right here, when we saw it,”

I tell her

“I don’t think I remember this one,” she says

“you just keep watching,” I tell her

we keep watching

I’m not so sure anymore

but it’s a peaceful night as we watch this big thing

kick the shit out of half of Tokyo.

scene from 1940:

“I knew you were a bad-ass,” he said.

“you sat in the back of Art class and

you never said anything.

then I saw you in that brutal fight

with the guy with the dirty yellow

hair.

I like guys like you, you’re rare, you’re

raw, you make your own rules!”

“get your fucking face out of mine!”

I told him.

“you see?” he said. “you see?”

he disgusted me.

I turned and walked off.

he had outwitted me:

praise was the only thing I couldn’t

handle.

the area of pause

you have to have it or the walls will close

in.

you have to give everything up, throw it

away, everything away.

you have to look at what you look at

or think what you think

or do what you do

or

don’t do

without considering personal

advantage

without accepting guidance.

people are worn away with

striving,

they hide in common

habits.

their concerns are herd

concerns.

few have the ability to stare

at an old shoe for

ten minutes

or to think of odd things

like who invented the

doorknob?

they become unalive

because they are unable to

pause

undo themselves

unkink

unsee

unlearn

roll clear.

listen to their untrue

laughter, then

walk

away.

I know you

you with long hair, legs crossed high, sitting at the end of

the bar, you like a butcher knife against my throat

as the nightingale sings elsewhere while laughter

mingles with the roach’s hiss.

I know you as

the piano player in the restaurant who plays badly,

his mouth a tiny cesspool and his eyes little wet rolls of

toilet paper.

you rode behind me on my bicycle as I pumped toward Venice as

a boy, I knew you were there, even in that brisk wind I smelled

your

breath.

I knew you in the love bed as you whispered lies of passion while

your

nails dug me into you.

I saw you adored by crowds in Spain while pigtail boys with

swords

colored the sun for your glory.

I saw you complete the circle of friend, enemy, celebrity and

stranger as the fox ran through the sun carrying its heart in its

mouth.

those madmen I fought in the back alleys of bars were

you.

you, yes, heard Plato’s last words.

not too many mornings ago I found my old cat in the yard,

dry tongue stuck out awry as if it had never belonged, eyes tangled,

eyelids soft yet, I lifted her, daylight shining upon my

fingers and her fur, my ignorant existence roaring against the

hedges and the flowers.

I know you, you wait while the fountains gush and the scales

weigh,

you tiresome daughter-of-a-bitch, come on in, the door is

open.

relentless as the tarantula

they’re not going to let you

sit at a front table

at some cafe in Europe

in the mid-afternoon sun.

if you do, somebody’s going to

drive by and

spray your guts with a

submachine gun.

they’re not going to let you

feel good

for very long

anywhere.

the forces aren’t going to

let you sit around

fucking off and

relaxing.

you’ve got to do it

their way.

the unhappy, the bitter and

the vengeful

need their

fix—which is

you or somebody

anybody

in agony, or

better yet

dead, dropped into some

hole.

as long as there are

human beings about

there is never going to be

any peace

for any individual

upon this earth (or

anywhere else

they might

escape to).

all you can do

is maybe grab

ten lucky minutes

here

or maybe an hour

there.

something

is working toward you

right now, and

I mean you

and nobody but

you.

the replacements

Jack London drinking his life away while

writing of strange and heroic men.

Eugene O’Neill drinking himself oblivious

while writing his dark and poetic

works.

now our moderns

lecture at universities

in tie and suit,

the little boys soberly studious,

the little girls with glazed eyes

looking

up,

the lawns so green, the books so dull,

the life so dying of

thirst.

to lean back into it

like in a chair the color of the sun

as you listen to lazy piano music

and the aircraft overhead are not

at war.

where the last drink is as good as

the first

and you realized that the promises

you made yourself were

kept.

that’s plenty.

that last: about the promises:

what’s not so good is that the few

friends you had are

dead and they seem

irreplaceable.

as for women, you didn’t know enough

early enough

and you knew enough

too late.

and if more self-analysis is allowed: it’s

nice that you turned out well-

honed,

that you arrived late

and remained generally

capable.

outside of that, not much to say

except you can leave without

regret.

until then, a bit more amusement,

a bit more endurance,

leaning back

into it.

like the dog who got across

the busy street:

not all of it was good

luck.

eating my senior citizen’s dinner at the Sizzler

between 2 and 5 p.m. any day and any time on Sunday and

Wednesday, it’s 20% off for

us old dogs approaching the sunset.

it’s strange to be old and not feel

old

but I glance in the mirror

see some silver hair

concede that I’d look misplaced at a

rock concert.

I eat alone.

the other oldies are in groups,

a man and a woman

a woman and a woman

three old women

another man and a

woman.

it’s 4:30 p.m. on a

Tuesday

and just 5 or 6 blocks north is

the cemetery

on a long sloping green hill,

a very modern place with

the markers

flat on the ground,

it’s much more pleasant for

passing traffic.

a young waitress

moves among us

filling our cups

again with lovely

poisonous caffeine.

we thank her and

chew on,

some with our own

teeth.

we wouldn’t lose much in a

nuclear explosion.

one good old boy talks

on and on

about what

he’s not too

sure.

well, I finish my meal,

leave a tip.

I have the last table by the

exit door.

as I’m about to leave

I’m blocked by an old girl

in a walker

followed by another old girl

whose back is bent

like a bow.

their faces, their arms

their hands are like

parchment

as if they had already been

embalmed

but they leave quietly.

as I made ready to leave

again

I am blocked

this time by a huge

wheelchair

the back tilted low

it’s almost like a bed,

a very expensive

mechanism,

an awesome and glorious

receptacle

the chrome glitters

and the thick tires are

air-inflated

and the lady in the chair and

the lady pushing it

look alike,

sisters no doubt,

one’s lucky

gets to ride,

and they go by

again very white.

and then

I rise

make it to the door

into stunning sunlight

make it to the car

get in

roar the engine into

life

rip it into reverse

with a quick back turn of squealing

tires

I slam to a bouncing halt

rip the wheel right

feed the gas

go from first to second

spin into a gap of

traffic

am quickly into

3rd

4th

I am up to

50 mph in a flash

moving through

them.

who can turn the stream

of destiny?

I light a cigarette

punch on the radio

and a young girl

sings,

“put it where it hurts,

daddy, make me love

you…”

it’s strange

it’s strange when famous people die

whether they have fought the good fight or

the bad one.

it’s strange when famous people die

whether we like them or not

they are like old buildings old streets

things and places that we are used to

which we accept simply because they’re

there.

it’s strange when famous people die

it’s like the death of a father or

a pet cat or dog.

and it’s strange when famous people are killed

or when they kill themselves.

the trouble with the famous is that they must

be replaced and they can never quite be

replaced, and that gives us this unique

sadness.

it’s strange when famous people die

the sidewalks look different and our

children look different and our bedmates

and our curtains and our automobiles.

it’s strange when famous people die:

we become troubled.

The Beast

Beowulf may have killed Grendel and

Grendel’s mother

but he

couldn’t kill this

one:

it moves around with broken back and

eyes of spittle

has cancer

sweeps with a broom

smiles and kills

germs germans gladiolas

it sits in the bathtub

with a piece of soap and

reads the newspaper about the

Bomb and Vietnam and the freeways

and it smiles and then

gets out naked

doesn’t use a towel

goes outside

and rapes young girls

kills them and

throws them aside like

steakbone

it walks into a bedroom and watches

lovers fuck

it stops the clock at

1:30 a.m.

it turns a man into a rock while he

reads a book

the beast

spoils candy

causes mournful songs to be

created

makes birds stop

flying

it even killed Beowulf

the brave Beowulf who

had killed Grendel and Grendel’s

mother

look

even the whores at the bar

think about it

drink too much and

almost

forget business.

woman on the street

her shoes themselves

would light my room

like many candles.

she walks like all things

shining on glass,

like all things

that make a difference.

she walks away.

lost in San Pedro

no way back to Barcelona.

the green soldiers have invaded the tombs.

madmen rule Spain

and during a heat wave in 1952 I buried my last concubine.

no way back to the Rock of Gibraltar.

the bones of the hands of my mother are so still.

stay still now, mother

stay still.

the horse tossed the jock

the horse fell

then got up

on only 3 legs—

the 4th bent nearly in two

and all the people anguished for the jock

but my heart ached for the horse

the horse

the horse

it was terrible

it was truly terrible.

