The Pleasures of the Damned

Poems, 19511993

Charles Bukowski
Edited by John Martin

Contents
the mockingbird
somethings 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
18131883
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 Armentires
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
Phillipes 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 shes 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 aint 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 writers 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 citizens dinner at the Sizzler
its 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 worlds 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
Im 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

he mockingbird had been following the cat

ll summer
mocking mocking mocking
easing and cocksure;
he cat crawled under rockers on porches
ail flashing
nd said something angry to the mockingbird
which I didnt understand.

esterday the cat walked calmly up the driveway

with the mockingbird alive in its mouth,
wings fanned, beautiful wings fanned and flopping,
eathers parted like a womans legs,
nd the bird was no longer mocking,
was asking, it was praying
ut the cat
triding down through centuries
would not listen.

saw it crawl under a yellow car

with the bird
o bargain it to another place.

ummer was over.

somethings knocking at the door

great white light dawns across the

ontinent
s we fawn over our failed traditions,
ften kill to preserve them
r sometimes kill just to kill.
doesnt seem to matter: the answers dangle just
ut of reach,
ut of hand, out of mind.

he leaders of the past were insufficient,

he leaders of the present are unprepared.
we curl up tightly in our beds at night and wait.
is a waiting without hope, more like
prayer for unmerited grace.

all looks more and more like the same old

movie.
he actors are different but the plots the same:
enseless.

we should have known, watching our fathers.

we should have known, watching our mothers.
hey did not know, they too were not prepared to
each.
we were too naive to ignore their
ounsel
nd now we have embraced their
gnorance as our
wn.
we are them, multiplied.
we are their unpaid debts.
we are bankrupt
n money and
n spirit.

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

dge
nd will
t any moment
umble down to join the rest
f us,
he raving, the battered, the blind and the sadly
orrupt.

great white light dawns across the

ontinent,
he flowers open blindly in the stinking wind,
s grotesque and ultimately
nlivable
ur 21st century
truggles to beborn.

his wife, the painter

here are sketches on the walls of men and women and ducks,
nd outside a large green bus swerves through traffic like
nsanity sprung from a waving line; Turgenev, Turgenev,
ays the radio, and Jane Austen, Jane Austen, too.
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

itters; they have him; they are eating him hollow like
webbed fly, and his eyes are red-suckled with anger-fear.

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

is razor, and his gut-feel hangs like a wet polyp; and he
elf-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 cant love a woman. Besides, shes pregnant.

can painta flower eaten by a snake; that sunlight is a

e; and that markets smell of shoes and naked boys clothed,
nd under everything some river, some beat, some twist that
lambers along the edge of my temple and bites nip-dizzy
men drive cars and paint their houses,
ut they are mad; men sit in barber chairs; buy hats.

Corot. Recollection of Mortefontaine.

Paris, Louvre
must write Kaiser, though I think hes a homosexual.

Are you still reading Freud?

Page 299.

She made a little hat and he fastened two snaps under one
rm, reaching up from the bed like a long feeler from the
nail, and she went to church, and he thought now I hve
me and the dog.

About church: the trouble with a mask is it

ever changes.

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

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

egment in the air. It floats about the peoples 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

have seen an old man around town recently

arrying an enormous pack.
e uses a walking stick
nd moves up and down the streets
with this pack strapped to his back.

keep seeing him.

hed only throw that pack away, I think,

ed have a chance, not much of a chance
ut a chance.

nd hes in a tough districteast Hollywood.

hey arent going to give him a
ry bone in east Hollywood.

e is lost. with that pack.

n the sidewalk and in the sun.

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

ack.

hen I drive on, thinking of my own

roblems.

he last time I saw him he was not walking.

was ten thirty a.m. on north Bronson and hot, very hot, and he sat on a little ledge, bent,
he pack still strapped to his back.

slowed down to look at his face.

had seen one or two other men in my life
with looks on their faces like
hat.

speeded up and turned on the

adio.

knew that look.

would never see him again.

the elephants of Vietnam

rst they used to, he told me,

un and bomb the elephants,
ou could hear their screams over all the other sounds;
ut you flew high to bomb the people,
ou never saw it,
ust a little flash from way up
ut with the elephants
ou could watch it happen
nd hear how they screamed;
d tell my buddies, listen, you guys
top that,
ut they just laughed
s the elephants scattered
hrowing up their trunks (if they werent blown off )
pening their mouths
wide and
icking their dumb clumsy legs
s blood ran out of big holes in their bellies.

hen wed fly back,

mission completed.
wed get everything:
onvoys, dumps, bridges, people, elephants and
ll the rest.

e told me later, I
elt bad about the
lephants.

dark night poem

hey say that

othing is wasted:
ither that
r
all is.

