Charles Bukowski




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 O I just 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 panties were on the
floor
and my cock went in
my cock my god my cock went in
I was Charles
Somebody.


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. 


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.


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.




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