I sometimes think about one or the other of my women.

I wonder what we were hoping for when we lived together

our minds shattered like the 4th leg of that horse.

remember when women wore dresses and high heels?

remember whenever a car door opened all the men turned to look?

it was a beautiful time and I’m glad I was there to see it.

no way back to Barcelona.

the world is less than a fishbone.

this place roars with the need for mercy.

there is this fat gold watch sitting here on my desk

sent to me by a German cop.

I wrote him a nice letter thanking him for it

but the police have killed more of my life than the crooks.

nothing to do but wait for the pulling of the shade.

I pull the shade.

my 3 male cats have had their balls clipped.

now they sit and look at me with eyes emptied

of all but killing.

Manx

have we gone wrong again?

we laugh less and less,

become more sadly sane.

all we want is

the absence of others.

even favorite classical music

has been heard too often and

all the good books have been

read…

there is a sliding

glass door

and there outside

a white Manx sits

with one crossed eye

his tongue sticks out the

corner of his mouth.

I lean over

and pull the door open

and he comes running in

front legs working

in one direction,

rear legs

in the other.

he circles the

room in a scurvy angle

to where I sit

claws up my legs

my chest

places front legs

like arms

on my shoulders

sticks his snout

against my nose

and looks at me as

best he can.

also befuddled,

I look back.

a better night now,

old boy,

a better time,

a better way now

stuck together

like this

here.

I am able

to smile again

as suddenly

the Manx

leaps away

scattering across the

rug sideways

chasing something now

that none of us

can see.

the history of a tough motherfucker

he came to the door one night wet thin beaten and

terrorized

a white cross-eyed tailless cat

I took him in and fed him and he stayed

grew to trust me until a friend drove up the driveway

and ran him over

I took what was left to a vet who said, “not much

chance…give him these pills…his backbone

is crushed, but it was crushed before and somehow

mended, if he lives he’ll never walk, look at

these x-rays, he’s been shot, look here, the pellets

are still there…also, he once had a tail, somebody

cut it off…”

I took the cat back, it was a hot summer, one of the

hottest in de cades, I put him on the bathroom

floor, gave him water and pills, he wouldn’t eat, he

wouldn’t touch the water, I dipped my finger into it

and wet his mouth and I talked to him, I didn’t go anywhere,

I put in a lot of bathroom time and talked to

him and gently touched him and he looked back at

me with those pale blue crossed eyes and as the days went

by he made his first move

dragging himself forward by his front legs

(the rear ones wouldn’t work)

he made it to the litter box

crawled over and in,

it was like the trumpet of possible victory

blowing in that bathroom and into the city, I

related to that cat—I’d had it bad, not that

bad but bad enough…

one morning he got up, stood up, fell back down and

just looked at me.

“you can make it,” I said to him.

he kept trying, getting up and falling down, finally

he walked a few steps, he was like a drunk, the

rear legs just didn’t want to do it and he fell again, rested,

then got up.

you know the rest: now he’s better than ever, cross-eyed,

almost toothless, but the grace is back, and that look in

his eyes never left…

and now sometimes I’m interviewed, they want to hear about

life and literature and I get drunk and hold up my cross-eyed,

shot, runover de-tailed cat and I say, “look, look

at this!”

but they don’t understand, they say something like, “you

say you’ve been influenced by Céline?”

“no,” I hold the cat up, “by what happens, by

things like this, by this, by this!”

I shake the cat, hold him up in

the smoky and drunken light, he’s relaxed he knows…

it’s then that the interviews end

although I am proud sometimes when I see the pictures

later and there I am and there is the cat and we are photo-

graphed together.

he too knows it’s bullshit but that somehow it all helps.

bad fix

old Butch, they fixed him

the girls don’t look like much

anymore.

when Big Sam moved out

of the back

I inherited big Butch,

70 as cats go,

old,

fixed,

but still as big and

mean a cat as anybody

ever remembered

seeing.

he’s damn near gnawed

off my hand

the hand that feeds him

a couple of

times

but I’ve forgiven him,

he’s fixed

and there’s something in

him

that doesn’t like

it.

at night

I hear him mauling and

running other cats through

the brush.

Butch, he’s still a magnificent

old cat,

fighting

even without it.

what a bastard he must have been

with it

when he was 19 or 20

walking slowly down

his path

and I look at him

now

still feel the courage

and the strength

in spite of man’s smallness

in spite of man’s scientific

skill

old Butch

retains

endures

peering at me with those

evil yellow eyes

out of that huge

undefeated

head.

one for the old boy

he was just a

cat

cross-eyed,

a dirty white

with pale blue eyes

I won’t bore you with his

history

just to say

he had much bad luck

and was a good old

guy

and he died

like people die

like elephants die

like rats die

like flowers die

like water evaporates and

the wind stops blowing

the lungs gave out

last Monday.

now he’s in the rose

garden

and I’ve heard a

stirring march

playing for him

inside of me

which I know

not many

but some of you

would like to

know

about.

that’s

all.

my cats

I know. I know.

they are limited, have different

needs and

concerns.

but I watch and learn from them.

I like the little they know,

which is so

much.

they complain but never

worry.

they walk with a surprising dignity.

they sleep with a direct simplicity that

humans just can’t

understand.

their eyes are more

beautiful than our eyes.

and they can sleep 20 hours

a day

without

hesitation or

remorse.

when I am feeling

low

all I have to do is

watch my cats

and my

courage

returns.

I study these

creatures.

they are my

teachers.

Death Wants More Death

death wants more death, and its webs are full:

I remember my father’s garage, how child-like

I would brush the corpses of flies

from the windows they had thought were escape—

their sticky, ugly, vibrant bodies

shouting like dumb crazy dogs against the glass

only to spin and flit

in that second larger than hell or heaven

onto the edge of the ledge,

and then the spider from his dank hole

nervous and exposed

the puff of body swelling

hanging there

not really quite knowing,

and then knowing—

something sending it down its string,

the wet web,

toward the weak shield of buzzing,

the pulsing;

a last desperate moving hair-leg

there against the glass

there alive in the sun,

spun in white;

and almost like love:

the closing over,

the first hushed spider-sucking:

filling its sack

upon this thing that lived;

crouching there upon its back

drawing its certain blood

as the world goes by outside

and my temples scream

and I hurl the broom against them:

the spider dull with spider-anger

still thinking of its prey

and waving an amazed broken leg;

the fly very still,

a dirty speck stranded to straw;

I shake the killer loose

and he walks lame and peeved

towards some dark corner

but I intercept his dawdling

his crawling like some broken hero,

and the straws smash his legs

now waving

above his head

and looking

looking for the enemy

and somehow valiant,

dying without apparent pain

simply crawling backward

piece by piece

leaving nothing there

until at last the red gut-sack splashes

its secrets,

and I run child-like

with God’s anger a step behind,

back to simple sunlight,

wondering

as the world goes by

with curled smile

if anyone else

saw or sensed my crime.

the lisp

I had her for 3 units

and at mid-term

she’d read off how many assignments

stories

had been turned in:

“Gilbert: 2…

Ginsing: 5…

McNulty: 4…

Frijoles: none…

Lansford: 2…

Bukowski: 38…”

the class laughed

and she lisped

that not only did Bukowski

write many stories

but that they were all of

high quality.

she flashed her golden legs

in 1940 and there was something

sexy about her lisp

sexy as a hornet

as a rattler

that lisp.

and she lisped to me

after class

that I should go to

war,

that I would make a

very good sailor,

and she told me about how

she took my stories home

and read them to her husband

and how they both laughed,

and I told her, “o.k., Mrs. Anderson.”

and I’d walk out on the campus

where almost every guy had a

girl.

I didn’t become a sailor,

Mrs. Anderson, I’m not crazy

about the ocean

and I didn’t like war

even when it was the popular

thing to

do.

but here’s another completed assignment

for you

those golden legs

that lisp

still has me typing

love songs.

on being 20

my mother knocked on my rooming-house door

and came in

looked in the dresser drawer:

“Henry you don’t have any clean

stockings?

do you change your underwear?”