(uncollected)

the last days of the suicide kid

can see myself now

fter all these suicide days and nights,
eing wheeled out of one of those sterile rest homes
of course, this is only if I get famous and lucky)
y a subnormal and bored nurse
here I am sitting upright in my wheelchair
lmost blind, eyes rolling backward into the dark part of my skull looking
or the mercy of death

snt it a lovely day, Mr. Bukowski?

O, yeah, yeah

he children walk past and I dont even exist

nd lovely women walk by
with big hot hips
nd warm buttocks and tight hot everything
raying to be loved
nd I dont even
xist

ts the first sunlight weve had in 3 days,

Mr. Bukowski.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

here I am sitting upright in my wheelchair,

myself whiter than this sheet of paper,
loodless,
rain gone, gamble gone, me, Bukowski,
one

snt it a lovely day, Mr. Bukowski?

O, yeah, yeah pissing in my pajamas, slop drooling out of
my mouth.
young schoolboys run by

Hey, did you see that old guy?

Christ, yes, he made me sick!

fter all the threats to do so

omebody else has committed suicide for me
t last.

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

dont even know

what it is. it might as well be my pecker
or all the good
does.

tabby cat

e has on blue jeans and tennis shoes

nd walks with two young girls
bout his age.
very now and then he leaps
nto the air and
licks his heels together.

es like a young colt

ut somehow he also reminds me
more of a tabby cat.

is ass is soft and

e has no more on his mind
han a gnat.

e jumps along behind his girls

licking his heels together.

hen he pulls the hair of one

uns over to the other and
queezes her neck.

e has fucked both of them and

s pleased with himself.
has all happened
o easily for him.

nd I think, ah,
my little tabby cat
what nights and days
wait for you.

our soft ass

will be your doom.
our agony
will be endless
nd the girls
who are yours now
will soon belong to other men
who didnt get their cookies
nd cream so easily and
o early.

he girls are practicing on you

he girls are practicing for other men
or someone out of the jungle
or someone out of the lion cage.

smile as
watch you walking along
licking your heels together.

my god, boy, I fear for you

n that night
when you first find out.

s a sunny day now.

ump
while you
an.

metamorphosis

girlfriend came in
uilt me a bed
crubbed and waxed the kitchen floor
crubbed the walls
acuumed
leaned the toilet
he bathtub
crubbed the bathroom floor
nd cut my toenails and
my hair.

hen
ll on the same day
he plumber came and fixed the kitchen faucet
nd the toilet
nd the gas man fixed the heater
nd the phone man fixed the phone.
ow I sit here in all this perfection.
is quiet.
have broken off with all 3 of my girlfriends.

felt better when everything was in

isorder.
will take me some months to get back to
ormal:
cant even find a roach to commune with.

have lost my rhythm.

cant sleep.
cant eat.

have been robbed of

my filth.

a poem is a city

poem is a city filled with streets and sewers

lled with saints, heroes, beggars, madmen,
lled with banality and booze,
lled with rain and thunder and periods of
rought, a poem is a city at war,
poem is a city asking a clock why,
poem is a city burning,
poem is a city under guns
s barbershops filled with cynical drunks,
poem is a city where God rides naked
hrough the streets like Lady Godiva,
where dogs bark at night, and chase away
he flag; a poem is a city of poets,
most of them quite similar
nd envious and bitter
poem is this city now,
0 miles from nowhere,
:09 in the morning,
he taste of liquor and cigarettes,
o police, no lovers, walking the streets,
his poem, this city, closing its doors,
arricaded, almost empty,
mournful without tears, aging without pity,
he hardrock mountains,
he ocean like a lavender flame,
moon destitute of greatness,
small music from broken windows

poem is a city, a poem is a nation,

poem is the world
nd now I stick this under glass
or the mad editors scrutiny,
nd night is elsewhere
nd faint gray ladies stand in line,
og follows dog to estuary,
he trumpets bring on gallows
s small men rant at things
hey cannot do.

a smile to remember

we had goldfish and they circled around and around

n the bowl on the table near the heavy drapes
overing the picture window and
my mother, always smiling, wanting us all
o be happy, told me, be happy, Henry!
nd she was right: its better to be happy if you
an
ut my father continued to beat her and me several times a week while
aging inside his 6-foot-2 frame because he couldnt
nderstand 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 dont you ever smile?

