On the radio I heard the news
of that day
at least 6 times, I was
well versed in world
affairs.
The remainder of the stations played a
thin, sick music.
The classical stations refused to come in
clearly
and when they did
it was a stale repetition of standard and
tiresome works.
I turned the radio off.
A strange whirling began in my
head—it circled behind the forehead, clockwise...
I began to wonder, is this what happens
when one goes
mad?
Having the low down blues and going
into a restraunt to eat.
You sit at a table.
The waitress smiles at you.
She's dumpy. Her ass is too big.
She radiates kindess and symphaty.
Live with her 3 months and a man would no real agony.
O. k., you'll tip her 15 percent.
You order a turkey sandwich and a
beer.
The man at the table across from you
has watery blue eyes and
a head like an elephant.
At a table further down are 3 men
with very tiny heads
and long necks
like ostiches.
They talk loudly of land development.
Why, you think, did I ever come
in here when I have the low-down
blues?
Then the the waitress comes back eith the sandwich
and she asks you if there will be anything
else?
And you tell her, no no, this will be
fine.
Then somebody behind you laughs.
It's a cork laugh filled with sand and
broken glass.
You begin eating the sandwhich.
It's something.
It's a minor, difficult,
sensible action
like composing a popular song
to make a 14-year old
weep.
You order another beer.
Jesus, look at that guy
his hands hang down almost to his knees and he's
whistling.
Well, time to get out.
Pivk up the bill.
Tip.
Go to the register.
Pay.
Pick up a toothpick.
Go out the door.
Your car is still there.
And there are 3 men with heads
and necks
like ostriches all getting into one
car.
They each have a toothpick and now
they are talking about women.
They drive away first
they drive away fast.
They're best I guess.
It's an unberably hot day.
There's a first-stage smog alert.
All the birds and plants are dead
or dying.
You start the engine.
Charles Bukowski 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-two 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.
Shot in the eye
shot in the brain
shot in the ****
shot like a flower in the dance
amazing how death wins hands down
amazing how much credence is given to idiot forms of life
amazing how laughter has been drowned out
amazing how viciousness is such a constant
I must soon declare my own war on their war
I must hold to my last piece of ground
I must protect the small space I have made that has allowed me life
my life not their death
my death not their death...
The best often die by their own hand
just to get away,
and those left behind
can never quite understand
why anybody
would ever want to
get away
from
them.
I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny
blue hands, no, your hands are not tiny
they are small, and the fountain is in France
where you wrote me that last letter and
I answered and never heard from you again.
You used to write insane poems about
Angels and God, all in upper case, and you
knew famous artists and most of them
were your lovers, and I wrote back, it'all right,
go ahead, enter their lives, ì not jealous
because wè never met. We got close once in
New Orleans, one half block, but never met, never
touched. So you went with the famous and wrote
about the famous, and, of course, what you found out
is that the famous are worried about
their fame –– not the beautiful young girl in bed
with them, who gives them that, and then awakens
in the morning to write upper case poems about
Angels and God. We know God is dead, they' told
us, but listening to you I wasn'sure. Maybe
it was the upper case. You were one of the
best female poets and I told the publishers,
editors, "her, print her, shè mad but shè
magic. Therè no lie in her fire." I loved you
like a man loves a woman he never touches, only
writes to, keeps little photographs of. I would have
loved you more if I had sat in a small room rolling a
cigarette and listened to you piss in the bathroom,
but that didn'happen. Your letters got sadder.
Your lovers betrayed you. Kid, I wrote back, all
lovers betray. It didn'help. You said
you had a crying bench and it was by a bridge and
the bridge was over a river and you sat on the crying
bench every night and wept for the lovers who had
hurt and forgotten you. I wrote back but never
heard again. A friend wrote me of your suicide
3 or 4 months after it happened. If I had met you
I would probably have been unfair to you or you
to me. It was best like this.
To give life you must take life,
and as our grief falls flat and hollow
upon the billion-blooded sea
I pass upon serious inward-breaking shoals rimmed
with white-legged, white-bellied rotting creatures
lengthily dead and rioting against surrounding scenes.
Dear child, I only did to you what the sparrow
did to you; I am old when it is fashionable to be
young; I cry when it is fashionable to laugh.
I hated you when it would have taken less courage
to love.
I awaken about noon and go out to get the mail
in my old torn bathrobe.
I'm hung over
hair down in my eyes
barefoot
gingerly walking on the small sharp rocks
in my path
still afraid of pain behind my four-day beard.
The young housewife next door shakes a rug
out of her window and sees me:
"hello, Hank!"
God damn! It's almost like being shot in the ass
with a .22
"Hello," I say
gathering up my Visa card bill, my Pennysaver coupons,
a Dept. of Water and Power past-due notice,
a letter from the mortgage people
plus a demand from the Weed Abatement Department
giving me 30 days to clean up my act.
I mince back again over the small sharp rocks
thinking, maybe I'd better write something tonight,
they all seem
to be closing in.
There's only one way to handle those motherfuckers.
The night harness races will have to wait.
As the poems go into the thousands you
realize that you've created very
little.
There were these people
on the ground,
they were reaching up their
arms and trying to pull me
down
but
they couldn't do
it.
I felt like pissing on
them.
They were so
jealous.
All they had to do was
to work their way
slowly up to it
as I had
done.
Such people think
success grows on
trees.
You and I,
we know
better.
Long walks at night--
that's what good for the soul:
peeking into windows
watching tired housewives
trying to fight off
their beer-maddened husbands.