“Mom, I don’t want you poking around in

here…”

“I hear that there is a woman

who comes to your room late at

night and she drinks with you, she lives

right down the hall.”

“she’s all right…”

“Henry, you can get a terrible

disease.”

“yeah…”

“I talked with your landlady, she’s a

nice lady, she says you must read a lot

of books in bed because as you fall to sleep at

night the books fall to the floor,

they can hear it all over the

house, heavy books, one at midnight,

another at one a.m., another at 2 a.m.,

another at four.”

after she left I took the library books

back

returned to the rooming house and

put the dirty stockings and the dirty

underwear and the dirty shirts into

the paper suitcase

took the streetcar downtown

boarded the Trailways bus to

New Orleans

figuring to arrive with ten dollars

and let them do with me

what they would.

they did.

meanwhile

neither does this mean

the dead are

at the door

begging bread

before

the stockpiles

blow

like all the

storms and hell

in one big love,

but anyhow

I rented a 6 dollar a week

room

in Chinatown

with a window as large as the

side of the world

filled with night flies and neon,

lighted like Broadway

to frighten away rats,

and I walked into a bar and sat down,

and the Chinaman looked at my rags

and said

no credit

and I pulled out a hundred-dollar bill

and asked for a cup of Confucius juice

and 2 China dolls with slits of eyes

just about the size of the rest of them

slid closer

and we sat

and we

waited.

the world’s greatest loser

he used to sell papers in front:

“Get your winners! Get rich on a dime!”

and about the 3rd or 4th race

you’d see him rolling in on his rotten board

with roller skates underneath.

he’d propel himself along on his hands;

he just had small stumps for legs

and the rims of the skate wheels were worn off.

you could see inside the wheels and they would wobble

something awful

shooting and flashing

imperialistic sparks!

he moved faster than anybody, rolled cigarette dangling,

you could hear him coming

“god o mighty, what was that?” the new ones asked.

he was the world’s greatest loser

but he never gave up

wheeling toward the 2-dollar window screaming:

“IT’S THE 4 HORSE, YOU FOOLS! HOW THE HELL YA

GONNA BEAT THE

4?”

up on the board the 4 would be reading

60 to 1.

I never heard him pick a winner.

they say he slept in the bushes. I guess that’s where he

died. he’s not around any

more.

there was the big fat blonde whore

who kept touching him for luck, and

laughing.

nobody had any luck. the whore is gone

too.

I guess nothing ever works for us. we’re fools, of course—

bucking the inside plus a 15 percent take,

but how are you going to tell a dreamer

there’s a 15 percent take on the

dream? he’ll just laugh and say,

is that all?

I miss those

sparks.

human nature

it has been going on for some time.

there is this young waitress where I get my coffee

at the racetrack.

“how are you doing today?” she asks.

“winning pretty good,” I reply.

“you won yesterday, didn’t you?” she

asks.

“yes,” I say, “and the day before.”

I don’t know exactly what it is but I

believe we must have incompatible

personalities. there is often a hostile

undertone to our conversations.

“you seem to be the only person

around here who keeps winning,”

she says, not looking at me,

not pleased.

“is that so?” I answer.

there is something very strange about all

this: whenever I do lose

she never seems to be

there.

perhaps it’s her day off or sometimes she works

another counter?

she bets too and loses.

she always loses.

and even though we might have

incompatible personalities I am sorry for

her.

I decide the next time I see her

I will tell her that I am

losing.

so I do.

when she asks, “how are you doing?”

I say, “god, I don’t understand it,

I’m losing, I can’t hit anything, every horse

I bet runs last!”

“really?” she asks.

“really,” I say.

it works.

she lowers her gaze

and here comes one of the largest smiles

I have ever seen, it damn near cracks

her face wide open.

I get my coffee, tip her well, walk

out to check the

toteboard.

if I died in a flaming crash on the freeway

she’d surely be happy for a

week!

I take a sip of coffee.

what’s this?

she’s put in a large shot of cream!

she knows I like it black!

in her excitement,

she’d forgotten.

the bitch.

and that’s what I get for lying.

the trash men

here they come

these guys

gray truck

radio playing

they are in a hurry

it’s quite exciting:

shirt open

bellies hanging out

they run out the trash bins

roll them out to the fork lift

and then the truck grinds it upward

with far too much sound…

they had to fill out application forms

to get these jobs

they are paying for homes and

drive late model cars

they get drunk on Saturday night

now in the Los Angeles sunshine

they run back and forth with their trash bins

all that trash goes somewhere

and they shout to each other

then they are all up in the truck

driving west toward the sea

none of them know

that I am alive

REX DISPOSAL CO.

a gold pocket watch

my grandfather was a tall German

with a strange smell on his breath.

he stood very straight

in front of his small house

and his wife hated him

and his children thought him odd.

I was six the first time we met

and he gave me all his war medals.

the second time I met him

he gave me his gold pocket watch.

it was very heavy and I took it home

and wound it very tight

and it stopped running

which made me feel bad.

I never saw him again

and my parents never spoke of him

nor did my grandmother

who had long ago

stopped living with him.

once I asked about him

and they told me

he drank too much

but I liked him best

standing very straight

in front of his house

and saying, “hello, Henry, you

and I, we know each

other.”

talking to my mailbox…

boy, don’t come around here telling me you

can’t cut it, that

they’re pitching you low and inside, that

they are conspiring against you,

that all you want is a chance but they won’t

give you a

chance.

boy, the problem is that you’re not doing

what you want to do, or

if you’re doing what you want to do, you’re

just not doing it

well.

boy, I agree:

there’s not much opportunity, and there are

some at the top who are

not doing much better than you

are

but

you’re wasting energy haranguing and

bitching.

boy, I’m not advising, just suggesting that

instead of sending your poems to me

along with your letters of

complaint

you should enter the

arena—

send your work to the editors and

publishers, it will

buck up your backbone and your

versatility.

boy, I wish to thank you for the

praise for some of my

published works

but that

has nothing to do with

anything and won’t help a

purple shit, you’ve just got to

learn to hit that low, hard

inside pitch.

this is a form letter

I send to almost everybody, but

I hope you take it

personally,

man.

I liked him

I liked D. H. Lawrence

he could get so indignant

he snapped and he ripped

with wonderfully energetic sentences

he could lay the word down

bright and writhing

there was the stink of blood and murder

and sacrifice about him

the only tenderness he allowed

was when he bedded down his large German

wife.

I liked D. H. Lawrence—

he could talk about Christ

like he was the man next door

and he could describe Australian taxi drivers

so well you hated them

I liked D. H. Lawrence

but I’m glad I never met him

in some bistro

him lifting his tiny hot cup of

tea

and looking at me

with his worm-hole eyes.

one for the shoeshine man

the balance is preserved by the snails climbing the

Santa Monica cliffs;

the luck is in walking down Western Avenue

and having the girls in a massage

parlor holler at you, “Hello, Sweetie!”

the miracle is having 5 women in love

with you at the age of 55,

and the goodness is that you are only able

to love one of them.

the gift is having a daughter more gentle

than you are, whose laughter is finer

than yours.

the peace comes from driving a

blue 67 Volks through the streets like a

teenager, radio tuned to The Host Who Loves You

Most, feeling the sun, feeling the solid hum

of the rebuilt motor as you needle through traffic.

the grace is being able to like rock music,

symphony music, jazz…anything that contains the original energy of

joy.

and the probability that returns

is the deep blue low

yourself flat upon yourself

within the guillotine walls

angry at the sound of the phone

or anybody’s footsteps passing;

but the other probability—

the lilting high that always follows—

makes the girl at the checkstand in the

supermarket look like

Marilyn

like Jackie before they got her Harvard lover

like the girl in high school that we

all followed home.

there is that which helps you believe

in something else besides death:

somebody in a car approaching

on a street too narrow,

and he or she pulls aside to let you

by, or the old fighter Beau Jack

shining shoes

after blowing the entire bankroll

on parties

on women

on parasites,

humming, breathing on the leather,

working the rag

looking up and saying:

“what the hell, I had it for a

while. that beats the other.”