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

addest smile I ever saw.

ne day the goldfish died, all five of them,

hey floated on the water, on their sides, their
yes still open,
nd when my father got home he threw them to the cat
here on the kitchen floor and we watched as my mother
miled.

a free 25-page booklet

ying for a beer dying

or and of life
n a windy afternoon in Hollywood
stening to symphony music from my little red radio
n the floor.

friend said,
all ya gotta do is go out on the sidewalk
nd lay down
omebody will pick you up
omebody will take care of you.

look out the window at the sidewalk

see something walking on the sidewalk
he wouldnt lay down there,
nly in special places for special people with special $$$$
nd
pecial ways
while I am dying for a beer on a windy afternoon in
Hollywood,
othing like a beautiful broad dragging it past you on the
idewalk
moving it past your famished window
hes dressed in the finest cloth
he doesnt care what you say
ow you look what you do
s long as you do not get in her
way, and it must be that she doesnt shit or
ave blood
he must be a cloud, friend, the way she floats past us.

am too sick to lay down

he sidewalks frighten me
he whole damned city frightens me,
what I will become
what I have become
ightens me.

h, the bravado is gone

he big run through center is gone
n a windy afternoon in Hollywood
my radio cracks and spits its dirty music
hrough a floor full of empty beerbottles.

ow I hear a siren
comes closer
he music stops
he man on the radio says,
we will send you a free 25-page booklet:
ACE THE FACTS ABOUT COLLEGE COSTS.

he siren fades into the cardboard mountains

nd I look out the window again as the clasped fist of
oiling cloud comes down
he wind shakes the plants outside
wait for evening I wait for night I wait sitting in a chair
y the window
he cook drops in the live

ed-pink salty
ough-tit crab and
he game works
n

ome get me.

they, all of them, know

sk the sidewalk painters of Paris

sk the sunlight on a sleeping dog
sk the 3 pigs
sk the paperboy
sk the music of Donizetti
sk the barber
sk the murderer
sk the man leaning against a wall
sk the preacher
sk the maker of cabinets
sk the pickpocket or the
pawnbroker or the glass blower
or the seller of manure or
the dentist
sk the revolutionist
sk the man who sticks his head in
the mouth of a lion
sk the man who will release the next
atom bomb
sk the man who thinks hes Christ
sk the bluebird who comes home
at night
sk the peeping Tom
sk the man dying of cancer
sk the man who needs a bath
sk the man with one leg
sk the blind
sk the man with the lisp
sk the opium eater
sk the trembling surgeon
sk the leaves you walk upon

sk a rapist or a
streetcar conductor or an old man
pulling weeds in his garden
sk a bloodsucker
sk a trainer of fleas
sk a man who eats fire
sk the most miserable man you can
find in his most
miserable moment
sk a teacher of judo
sk a rider of elephants
sk a leper, a lifer, a lunger
sk a professor of history
sk the man who never cleans his
fingernails
sk a clown or ask the first face you see
in the light of day
sk your father
sk your son and
his son to be
sk me
sk a burned-out bulb in a paper sack
sk the tempted, the damned, the foolish
the wise, the slavering
sk the builders of temples
sk the men who have never worn shoes
sk Jesus
sk the moon
sk the shadows in the closet
sk the moth, the monk, the madman
sk the man who draws cartoons for

