the leader of that gang came up and
said: “listen, man, we’re going to get you.”
“maybe,” I said, “but it won’t be easy.”
it wasn’t bad work
the hangover had worn off
and I liked the way the oakite brush dissolved the grime;
also the cheap bars of the coming night beckoned to me
and there was always a bottle of wine waiting in my room.
at noon in the mess hall
when I got up to put a coin in the soft drink machine
all 3 stopped talking and watched.
but as days and weeks went on
nothing ever happened.
I gave that job six weeks then took a Trailways bus to New Orleans
and looking out the window at all that empty, wasted land
while sucking at a pint of
Cutty Sark
I wondered when and where
I might finally come to rest and then
fit in.
CLEOPATRA NOW
she was one of the most beautiful actresses
of our time
once married to a series of
rich and famous men
and now she is in traction, in hospital, a fractured
back, the painkillers at work.
she is now 60
and only a few years ago
her room would have been bursting with flowers,
the phone ringing, many visitors on the waiting
list.
now, the phone seldom rings, there
are only a few obligatory flowers,
and visitors are at a
minimum.
yet, with age the lady has matured, she knows more now, understands
more, feels more deeply, relates to life much more
kindly.
all to no avail: if you are no longer a good young
fuck, if you can’t play the
temptress with
legs crossed high and
violet eyes glowing
behind
long dark lashes,
if you’re not still beautiful
if you ain’t in movies any longer
if you aren’t photographed drunk and obnoxious
in the best
restaurants with new young
lovers:
it’s all to no
avail.
now she sits forgotten
in hospital
straddling a bedpan
as new horizons open up for
the new generation.
in traction you’re pathetic at 60
and
nobody wants to sit in a room with
you.
it’s too
depressing.
this world wants only the young and the strong and the
still beautiful.
as this once-famous actress
lies forgotten in hospital
I wonder what thoughts she
has
about her x-lovers
about her x-public
about her vanished youth
as the hours and the days
crawl
by.
I truly wonder what thoughts she
has.
possibly she has discovered her real self,
achieved real wisdom.
but has it come too late?
and when late wisdom
finally arrives
is that better than none at
all?
PLEASE
in the night now thinking of the years and the
women gone and lost forever
not minding the women gone, not even minding the years
lost forever
if
we could just have some peace now—a year of peace, a month of
peace, a week of peace—
not peace for the world—just a selfish bit of peace
for me
to loll in like in green warm
water, just a bit of it, just an hour of it, some
peace, yes, in the night in the night while thinking of
the years lost and the women gone in this night in this very long
dark and lonely
night.
THE BAROMETER
your critics are always going to be
there
and the more successful you become
the more criticism you’ll
receive
especially from those
who are most desperate
for a taste of the same success
you have
achieved.
but the thing you must always remember
regardless of the criticism
is to try to continue to get
better at whatever it is that
you do.
I think what bothers the critics the most
however
is to see someone succeed
after coming out of
nowhere
instead of from their very
special circle of the waiting-to-be-
annointed.
critics and failed creators
dominate the landscape
and the more you successfully harness
the natural power of your
art
the more they are going to
insist
through intrigue and
through their rankling
pitiful
malice
that
you were never very much
to begin with
and that now, of course, you’re even
less than
that.
the critics are always going to be
there and
when they stop, if ever, then
you will know
that your own brief day in the sun
is over.
ENEMY OF THE KING, 1935
I kept looking at him and thinking,
the ears don’t fit and the mouth
is foolish and the eyes are wrong.
his shoes don’t look right and his tone of
voice is an insult.
his shirt hangs from his shoulders
as if it dislikes him.
he chews his food like a dog
and look at that Adam’s apple!
and why are his favorite subjects
“money” and “work”?
why does he splash angrily
in the bathtub
when he bathes?
and why does he hate me?
and why do I hate him?
why are we enemies?
why does he look like a fool?
how can I get away from him?
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU LOOKING
AT?” he screams.
“GO TO YOUR ROOM!
I’LL DEAL WITH YOU LATER!”
“have it your way.”
“WHAT?”
“have it your way.”
“YOU CAN’T TALK TO ME LIKE
THAT!
GO TO YOUR ROOM!”
the room was beautiful.
I couldn’t see him anymore.
I couldn’t hear his voice.
I looked at the dresser.
the dresser was beautiful.
I looked at the rug.
the rug was beautiful.
I sat in a chair and waited.
hours passed.
it was dark.
now he was listening to the
radio
in the living room.
I kicked the screen open and
dropped out the window.
then I was out in the cool night,
walking.
I was 15 years old,
looking for something,
anything.
it wasn’t there.
NIGHTS OF VANILLA MICE
unshaven, yellow-toothed, sweating in my only sh
orts
and undershirt (full of cigarette holes),
I was sure that I was better than F. Scott or Faulkner or
even my buddy, Turgenev.
ah, not as good as Céline or Li Po
but, man, I had faith, felt I was more on fire
than
any 3 dozen mortals.
and I typed and lived with women that you
would shrink from, I
brought love back to those faded eyes as vanilla mice
slept below our bed.
I starved and starved and typed and
loved it, I
reached into my mouth and plucked rotten teeth
out of my gums
and laughed
as the rejections came back as fast as I could send my stories
out, I
felt marvelous, I felt like I owned a piece of the
sun, I listened to all the crazy classical music from previous
centuries, I sympathized with those who had suffered
in the past like
Mozart, Verdi, others,
and when things got really bad
I thought of Van Gogh and his ear and even
sometimes
his shotgun, I
jollied myself along as best I could, and Jesus I
got very thin
and still during the sleepless nights I would
tell my ladies about how I was
going to make it as a writer some day
and from all of them (as if with one voice) they would complain:
“shit, are you going to talk about that
again?”