I am bitter sometimes

but the taste has often been

sweet. it’s only that I’ve

feared to say it. it’s like

when your woman says,

“tell me you love me,” and

you can’t.

if you see me grinning from

my blue Volks

running a yellow light

driving straight into the sun

I will be locked in the

arms of a

crazy life

thinking of trapeze artists

of midgets with big cigars

of a Russian winter in the early 40s

of Chopin with his bag of Polish soil

of an old waitress bringing me an extra

cup of coffee and laughing

as she does so.

the best of you

I like more than you think.

the others don’t count

except that they have fingers and heads

and some of them eyes

and most of them

legs and all of them

good and bad dreams

and a way to go.

justice is everywhere and it’s working

and the machine guns and the frogs

and the hedges will tell you

so.

the proud thin dying

I see old people on pensions in the

supermarkets and they are thin and they are

proud and they are dying

they are starving on their feet and saying

nothing. long ago, among other lies,

they were taught that silence was

bravery. now, having worked a lifetime,

inflation has trapped them. they look around

steal a grape

chew on it. finally they make a tiny

purchase, a day’s worth.

another lie they were taught:

thou shalt not steal.

they’d rather starve than steal

(one grape won’t save them)

and in tiny rooms

while reading the market ads

they’ll starve

they’ll die without a sound

pulled out of rooming houses

by young blond boys with long hair

who’ll slide them in

and pull away from the curb, these

boys

handsome of eye

thinking of Vegas and pussy and

victory.

it’s the order of things: each one

gets a taste of honey

then the knife.

shot of red-eye

I used to hold my social security card

up in the air,

he told me,

but I was so small

they couldn’t see it,

all those big

guys around.

you mean the place with the

big green screen?

I asked.

yeah. well, anyhow, I finally got on

the other day

picking tomatoes, and Jesus Christ,

I couldn’t get anywhere

it was too hot, too hot

and I couldn’t get anything in my sack

so I lay under the truck

in the shade and drank

wine. I didn’t make a

dime.

have a drink, I said.

sure, he said.

two big women came in and

I mean BIG

and they sat next to

us.

shot of red-eye, one of them

said to the bartender.

likewise, said the other.

they pulled their dresses up

around their hips and

swung their legs.

um, umm. I think I’m going mad, I told

my friend from the tomato fields.

Jesus, he said, Jesus and Mary, I can’t

believe what I see.

it’s all

there, I said.

you a fighter? the one next to me

asked.

no, I said.

what happened to your

face?

automobile accident on the San Berdoo

freeway. some drunk jumped the divider. I was

the drunk.

how old are you, daddy?

old enough to slice the melon, I said,

tapping my cigar ashes into my beer to give me

strength.

can you buy a melon? she asked.

have you ever been chased across the Mojave and

raped?

no, she said.

I pulled out my last 20 and with an old man’s

virile abandon ordered

four drinks.

both girls smiled and pulled their dresses

higher, if that was possible.

who’s your friend? they asked.

this is Lord Chesterfield, I told them.

pleased ta meetcha, they

said.

hello, bitches, he answered.

we walked through the 3rd street tunnel

to a green hotel. the girls had a

key.

there was one bed and we all got

in. I don’t know who got

who.

the next morning my friend and

I were down at the Farm Labor Market

on San Pedro Street

holding up and waving our social

security cards.

they couldn’t see

his.

I was the last one on the truck out. a big woman stood

up against me. she smelled like

port wine.

honey, she asked, what ever happened to your

face?

fair grounds, a dancing bear who

didn’t.

bullshit, she said.

maybe so, I said, but get your hand out

from around my

balls. everybody’s looking.

when we got to the

fields the sun was

really up

and the world

looked

terrible.

about pain

my first and only wife

painted

and she talked to me

about it:

“it’s all so painful

for me, each stroke is

pain…

one mistake and

the whole painting is

ruined…

you will never understand the

pain…”

“look, baby,” I

said, “why doncha do something easy—

something ya like ta

do?”

she just looked at me

and I think it was her

first understanding of

the tragedy of our being

together.

such things usually

begin

somewhere.

hot

she was hot, she was so hot

I didn’t want anybody else to have her,

and if I didn’t get home on time

she’d be gone, and I couldn’t bear that—

I’d go mad…

it was foolish I know, childish,

but I was caught in it, I was caught.

I delivered all the mail

and then Henderson put me on the night pickup run

in an old army truck,

the damn thing began to heat halfway through the run

and the night went on

me thinking about my hot Miriam

and jumping in and out of the truck

filling mailsacks

the engine continuing to heat up

the temperature needle was at the top

HOT HOT

like Miriam.

I leaped in and out

3 more pickups and into the station

I’d be, my car

waiting to get me to Miriam who sat on my blue couch

with scotch on the rocks

crossing her legs and swinging her ankles

like she did,

2 more stops…

the truck stalled at a traffic light, it was hell

kicking it over

again…

I had to be home by 8, 8 was the deadline for Miriam.

I made the last pickup and the truck stalled at a signal

1/2 block from the station…

it wouldn’t start, it couldn’t start…

I locked the doors, pulled the key and ran down to the

station…

I threw the keys down…. signed out…

your goddamned truck is stalled at the signal,

I shouted,

Pico and Western…

…I ran down the hall, put the key into the door,

opened it…. her drinking glass was there, and a note:

sun of a bitch:

I wated until 5 after ate

you don’t love me

you sun of a bitch

somebody will love me

I been wateing all day

Miriam

I poured a drink and let the water run into the tub

there were 5,000 bars in town

and I’d make 25 of them

looking for Miriam

her purple teddy bear held the note

as he leaned against a pillow

I gave the bear a drink, myself a drink

and got into the hot

water.

who in the hell is Tom Jones?

I was shacked with a

24-year-old girl from

New York City for

two weeks—about

the time of the garbage

strike out there, and

one night my 34-year-

old woman arrived and

she said, “I want to see

my rival.” she did

and then she said, “o,

you’re a cute little thing!”

next I knew there was a

screech of wildcats—

such screaming and scratching, wounded animal moans,

blood and piss…

I was drunk and in my

shorts. I tried to

separate them and fell,

wrenched my knee. then

they were through the screen

door and down the walk

and out in the street.

squad cars full of cops

arrived. a police helicopter circled overhead.

I stood in the bathroom

and grinned in the mirror.

it’s not often at the age

of 55 that such splendid

things occur.

better than the Watts

riots.

the 34-year-old

came back in. she had

pissed all over her-

self and her clothing

was torn and she was

followed by 2 cops who

wanted to know why.

pulling up my shorts

I tried to explain.

the price

drinking 15-dollar champagne—

Cordon Rouge—with the hookers.

one is named Georgia and she

doesn’t like pantyhose:

I keep helping her pull up

her long dark stockings.

the other is Pam—prettier

but not much soul, and

we smoke and talk and I

play with their legs and

stick my bare foot into

Georgia’s open purse.

it’s filled with

bottles of pills. I

take some of the pills.

“listen,” I say, “one of

you has soul, the other

looks. can’t I combine

the 2 of you? take the soul

and stick it into the looks?”

“you want me,” says Pam, “it

will cost you a hundred.”

we drink some more and Georgia

falls to the floor and can’t

get up.

I tell Pam that I like her

earrings very much. her

hair is long and a natural

red.

“I was only kidding about the

hundred,” she says.

“oh,” I say, “what will it cost

me?”

she lights her cigarette with

my lighter and looks at me

through the flame:

her eyes tell me.

“look,” I say, “I don’t think I

can ever pay that price again.”

she crosses her legs

inhales on her cigarette

as she exhales she smiles

and says, “sure you can.”

I’m in love

she’s young, she said,

but look at me, I have pretty ankles,

and look at my wrists, I have pretty

wrists

o my god,

I thought it was all working,

and now it’s her again,

every time she phones you go crazy,

you told me it was over

you told me it was finished,

listen, I’ve lived long enough to become a

good woman,

why do you need a bad woman?

you need to be tortured, don’t you?

you think life is rotten if somebody treats you

rotten it all fits,

doesn’t it?

tell me, is that it? do you want to be treated like a

piece of shit?

and my son, my son was going to meet you.

I told my son

and I dropped all my lovers.

I stood up in a cafe and screamed

I’M IN LOVE,

and now you’ve made a fool of me…

I’m sorry, I said, I’m really sorry.

hold me, she said, will you please hold me?