The New Yorker

sk a goldfish
sk a fern shaking to a tapdance
sk the map of India
sk a kind face
sk the man hiding under your bed
sk the man you hate the most in this
world
sk the man who drank with Dylan Thomas
sk the man who laced Jack Sharkeys gloves
sk the sad-faced man drinking coffee
sk the plumber
sk the man who dreams of ostriches every
night
sk the ticket taker at a freak show
sk the counterfeiter
sk the man sleeping in an alley under
a sheet of paper
sk the conquerors of nations and planets
sk the man who has just cut off his finger
sk a bookmark in the bible
sk the water dripping from a faucet while
the phone rings
sk perjury
sk the deep blue paint
sk the parachute jumper
sk the man with the bellyache
sk the divine eye so sleek and swimming
sk the boy wearing tight pants in
the expensive academy
sk the man who slipped in the bathtub
sk the man chewed by the shark

sk the one who sold me the unmatched

gloves
sk these and all those I have left out
sk the fire the fire the fire
sk even the liars
sk anybody you please at any time
you please on any day you please
whether its raining or whether
the snow is there or whether
you are stepping out onto a porch
yellow with warm heat
sk this ask that
sk the man with birdshit in his hair
sk the torturer of animals
sk the man who has seen many bullfights
in Spain
sk the owners of new Cadillacs
sk the famous
sk the timid
sk the albino
and the statesman
sk the landlords and the poolplayers
sk the phonies
sk the hired killers
sk the bald men and the fat men
and the tall men and the
short men
sk the one-eyed men, the
oversexed and undersexed men
sk the men who read all the newspaper
editorials
sk the men who breed roses

sk the men who feel almost no pain

sk the dying
sk the mowers of lawns and the attenders
of football games

sk any of these or all of these

sk ask ask and
theyll all tell you:

snarling wife on the balustrade is more

han a man can bear.

a future congressman

n the mens room at the

ack
his boy of about
or 8 years old
ame out of a stall
nd the man
waiting for him
probably his father)
sked,
what did you do with the
acing program?
gave it to you
o keep.
no, said the boy,
aint seen it! I dont
ave it!

hey walked off and

went into the stall
ecause it was the only one
vailable
nd there
n the toilet
was the
rogram.

tried to flush
he program
way
ut it just swam
luggishly about
nd
emained.

got out of
here and found
nother
mpty stall.

hat boy was ready

or his life to come,
e would undoubtedly
e highly successful,
he lying little
rick.

eulogy

with old cars, especially when you buy them secondhand

nd drive them for many years
love affair is inevitable:
ou even learn to
ccept their little
ccentricities:
he leaking water pump
he failing plugs
he rusted throttle arm
he reluctant carburetor
he oily engine
he dead clock
he frozen speedometer and
ther sundry
efects.
ou also learn all the tricks to
eep the love affair alive:
ow to slam the glove compartment so that
will stay closed,
ow to slap the headlight with an open palm
n order to have
ght,
ow many times to pump the gas pedal
nd how long to wait before
ouching the starter,
nd you overlook each burn hole in the
pholstery
nd each spring
oking through the fabric.
our car has been in and out of
olice impounds,
as been ticketed for various

malfunctions:
roken wipers,
o turn signals, missing
rake light, broken tail lights, bad
rakes, excessive
xhaust and so forth
ut in spite of everything
ou knew you were in good hands,
here was never an accident, the
ld car moved you from one place to
nother,
aithfully
the poor mans miracle.
o when that last breakdown did occur,
when the valves quit,
when the tired pistons
racked, or the
rankshaft failed and
ou sold it for
unk
you then had to watch it carted
way
anging there
om the back of the tow truck
wheeled off
s if it had no
oul,
he bald rear tires
he cracked back window and
he twisted license plate
were the last things you
aw, and it

urt
s if some woman you loved very
much
nd lived with
ear after year
ad died
nd now you
would never
gain know
er music
er magic
er unbelievable
delity.

the drowning

or five years I have been looking

cross the way
t the side of a red apartment house.
here must be people in there
ven love in there
whatever that means.

ere blows a horn, there sounds a

iano, and yesterdays newspapers are as
ellow as the grass.
ve years.
man can drown in five years,
while the red bricks
tand forever.

hear sounds now like dancing in the

ir
reat bladders of blood are being loosed in
Mariposa Ave.
weat drenches my temple like beads on a
old beer can
s armies fight in my head.

see a woman come out of the redbrick

partment house.
he is fat and comfortable
he slow horse of her body moves
nder a dress of pink carnations
laying tricks with my better sense
nd now she is gone and
he bricks look back at me
he bricks with their
windows and the windows look at me
nd a bird on a telephone wire looks
nd I feel naked as I
y to forget all the good dead.

band plays wildly

OOKAWAY, LOOKAWAY,
DIXIELAND!
s they empty bladders of poison
nd bags of oranges over Mariposa Ave.
nd the cars run through them like poor snow
nd my pink woman comes back and I
y to tell her
wait! wait!
dont go back in there!
ut she goes inside as
my bird flies away
nd it is just
nother hot evening in
os Angeles:
ome bricks, a mongoose or two, Chimera and
isbelief.