(my voice): “you saw how I punched that guy out
in the alley the other night?”
(again, as with one voice): “what has that to do with
writing?”
(my voice): “I don’t know …”
of course, there were many nights with no voices,
there were many nights alone and those were fine
too, of course, but the worst nights were the nights
without a room and that hurt because a writer needed
an address in order to receive those rejection
slips.
but the ladies (bless them!)
always told me, “you’re crazy but you’re
nice.”
being a starving writer is
treacherous
great
fun.
LARK IN THE DARK
all teeth, big nose
coming directly at me
in the middle of the night.
I am frozen in the bed
as it comes roaring down at me
from the ceiling.
I roll away at the last
moment
and it hits the bed
between me and my white
cat.
the cat jumps straight up,
hits the ceiling,
bounces back, hits the
bed, leaps off, jumps through
the screen and lands two floors
below in the Jacuzzi.
I get up, watch it swim to the
edge, crawl out.
it sits there licking itself in the
moonlight.
“whatcha doin’?” I hear my wife
say.
“gotta go to the bathroom,”
I tell her.
I walk to the bathroom,
come back,
climb under the
covers.
“don’t snore,” says my wife.
I stare at the spot in the ceiling
from where the apparition first
appeared.
for two hours I do this.
then I am asleep again.
I am dreaming.
I am naked and driving one of
those old-fashioned steam locomotives
through a shopping
mall.
I smile and wave
to the crowds but
nobody seems to notice
me.
LONELY HEARTS
when you start boring yourself
you know damn well
you’re going to start
boring other people;
in fact, all the people you come
into contact with:
on the telephone, in the post
office, over a bowl of
spaghetti.
oh, all the tiresome people with their
tiresome stories:
like how they got screwed by life’s
Unkind Forces, how they are fucked
and there isn’t much they can do
now
except tell you all about it.
then they step back and wait for
you to console them
but what you really feel like doing
is
piss all over them,
which might stop them from
inviting themselves over for
dinner
and then telling you more about
their tragic
lives.
there are more and more of
them,
they line up outside in the gloom
waiting for you.
nobody else will listen to
them.
they’ve alienated
hundreds of former
friends, lovers and acquaintances
but they still need to whine and
complain.
I’m sending them all over to
see you
starting today.
get your compassion and
understanding
ready.
I might be there at the end of that
line
myself.
B AS IN BULLSHIT
B kind
B a good listener
B able to engage in physical combat
B a lover of classical music
B a tolerator of children
B a good horseplayer
B an agnostic
B generous on the freeways of the world
B a good sleeper
B not fearful of death
B unable to beg
B able to love
B able to feel superior
B able to understand that too much education is a fart in the dark
B able to dislike poets and poetry
B able to understand that the rich can be poor in spirit
B able to understand that the poor live better than the rich
B able to understand that shit is necessary
B aware that in every life a little bit of shit must fall B aware that a hell of a lot more shit falls on some more than on others
B aware that many dumb bastards crawl the earth
B aware that the human heart cannot be broken
B able to stay away from movies
B able to sit alone in a room and feel good
B able to watch your cat cross the floor like a miracle
B able to recognize bullshit even when you hear it from
B ukowski.
A RIOT IN THE STREETS
it’s a good day, a good time, anybody can
blow a hole through you at any minute.
they are shooting from the rooftops now
and the night sky is smoking,
red.
what more could you want?
you can watch it on your tv or you
can look outside, it’s the same
thing.
they are letting it all out again.
airing it out.
it’s healthy.
the cops are hiding.
nobody is bored tonight.
the safest people are already in jail.
everybody feels curiously alive,
at last.
it’s party time!
this city is the whole world
and it’s running right at you.
it’s a good day, a good time!
hell is coming out to play
with you.
INTERLUDE
it’s been raining forever
and I haven’t had a drink in
a week-and-a-half.
I must be going crazy.
I just sit in these green pajamas
smoke cigars and stare at the walls.
I try to read the newspapers but
the print blurs and I can’t
make sense out of any of
it.
I watch the second hand
go around and around on my
watch.
I am waiting for the ghosts
of tomorrow.
I look at the telephone and
thank it for not
ringing.
my life has been lived
in vain;
I should have been a
shortstop, a race car driver,
a matador.
I sit in this room, I wait in this
room.
I rub my left hand over my
face.
my whiskers are sharp,
they feel good.
I think tomorrow I’ll get
dressed, go outside,
I’ll go to Thrifty’s,
buy a roll of Scotch tape,
a bag of orange slices,
a flashlight and a
pocket comb.
then I’ll snap out of it,
maybe.
D.N.F.
they shot the horse.
he kicked 4 times
with the bullet in his
brain.
his skin shone.
his skin sweated.
they pushed him into a green trailer
pulled by a yellow tractor
driven by a man in a grey
felt hat.
I walked back inside
and looked up the legs of a young woman
sitting and
reading the Racing Form.
she made me hot.
the dead horse had been my last
bet.
my handicapping was gone sour.
then she saw me looking.
I turned around,
walked away.
walked to a white water fountain,
bent and drank.
READING LITTLE POEMS IN LITTLE MAGAZINES
you get so sick finally of the personal,
the relaxed and little personal
things like a visit to mother
or getting your car stolen
or masturbating in a mortuary
the personal, the personal things:
like how big your breasts are
or how you used to be a go-go
dancer;
or how you worked the night shift
at your machine and got
slivers of hot metal under your
fingernails.
personal, personal things:
like how many wives or husbands
you’ve had;
or how your students ask
questions and you answer them