I’ve never been in one of these things before, I said,

these triangles…

she got up and lit a cigarette, she was trembling all

over. she paced up and down, wild and crazy. she had

a small body. her arms were thin, very thin and when

she screamed and started beating me I held her

wrists and then I got it through the eyes: hatred,

centuries deep and true. I was wrong and graceless and

sick. all the things I had learned had been wasted.

there was no living creature as foul as I

and all my poems were

false.

the girls

I have been looking at

the same

lampshade

for

5 years

and it has gathered

a bachelor’s dust

and

the girls who enter here

are too

busy

to clean it

but I don’t mind

I have been too

busy

to notice

until now

that the light

shines

badly

through

5 years’

worth.

the ladies of summer

the ladies of summer will die like the rose

and the lie

the ladies of summer will love

so long as the price is not

forever

the ladies of summer

might love anybody;

they might even love you

as long as summer

lasts

yet winter will come to them

too

white snow and

a cold freezing

and faces so ugly

that even death

will turn away—

wince—

before taking them.

tonight

“your poems about the girls will still be around

50 years from now when the girls are gone,”

my editor phones me.

dear editor:

the girls appear to be gone

already.

I know what you mean

but give me one truly alive woman

to night

walking across the floor toward me

and you can have all the poems

the good ones

the bad ones

or any that I might write

after this one.

I know what you mean.

do you know what I mean?

shoes

when you’re young

a pair of

female

high-heeled shoes

just sitting

alone

in the closet

can fire your

bones;

when you’re old

it’s just

a pair of shoes

without

anybody

in them

and

just as

well.

hug the dark

turmoil is the god

madness is the god

permanent living peace is

permanent living death.

agony can kill

or agony can sustain life

but peace is always horrifying

peace is the worst thing

walking

talking

smiling,

seeming to be.

don’t forget the sidewalks

the whores,

betrayal,

the worm in the apple,

the bars, the jails,

the suicides of lovers.

here in America

we have assassinated a president and his brother,

another president has quit office.

people who believe in politics

are like people who believe in god:

they are sucking wind through bent

straws.

there is no god

there are no politics

there is no peace

there is no love

there is no control

there is no plan

stay away from god

remain disturbed

slide.

face of a political candidate on a street billboard

there he is:

not too many hangovers

not too many fights with women

not too many flat tires

never a thought of suicide

not more than three toothaches

never missed a meal

never in jail

never in love

7 pairs of shoes

a son in college

a car one year old

insurance policies

a very green lawn

garbage cans with tight lids

he’ll be elected.

white dog

I went for a walk on Hollywood Boulevard.

I looked down and there was a large white dog

walking beside me.

his pace was exactly the same as mine.

we stopped at traffic signals together.

we crossed the side streets together.

a woman smiled at us.

he must have walked 8 blocks with me.

then I went into a grocery store and

when I came out he was gone.

or she was gone.

the wonderful white dog

with a trace of yellow in its fur.

the large blue eyes were gone.

the grinning mouth was gone.

the lolling tongue was gone.

things are so easily lost.

things just can’t be kept forever.

I got the blues.

I got the blues.

that dog loved and

trusted me and

I let it walk away.

on going out to get the mail

the droll noon

where squadrons of worms creep up like

stripteasers

to be raped by blackbirds.

I go outside

and all up and down the street

the green armies shoot color

like an everlasting 4th of July,

and I too seem to swell inside,

a kind of unknown bursting, a

feeling, perhaps, that there isn’t any

enemy

anywhere.

and I reach down into the box

and there is

nothing—not even a

letter from the gas co. saying they will

shut it off

again.

not even a short note from my x-wife

bragging about her present

happiness.

my hand searches the mailbox in a kind of

disbelief long after the mind has

given up.

there’s not even a dead fly

down in there.

I am a fool, I think, I should have known it

works like this.

I go inside as all the flowers leap to

please me.

anything? the woman

asks.

nothing, I answer, what’s for

breakfast?

spring swan

swans die in the Spring too

and there it floated

dead on a Sunday

sideways

circling in the current

and I walked to the rotunda

and overhead

gods in chariots

dogs, women

circled,

and death

ran down my throat

like a mouse,

and I heard the people coming

with their picnic bags

and laughter,

and I felt guilty

for the swan

as if death

were a thing of shame

and like a fool

I walked away

and left them

my beautiful swan.

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

and when relationships

went wrong

with the

girls.

it helped

through the

wars and the

hangovers

the backalley fights

the

hospitals.

to awaken in a cheap room

in a strange city and

pull up the shade—

this was the craziest kind of

contentment

and to walk across the floor

to an old dresser with a

cracked mirror—

see myself, ugly,

grinning at it all.

what matters most is

how well you

walk through the

fire.

closing time

around 2 a.m.

in my small room

after turning off the poem

machine

for now

I continue to light

cigarettes and listen to

Beethoven on the

radio.

I listen with a

strange and lazy

aplomb,

knowing there’s still a poem

or two left to write, and

I feel damn

fine, at long

last,

as once again I

admire the verve and gamble

of this composer

now dead for over 100

years,

who’s younger and wilder

than you are

than I am.

the centuries are sprinkled

with rare magic

with divine creatures

who help us get past the common

and

extraordinary ills

that beset us.

I light the next to last

cigarette

remember all the 2 a.m.s

of my past,

put out of the bars

at closing time,

put out on the streets

(a ragged band of

solitary lonely

humans

we were)

each walking home

alone.

this is much better: living

where I now

live

and listening to

the reassurance

the kindness

of this unexpected

SYMPHONY OF TRIUMPH:

a new life.

racetrack parking lot at the end of the day

I watch them push the crippled and the infirm

in their wheelchairs

on to the electric lift

which carries them up into the long bus

where each chair is locked down

and each person has a window

of their own.

they are all white-skinned, like

pale paint on thin cardboard;

most of them are truly old;

there are a number of women, a few old

men, and 3 surprisingly young men

2 of whom wear neck braces that gleam

in the late afternoon sun

and all 3 with arms as thin as

rope and hands that resemble clenched

claws.

the caretaker seems very kind, very

understanding, he’s a

marvelous fat fellow with a

rectangular head and he wears a broad

smile which is not

false.

the old women are either extremely thin

or overweight.

most have humped backs and shoulders

and wispy

very straight

white hair.

they sit motionless, look straight

ahead as the electric lift raises them

on to the bus.

there is no conversation;

they appear calm and not embittered

by their plight. both men and women

are soon loaded on to the waiting bus except for

the last one, a very old man, almost skeletal,

with a tiny round head, completely bald, a

shining white dot against the late afternoon sky,

waving a cane above his head as he is

pushed shouting on to the electric lift:

“WELL, THEY ROBBED OUR ASSES

AGAIN, CLEANED US OUT, WE’RE A

BUNCH OF SUCKERS TOTTERING ON THE

EDGE OF OUR GRAVES AND WE LET THEM TAKE

OUR LAST PENNY AGAIN!

” as he speaks

he waves the cane above his head and

cracks the marvelous fat fellow

who is pushing his chair,

cracks the cane against the side of

the caretaker’s head.

it’s a mighty blow and

the attendant staggers, grabs

hard at the back of the

wheelchairas

the old man yells: “OH, JERRY,

I’M SORRY, I’M SO SORRY, WHAT CAN I

DO? WHAT

CAN I DO?”

Jerry steadies himself, he is not badly hurt.

it’s a small concussion but within an hour

he will possess a knot the size of an

apricot.

“it’s all right, Sandy, only

I’ve told you again and again, please

be careful with that damned

cane…”

Sandy is pushed on to the electric

lift, it rises and he disappears into

the bus’s dark interior.

then Jerry climbs slowly into the bus, takes

the wheel, starts up, the door closes with a hiss,

the bus begins to move to the exit,

and on the back of the vehicle

in bold white letters

on dark blue background

I see the words:

HARBOR HOME OF LOVE.

there

the centerfielder

turns

rushes back

reaches up his glove

and

snares the

ball,

we are all him for

that moment,

sucking the air

into our

gut.

as the crowd roars like

crazy

we rifle the ball back

through the

miraculous

air.