(uncollected)

fooling Marie (the poem)

e met her at the racetrack, a strawberry

londe with round hips, well-bosomed, long legs,
urned-up nose, flower mouth, in a pink dress,
wearing white high-heeled shoes.
he began asking him questions about various
orses while looking up at him with her pale blue
yes.

e suggested the bar and they had a drink, then

watched the next race together.
e hit fifty-win on a sixty-to-one shot and she
umped up and down.
hen she whispered in his ear,
youre the magic man! I want to fuck you!
e grinned and said, Id like to, but
Mariemy wife
he laughed, well go to a motel!

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

ot into her car. Ill drive you back when
were finished, she smiled.

hey found a motel about a mile

west. she parked, they got out, checked in, went to
oom 302.
hey had stopped for a bottle of Jack Daniels
n the way. he stood and took the glasses out of the
ellophane. as she undressed he poured two.

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

he bed sipping at the Jack Daniels as he
ndressed. he felt awkward, fat and old
ut knew he was lucky: it promised to be his best day
ver.
hen he too sat on the edge of the bed with her and
is Jack Daniels. she reached over
nd grabbed him between the legs, bent over
nd went down on him.

e pulled her under the covers and they played some more.
nally, 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
hinking, Ill shower real good, Marie will never
now.

he came out and they sat in bed

making small talk.
m going to shower now, he told her,
ll be out soon.

o.k., cutie, she said.

e soaped good in the shower, washing away all the

erfume, the woman-smell.

hurry up, daddy! he heard her say.

wont be long, baby! he yelled from the

hower.

e got out, toweled off, then opened the bathroom

oor and stepped out.

he motel room was empty.

he was gone.

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

pen: nothing there but coat hangers.

hen he noticed that his clothes were gone, his underwear, his shirt, his pants with the car keys and his wallet,
ll the money, his shoes, his stockings, everything.

n another impulse he looked under the bed.

othing.

hen he saw the bottle of Jack Daniels, half full,

tanding on the dresser.
e walked over and poured a drink.
s he did he saw the word scrawled on the dresser
mirror in pink lipstick: SUCKER.

e drank the whiskey, put the glass down and watched himself
n the mirror, very fat, very tired, very old.
e had no idea what to do next.

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

fted the bottle and sucked at it as the light from the
oulevard came in through the dusty blinds. then he just sat
nd looked out and watched the cars, passing back and
orth.

the young man on the bus stop bench

e sits all day at the bus stop

t Sunset and Western
is sleeping bag beside him.
es dirty.
obody bothers him.
eople leave him alone.
he police leave him alone.
e could be the 2nd coming of Christ
ut I doubt it.
he soles of his shoes are completely
one.
e just laces the tops on
nd sits and watches traffic.

remember my own youthful days

although I traveled lighter)
hey were similar:
ark benches
treet corners
arpaper shacks in Georgia for
1.25 a week
ot wanting the skid row church
and-outs
oo crazy to apply for relief
aytimes spent laying in public parks
ugs in the grass biting
ooking into the sky
ttle insects whirling above my head
he breathing of white air
ust breathing and waiting.

fe becomes difficult:
eing ignored
nd ignoring.
verything turns into white air
he head fills with white air
nd as invisible women sit in rooms
with successful bright-eyed young men
onversing brilliantly about everything
our sex drive
anishes and it really
oesnt matter.
ou dont want food
ou dont want shelter
ou dont want anything.
ometimes you die
ometimes you dont.

s I drive past
he young man on the bus stop bench
am comfortable in my automobile
have money in two different banks
own my own home
ut he reminds me of my young self
nd I want to help him
ut I dont know what to do.

oday when I drove past again

e was gone

suppose finally the world wasnt

leased with him being there.

he bench still sits there on the corner

advertising something.