Dinosauria, we

born like this

into this

as the chalk faces smile

as Mrs. Death laughs

as the elevators break

as political landscapes dissolve

as the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree

as the oily fish spit out their oily prey

as the sun is masked

we are

born like this

into this

into these carefully mad wars

into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness

into bars where people no longer speak to each other

into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings

born into this

into hospitals which are so expensive that it’s cheaper to die

into lawyers who charge so much it’s cheaper to plead guilty

into a country where the jails are full and the mad houses closed

into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes

born into this

walking and living through this

dying because of this

muted because of this

castrated

debauched

disinherited

because of this

fooled by this

used by this

pissed on by this

made crazy and sick by this

made violent

made inhuman

by this

the heart is blackened

the fingers reach for the throat

the gun

the knife

the bomb

the fingers reach toward an unresponsive god

the fingers reach for the bottle

the pill

the powder

we are born into this sorrowful deadliness

we are born into a government 60 years in debt

that soon will be unable to even pay the interest on that debt

and the banks will burn

money will be useless

there will be open and unpunished murder in the streets

it will be guns and roving mobs

land will be useless

food will become a diminishing return

nuclear power will be taken over by the many

explosions will continually shake the earth

radiated robot men will stalk each other

the rich and the chosen will watch from space platforms

Dante’s Inferno will be made to look like a children’s playground

the sun will not be seen and it will always be night

trees will die

all vegetation will die

radiated men will eat the flesh of radiated men

the sea will be poisoned

the lakes and rivers will vanish

rain will be the new gold

the rotting bodies of men and animals will stink in the dark wind

the last few survivors will be overtaken by new and hideous diseases

and the space platforms will be destroyed by attrition

the petering out of supplies

the natural effect of general decay

and there will be the most beautiful silence never heard

born out of that.

the sun still hidden there

awaiting the next chapter.

mind and heart

unaccountably we are alone

forever alone

and it was meant to be

that way,

it was never meant

to be any other way—

and when the death struggle

begins

the last thing I wish to see

is

a ring of human faces

hovering over me—

better just my old friends,

the walls of my self,

let only them be there.

I have been alone but seldom

lonely.

I have satisfied my thirst

at the well

of my self

and that wine was good,

the best I ever had,

and to night

sitting

staring into the dark

I now finally understand

the dark and the

light and everything

in between.

peace of mind and heart

arrives

when we accept what

is:

having been

born into this

strange life

we must accept

the wasted gamble of our

days

and take some satisfaction in

the pleasure of

leaving it all

behind.

cry not for me.

grieve not for me.

read

what I’ve written

then

forget it

all.

drink from the well

of your self

and begin

again.

TB

I had it for a year, really put in

a lot of

bedroom time, slept upright on

two pillows to keep from coughing,

all the blood drained from my head

and often I’d awaken to find myself

slipping sideways off the

bed.

since my TB was contagious I didn’t

have any visitors and the phone

stopped ringing

and that was the lucky

part.

during the day I tried TV and food,

neither of which went down very

well.

the soap operas and the talk shows

were a

daytime nightmare,

so for the lack of anything else

to do

I watched the baseball

games

and led the Dodgers to a

pennant.

not much else for me to do

except take antibiotics and the cough

medicine.

I also really saved putting

mileage on the car

and missed the hell out of

the old race

track.

you realize when you’re

plucked out of the mainstream that

it doesn’t need you or

anybody else.

the birds don’t notice you’re gone,

the flowers don’t care,

the people out there don’t notice,

but the IRS,

the phone co.,

the gas and electric co.,

the DMV, etc.,

they keep in touch.

being very sick and being dead are

very much the same

in society’s

eye.

either way,

you might just as well

lay back and

enjoy it.

crime does pay

the rooms at the hospital went for

$550 a day.

that was for the room alone.

the amazing thing, though, was that

in some of the rooms

prisoners were

lodged.

I saw them chained to their beds,

usually by an

ankle.

$550 a day, plus meals,

now that’s luxury

living—plus first-rate medical attention

and two guards

on watch.

and here I was with my cancer,

walking down the halls in my

robe

thinking, if I live through this

it will take me years to

pay off the hospital

while the prisoners won’t owe

a damned

thing.

not that I didn’t have some

sympathy for those fellows

but when you consider that

when something like a bullet

in one of your buttocks

gets you all that free attention,

medical and otherwise,

plus no billing later

from the hospital business

office, maybe I had chosen

the wrong

occupation?

the orderly

I am sitting on a tin chair outside the x-ray lab as

death, on stinking wings, wafts through the

halls forevermore.

I remember the hospital stenches from when

I was a boy and when I was a man and now

as an old man

I sit in my tin chair waiting.

then an orderly

a young man of 23 or 24

pushes in a piece of equipment.

it looks like a hamper of

freshly done laundry

but I can’t be sure.

the orderly is awkward.

he is not deformed

but his legs work

in an unruly fashion

as if disassociated from the

motor workings of the brain.

he is in blue, dressed all in blue,

pushing,

pushing his load.

ungainly little boy blue.

then he turns his head and yells at

the receptionist at the x-ray window:

“anybody wants me, I’ll be in 76

for about 20 minutes!”

his face reddens as he yells,

his mouth forms a down

turned crescent like a

pumpkin’s halloween mouth.

then he’s gone into some doorway,

probably 76.

not a very prepossessing chap.

lost as a human,

long gone down some

numbing road.

but

he’s healthy

he’s healthy.

HE’S HEALTHY!

the nurses

at the hospital that I have been

going to

the nurses seem

overweight.

they are bulky in their

white dresses

fat above the hips

and down

through the buttocks

to the heavy

legs.

they all appear to be

47 years old,

walk wide-legged

like the old fullbacks

of the

1930s.

they seem distanced

from their profession.

they attend to their duties

but with a

lack of

contact.

I pass them in the

walkways

and in the

corridors.

they never look into

my eyes.

I forgive them their

heavy-shoed

walk,

for the space that they

must forge

between themselves and

each patient.

for these ladies are truly

over-fed:

they have seen

too much

death.

cancer

half-past nowhere

alone

in the crumbling

tower of myself

stumbling in this the

darkest

hour

the last gamble has been

lost

as I

reach

for

bone

silence.

first poem back

64 days and nights in that

place, chemotherapy,

antibiotics, blood running into

the catheter.

leukemia.

who, me?

at age 72 I had this foolish thought that

I’d just die peacefully in my sleep

but

the gods want it their way.

I sit at this machine, shattered,

half alive,

still seeking the Muse,

but I am back for the moment only;

while nothing seems the same.

I am not reborn, only

chasing

a few more days, a few more nights,

like

this

one.

tired in the afterdusk

smoking a cigarette and noting a mosquito who has

flattened out against the wall and

died

as organ music from centuries back plays through

my black radio

as downstairs my wife watches a rented video on

the VCR.

this is the space between spaces, this is when the

ever-war relents for just a moment, this is when

you consider the inconsiderate years:

the fight has been wearing…but, at times,

interesting, such as

resting quietly here in the

afterdusk as the sound of the centuries run

through my body…

this

old dog

resting in the shade

peaceful

but ready.

again

now the territory is taken,

the sacrificial lambs have been slain,

as history is scratched again on the sallow walls,

as the bankers scurry to survive,

as the young girls paint their hungry lips,

as the dogs sleep in temporary peace,

as the shadow gets ready to fall,

as the oceans gobble the poisons of man,

as heaven and hell dance in the anteroom,

it’s begin again and go again,

it’s bake the apple,

buy the car,

mow the lawn,

pay the tax,

hang the toilet paper,

clip the nails,

listen to the crickets,

blow up the balloons,

drink the orange juice,

forget the past,

pass the mustard,

pull down the shades,

take the pills,

check the air in the tires,

lace on the gloves,

the bell is ringing,

the pearl is in the oyster,

the rain falls

as the shadow gets ready to fall again.

so now?

the words have come and gone,

I sit ill.

the phone rings, the cats sleep.

Linda vacuums.

I am waiting to live,

waiting to die.

I wish I could ring in some bravery.

it’s a lousy fix

but the tree outside doesn’t know:

I watch it moving with the wind

in the late afternoon sun.

there’s nothing to declare here,

just a waiting.

each faces it alone.

Oh, I was once young,

Oh, I was once unbelievably

young!

blue

blue fish, the blue night, a blue knife—

everything is blue.

and my cats are blue: blue fur, blue claws,

blue whiskers, blue eyes.

my bed lamp shines

blue.

inside, my blue heart pumps blue blood.

my fingernails, my toenails are

blue

and around my bed floats a

blue ghost.

even the taste inside my mouth is

blue.

and I am alone and dying and

blue.

a summation

more wasted days,

gored days,

evaporated days.

more squandered days,

days pissed away,

days slapped around,

mutilated.

the problem is

that the days add up

to a life,

my life.