for they had things to say

he canaries were there, and the lemon tree

nd the old woman with warts;
nd I was there, a child
nd I touched the piano keys
s they talked
ut not too loudly
or they had things to say,
he three of them;
nd I watched them cover the canaries at night
with flour sacks:
so they can sleep, my dear.

played the piano quietly

ne note at a time,
he canaries under their sacks,
nd there were pepper trees,
epper trees brushing the roof like rain
nd hanging outside the windows
ke green rain,
nd they talked, the three of them
itting in a warm nights semicircle,
nd the keys were black and white
nd responded to my fingers
ke the locked-in magic
f a waiting, grown-up world;
nd now theyre gone, the three of them
nd I am old:
irate feet have trod
he clean-thatched floors
f my soul,
nd the canaries sing no more.

silly damned thing anyhow

we tried to hide it in the house so that the

eighbors wouldnt see.
was difficult, sometimes we both had to
e gone at once and when we returned
here would be excreta and urine all
bout.
wouldnt toilet train
ut it had the bluest eyes you ever
aw
nd it ate everything we did
nd we often watched tv together.

ne evening we came home and it was

one.
here was blood on the floor,
here was a trail of blood.
followed it outside and into the garden
nd there in the brush it was,
mutilated.
here was a sign hung about its severed
hroat:
we dont want things like this in our
eighborhood.

walked to the garage for the shovel.

told my wife, dont come out here.
hen I walked back with the shovel and
egan digging.
sensed
he faces watching me from behind
rawn blinds.

hey had their neighborhood back,

nice quiet neighborhood with green
awns, palm trees, circular driveways, children,
hurches, a supermarket, etc.

dug into the earth.

upon reading an interview with a

best-selling novelist in our metropolitan
daily newspaper

e talks like he writes

nd he has a face like a dove, untouched by
xternals.
little shiver of horror runs through me as I read
bout
is comfortable assured success.
am going to write an important novel next year, he says.
ext year?
skip some paragraphs
ut the interview goes on for two and one-half pages
more.
s like milk spilled on a tablecloth, its as soothing as
alcum powder, its the bones of an eaten fish, its a damp
tain on a faded necktie, its a gathering hum.
his man is very fortunate that he is not standing
n line at a soup kitchen.
his man has no concept of failure because he is
aid so well for it.
am lying on the bed, reading.
drop the paper to the floor.
hen I hear a sound.
is a small fly buzzing.
watch it flying, circling the room in an irregular
attern.

fe at last.

harbor freeway south

he dead dogs of nowhere bark

s you approach another
affic accident.

cars
ne standing on its
rill
he other 2 laying
n their sides
wheels turning slowly.

of them
t rest:
trange angles
n the dark.

has just
appened.

can see the still

odies
nside.

hese cars
cattered like toys
gainst the freeway
enter
ivider.

ke spacecraft
hey have landed
here

s you
rive past.

heres no
mbulance yet
o police
ars.

he rain began
5 minutes
go.

hings occur.

olcanoes are
500 times more
owerful than
he first a
omb.

he dead dogs of
owhere
hose dogs keep
arking.

hose cars
here like that.

bscene.
dirty trick.

s like
omebody dying
f a heart

ttack
n a crowded
levator

verybody
watching.

finally
each my street
ull into
he driveway.

ark.
et out.

he meets me
alfway
o the door.

dont know
what to do,
he says, the
tove
went out.

schoolyards of forever

he schoolyard was a horror show: the bullies, the

eaks
he beatings up against the wire fence
ur schoolmates watching
lad that they were not the victim;
we were beaten well and good
me after time
nd afterwards were
ollowed
aunted all the way home where often
more beatings awaited us.

n the schoolyard the bullies ruled well,

nd in the restrooms and
t the water fountains they
wned and disowned us at will
ut in our own way we held strong
ever begged for mercy
we took it straight on
ilently
we were toughened by that horror
horror that would later serve us in good stead
nd then strangely
s we grew stronger and bolder
he bullies gradually began to back off.

rammar school
. high
igh school
we grew up like odd neglected plants
athering nourishment where we could

lossoming in time
nd later when the bullies tried to befriend us
we turned them away.

hen college
where under a new regime
he bullies melted almost entirely away
we became more and they became much less.

ut there were new bullies now

he professors
who had to be taught the hard lessons wed learned
we glowed madly
was grand and easy
he coeds dismayed at our gamble
nd our nerve
ut we looked right through them
o the larger fight waiting out there.