I sit here

73 years old

knowing I have been badly

fooled,

picking at my teeth

with a toothpick

which

breaks.

dying should come easy:

like a freight train you

don’t hear when

your back is

turned.

sun coming down

no one is sorry I am leaving,

not even I;

but there should be a minstrel

or at least a glass of wine.

it bothers the young most, I think:

an unviolent slow death.

still it makes any man dream;

you wish for an old sailing ship,

the white salt-crusted sail

and the sea shaking out hints of immortality.

sea in the nose

sea in the hair

sea in the marrow, in the eyes

and yes, there in the chest.

will we miss

the love of a woman or music or food

or the gambol of the great mad muscled

horse, kicking clods and destinies

high and away

in just one moment of the sun coming down?

but now it’s my turn

and there’s no majesty in it

because there was no majesty

before it

and each of us, like worms bitten out of apples,

deserves no reprieve.

death enters my mouth

and snakes along my teeth

and I wonder if I am frightened of

this voiceless, unsorrowful dying that is

like the drying of a rose?

twilight musings

the drifting of the mind.

the slow loss, the leaking away.

one’s demise is not very interesting.

from my bed I watch 3 birds through the east window:

one coal black, one dark brown, the

other yellow.

as night falls I watch the red lights on the bridge blink on and off.

I am stretched out in bed with the covers up to my chin.

I have no idea who won at the racetrack today.

I must go back into the hospital tomorrow.

why me?

why not?

my last winter

I see this final storm as nothing very serious in the sight of

the world;

there are so many more important things to worry about and to

consider.

I see this final storm as nothing very special in the sight of

the world

and it shouldn’t be thought of as special.

other storms have been much greater, more dramatic.

I see this final storm approaching and calmly

my mind waits.

I see this final storm as nothing very serious in the sight of

the world.

the world and I have seldom agreed on most

matters but

now we can agree.

so bring it on, bring on this final storm.

I have patiently waited for too long now.

like a dolphin

dying has its rough edge.

no escaping now.

the warden has his eye on me.

his bad eye.

I’m doing hard time now.

in solitary.

locked down.

I’m not the first nor the last.

I’m just telling you how it is.

I sit in my own shadow now.

the face of the people grows dim.

the old songs still play.

hand to my chin, I dream of

nothing while my lost childhood

leaps like a dolphin

in the frozen sea.

the bluebird

there’s a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I’m too tough for him,

I say, stay in there, I’m not going

to let anybody see

you.

there’s a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I pour whiskey on him and inhale

cigarette smoke

and the whores and the bartenders

and the grocery clerks

never know that

he’s

in there.

there’s a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I’m too tough for him

I say,

stay down, do you want to mess

me up?

you want to screw up the

works?

you want to blow my book sales in

Europe?

there’s a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I’m too clever, I only let him out

at night sometimes

when everybody’s asleep.

I say, I know that you’re there,

so don’t be

sad.

then I put him back,

but he’s singing a little

in there, I haven’t quite let him

die

and we sleep together like

that

with our

secret pact

and it’s nice enough to

make a man

weep, but I don’t

weep, do

you?

if we take—

if we take what we can see—

the engines driving us mad,

lovers finally hating;

this fish in the market

staring upward into our minds;

flowers rotting, flies web-caught;

riots, roars of caged lions,

clowns in love with dollar bills,

nations moving people like pawns;

daylight thieves with beautiful

nighttime wives and wines;

the crowded jails,

the commonplace unemployed,

dying grass, 2-bit fires;

men old enough to love the grave.

These things, and others, in content

show life swinging on a rotten axis.

But they’ve left us a bit of music

and a spiked show in the corner,

a jigger of scotch, a blue necktie,

a small volume of poems by Rimbaud,

a horse running as if the devil were

twisting his tail

over bluegrass and screaming, and then,

love again

like a streetcar turning the corner

on time

the city waiting,

the wine and the flowers,

the water walking across the lake

and summer and winter and summer and summer

and winter again.

alphabetical index of poem titles

about competition (sifting through the madness…)

about pain (War All the Time

about the PEN conference (You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense)

advice for some young man in the year 2064 A.D. (uncollected)

afternoons into night (uncollected)

again (Betting on the Muse)

American Flag Shirt, the (The People Look Like Flowers at Last)

an empire of coins (Betting on the Muse)

angel who pushed his wheelchair, the (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)

area of pause, the (The Last Night of the Earth Poems)

art (play the piano drunk…)

bad fix (Dangling in the Tournefortia)

bakers of 1935, the (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)

bang bang (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)

barfly (The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain)

batting slump (Open All Night)

beagle (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)

Beast, The (The Rooming house Madrigals)

beautiful lady, the (Bone Palace Ballet)

big one, the (Bone Palace Ballet)

big time loser (Open All Night)

birds, the (The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain)

blue (Come On In!)

blue beads and bones (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)

bluebird, the (The Last Night of the Earth Poems)

bow wow love (uncollected)

boy and his dog, a (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire) 247 Bruckner (2) (Open All Night)

burning of the dream, the (Septuagenarian Stew)

butterflies (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)

cancer (Come On In!)

car wash (The Last Night of the Earth Poems)

Carson McCullers (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)

clean well-lighted place, a (Slouching Toward Nirvana)

close encounters of another kind (play the piano drunk…)

closing time (Come On In!)

coffee and babies (uncollected)

colored birds, the (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)

come on in! (Come On In!)

commerce (sifting through the madness…)

crime does pay (The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain)

crucifix in a deathhand (Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame)

crunch, the (Love Is a Dog from Hell)

dark night poem (uncollected)

day the epileptic spoke, the (War All the Time)

Death Wants More Death (The Rooming house Madrigals)

Democracy (The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain)

Destroying Beauty (The Rooming house Madrigals)

Dinosauria, we (The Last Night of the Earth Poems)

downtown (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)

dreaming (uncollected)

drowning, the (uncollected)

drying out (Dangling in the Tournefortia)

eating my senior citizen’s dinner at the Sizzler (War All the Time)

eat your heart out (Love Is a Dog from Hell)

egg, the (play the piano drunk…)

–1883 (You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense)131 elephants in the zoo (uncollected)

elephants of Vietnam, the (The People Look Like Flowers at Last)

eulogy (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)

eulogy to a hell of a dame (War All the Time)

face of a political candidate on a street billboard (play the piano drunk…)

finish (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)

first poem back (The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain)

fisherman, the (Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame)

fooling Marie (the poem) (Come On In!)

for Jane (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)

for Jane: with all the love I had, which was not enough: (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)

for they had things to say (The People Look Like Flowers at Last)

free 25-page booklet, a (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)

fun house (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)

future congressman, a (The People Look Like Flowers at Last)

Genius of the Crowd, The (The Rooming house Madrigals)

genius, the (The Last Night of the Earth Poems)

German bar (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)

girl in a mini skirt reading the Bible outside my window (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)

girl on the escalator (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)

girl outside the supermarket, the (uncollected)

girls and the birds, the (Septuagenarian Stew)

girls at the green hotel, the (Love Is a Dog from Hell)

girls, the (Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame)

gold in your eye (Septuagenarian Stew)

gold pocket watch, a (Love Is a Dog from Hell)

Goldfish (The Rooming house Madrigals)

grass (Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame)

great escape, the (sifting through the madness…)

great writer, a (The People Look Like Flowers at Last)

ha ha ha ha ha, ha ha (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)

harbor freeway south (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)

harder you try, the (The People Look Like Flowers at Last)

hell is a lonely place (Septuagenarian Stew)

hello, how are you? (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)

High-Rise of the New World, The (The Rooming house Madrigals)

history of a tough motherfucker, the (War All the Time)

his wife, the painter (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)

hot (Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame)

how is your heart? (You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense)

hug the dark (play the plano drunk…)

human nature (The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain)

I am eaten by butterflies (The Rooming house Madrigals)

ice for the eagles (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)

I know you (Bone Palace Ballet)

I liked him (play the piano drunk…)

I made a mistake (Love Is a Dog from Hell)

I’m in love (play the piano drunk…)

if we take—(Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)

in a neighborhood of murder (Love Is a Dog from Hell)

in other words (Bone Palace Ballet)

in the center of the action (Bone Palace Ballet)

in the lobby (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)

it is not much (The People Look Like Flowers at Last)

it’s strange (Dangling in the Tournefortia)

I was glad (Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame)

Japanese Wife, The (The Rooming house Madrigals)

junk (play the piano drunk…)

killer, a (Love Is a Dog from Hell)

killer gets ready, a (play the piano drunk…)

ladies of summer, the (play the piano drunk…)

lady in red, the (Dangling in the Tournefortia)

last days of the suicide kid, the (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)

last generation, the (War All the Time)

liberated woman and liberated man (Open All Night)

life of the king (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)

like a cherry seed in the throat (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)

like a dolphin (sifting through the madness…)

like a flower in the rain (Love Is a Dog from Hell)

lisp, the (Dangling in the Tournefortia)

literary discussion, a (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)

little girls hissed, the (Come On In!)

loner, the (play the piano drunk…)

Look:, The (The Rooming house Madrigals)

lost in San Pedro (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)

Love Poem, A (War All the Time)

Mademoi selle from Armentières (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)

magical mystery tour (uncollected)

man mowing the lawn across the way from me (The People Look Like Flowers at Last)

Manx (Open All Night)

marina: (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)

meanwhile (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)

melancholia (Love Is a Dog from Hell)

metamorphosis (play the piano drunk…)

millionaires (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)

mind and heart (Come On In!)

mockingbird, the (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)

Mongolian coasts shining in light (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)

my atomic stockpile (uncollected)

my big night on the town (sifting through the madness…)

my cats (Come On In!)

my failure (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)

my fate (uncollected)

my friend William (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)

my last winter (The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain)

my life as a sitcom (sifting through the madness…)

my special craving (uncollected)

mystery leg (The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain)

my telephone (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)

night I saw George Raft in Vegas, the (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)

1930s, the (The People Look Like Flowers at Last)

no leaders, please (Come On In!)

no wonder (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)

notes upon the flaxen aspect: (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)

notice (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)

now (Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame)

now she’s free (Open All Night)

nurses, the (Septuagenarian Stew)

oh, yes (War All the Time)

on being 20 (War All the Time)

one for Sherwood Anderson (Dangling in the Tournefortia)

one for the old boy (War All the Time)

one for the shoeshine man (Love Is a Dog from Hell)

one more good one (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)

one writer’s funeral (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)

on going out to get the mail (Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame)

on the sidewalk and in the sun (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)

orderly, the (Septuagearian Stew)

peace (The Last Night of the Earth Poems)

Phillipe’s 1950 (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)

pile-up, the (Betting on the Muse)

pleasures of the damned, the (Betting on the Muse)

poem for personnel managers: (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)

poem is a city, a (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)

poetry reading, the (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)

poetry (The Last Night of the Earth Poems)

poop (The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain)

prayer in bad weather (Love Is a Dog from Hell)

price, the (Love Is a Dog from Hell)

proud thin dying, the (play the piano drunk…)

putrefaction (You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense)

racetrack parking lot at the end of the day (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)

radio with guts, a (play the piano drunk…)

railroad yard, the (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)

relentless as the tarantula (You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense)

replacements, the (The Last Night of the Earth Poems)

riots (sifting through the madness…)

safe (Bone Palace Ballet)

Scarlet (Love Is a Dog from Hell)

scene from 1940: (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)

scene in a tent outside the cotton fields of Bakersfield: (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)

school days (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)

schoolyards of forever (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)

screw-game, the (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)

2nd novel, the (Love Is a Dog from Hell)

secret laughter (Open All Night)

self-inflicted wounds (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)

sex (Love Is a Dog from Hell)

she comes from somewhere (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)

shit shits, the (uncollected)

shoelace, the (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)

shoes (You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense)

shot of red-eye (Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame)

shower, the (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)

silly damned thing anyhow (The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain)

simple truth, the (sifting through the madness…)

sit and endure (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)

small talk (Slouching Toward Nirvana)

smile to remember, a (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)

smoking car, the (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)

snow of Italy, the (The People Look Like Flowers at Last)

society should realize…(Bone Palace Ballet)

somebody (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)

something about a woman (uncollected)

something for the touts, the nuns, the grocery clerks and you…(Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame)

something’s knocking at the door (Slouching Toward Nirvana)

song (You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense)

so now? (Betting on the Muse)

souls of dead animals, the (play the piano drunk…)

spring swan (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)

starve, go mad, or kill yourself (uncollected)

strangest sight you ever did see—, the (Love Is a Dog from Hell)

summation, a (The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain)

sun coming down (The People Look Like Flowers at Last)

Sunday lunch at the Holy Mission (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)

tabby cat (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)

talkers, the (Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame)

talking to my mailbox (War All the Time)

TB (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)

there (Bone Palace Ballet)

they, all of them, know (Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame)

those marvelous lunches (Betting on the Muse)

thoughts from a stone bench in Venice (uncollected)

threat to my immortality, a (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)

3:16 and one half…(Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)

time to remember, a (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)

tired in the afterdusk (Septuagenarian Stew)

to lean back into it (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)

to night (Love Is a Dog from Hell)

tragedy of the leaves, the (Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame)

trash men, the (Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame)

trashcan lives (You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense)

Trollius and trellises (The Last Night of the Earth Poems)

turnabout (Love Is a Dog from Hell)

twilight musings (Come On In!)

2 Outside, As Bones Break in My Kitchen (The Rooming house Madrigals)

upon reading an interview with a best-selling novelist in our metropolitan daily newspaper (sifting through the madness…)

vacancy (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)

Van Gogh (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)

Verdi (uncollected)

veryest, the (uncollected)

was Li Po wrong? (Come On In!)

we ain’t got no money, honey, but we got rain (The Last Night of the Earth Poems)

what a man I was (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)

what? (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)

when Hugo Wolf went mad—(The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)

when you wait for the dawn to crawl through the screen like a burglar to take your life away (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)

where was Jane? (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)

white dog (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)

who in the hell is Tom Jones? (Love Is a Dog from Hell)

who needs it? (sifting through the madness…)

wine of forever, the (You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense)

woman on the street (Betting on the Muse)

world’s greatest loser, the (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)

wrong way, the (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)

young lady who lives in Canoga Park, the (uncollected)

young man on the bus stop bench, the (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)

About the Author

CHARLES BUKOWSKI is one of America’s best-known contemporary 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), 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: New Poems (1999), Open All Night: New Poems (2000), Beerspit Night and Cursing: The Correspondence of Charles Bukowski and Sheri Martinelli, 1960–1967 (2001), Night Torn Mad with Footsteps: New Poems (2001), sifting through the madness for the word, the line, the way: new poems (2003), The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain (2004), Slouching Toward Nirvana (2005), Come On In! (2006), and The People Look Like Flowers at Last (2007).

All of his books have now been published in translation in more than a dozen languages and his worldwide popularity remains undiminished. In the years to come Ecco will publish additional volumes of previously uncollected poetry and letters.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

also 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 (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)

Night Torn Mad with Footsteps: New Poems (2001)

Beerspit Night and Cursing: The Correspondence of Charles Bukowski and Sheri Martinelli 1960–1967 (2001)

sifting through the madness for the Word, the line, the way: new poems (2003)

The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain: New Poems (2004)

Slouching Toward Nirvana (2005)

Come On In! (2006)

The People Look Like Flowers at Last (2007)

Credits

JACKET AND CASE DESIGN BY ALLISON SALTZMAN CASE PHOTOGRAPH © ULF ANDERSEN / GAMMA

Copyright

THE PLEASURES OF THE DAMNED. Copyright © 2007 by Linda Lee 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.

Mobipocket Reader September 2007 ISBN 978-0-06-154601-3

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

About the Publisher

Australia

HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)

Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia

http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au

Canada

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

55 Avenue Road, Suite 2900

Toronto, ON, M5R, 3L2, Canada

http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca

New Zealand

HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited

P.O. Box 1

Auckland, New Zealand

http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz

United Kingdom

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

77-85 Fulham Palace Road

London, W6 8JB, UK

http://www.uk.harpercollinsebooks.com

United States

HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

10 East 53rd Street

New York, NY 10022

http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com