hen when we arrived out there

was back up against the fence
ew bullies once again
eeply entrenched by society
osses and the like
who kept us in our place for de cades to come
o we had to begin all over again
n the street
nd in small rooms of madness
ooms that were always dim at noon
lasted and lasted for years like that
ut our former training enabled us to endure

nd after what seemed like

n eternity

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

was a small enough victory

o songs of braggadocio because
we knew we had won very little from very little,
nd that we had fought so hard to be free
ust for the simple sweetness of it.

ut even now we still can see the grade school janitor

with his broom
nd sleeping face;
we can still see the little girls with their curls
heir hair so carefully brushed and shining
n their freshly starched dresses;

ee the faces of the teachers

at folded forlorn;

ear the bell at recess;

ee the grass and the baseball diamond;
ee the volleyball court and its white net;
eel the sun always up and shining there
pilling down on us like the juice of a giant tangerine.

nd we did not soon forget

Herbie Ashcroft
ur principal tormentor
is fists as hard as rocks
s we crouched trapped against the steel fence
s we heard the sounds of automobiles passing but not stopping

nd as the world went about doing what it does

we asked for no mercy
nd we returned the next day and the next and the next
o our classes
he little girls looking so calm and secure
s they sat upright in their seats
n that room of blackboards and chalk
while we hung on grimly to our stubborn disdain
or all the horror and all the strife
nd waited for something better
o come along and comfort us
n that never-to-be-forgotten
rammar school world.

in the lobby

saw him sitting in a lobby chair

n the Patrick Hotel
reaming of flying fish
nd he said hello friend
oure looking good.
me, Im not so well,
heyve plucked out my hair
aken my bowels
nd the color in my eyes
as gone back into the sea.

sat down and listened

o him breathe
is last.

bit later the clerk came over

with his green eyeshade on
nd then the clerk saw what I knew
ut neither of us knew
what the old man knew.

he clerk stood there

lmost surprised,
aken,
wondering where the old man had gone.

e began to shake like an ape

whod had a banana taken from his hand.

nd then there was a crowd

nd the crowd looked at the old man

s if he were a freak
s if there was something wrong with him.

got up and walked out of the lobby

went outside on the sidewalk
nd I walked along with the rest of them
ellies, feet, hair, eyes
verything moving and going
etting ready to go back to the beginning
r light a cigar.

nd then somebody stepped on

he back of my heel
nd I was angry enough to swear.

sex

am driving down Wilton Avenue

when this girl of about 15
ressed in tight blue jeans
hat grip her behind like two hands
teps out in front of my car
stop to let her cross the street
nd as I watch her contours waving
he looks directly through my windshield
t me
with purple eyes
nd then blows
ut of her mouth
he largest pink globe of
ubble gum
have ever seen
while I am listening to Beethoven
n the car radio.
he enters a small grocery store
nd is gone
nd I am left with
udwig.

a clean, well-lighted place

he old fart, he used his literary reputation

o reel them in one at a time,
ach younger than the last.
e liked to meet them for luncheon and
wine
nd hed talk and listen to them
alk.
what ever wife or girlfriend he had at the moment
was made to
nderstand that this sort of thing made him
eel young again.
nd when the luncheons became more
han luncheons
he young ladies vied to bed down with
his
terary
enius.
n between, he continued to write,
nd late at night in his favorite bar
e liked to talk about writing and his amorous
dventures.
ctually, he was just a drunk
who liked young ladies,
writing itself,
nd talking about writing.
wasnt a bad life.
was certainly more interesting than
what most men were
oing.
t one time he was probably the
most famous writer in the
world.

many tried to write like he did

rink like he did
ct like he did
ut he was the original.
hen life began to
atch up with him.
e began to age quickly.
is large bulk began to wither.
e was growing old
efore his time.
nally it got to where he couldnt
write anymore,
t just wouldnt come
nd the psychiatrists couldnt
o anything for him but only
made it worse.
hen he took his own cure,
arly one morning,
lone
ust as his father had done
many years
efore.

writer who cant write any

more is dead
nyhow.
e knew that.
e knew that what he was
illing was already
ead.

nd then the critics

nd the hangers-on
nd the publicists
nd his heirs
moved in
ke vultures.

something for the touts, the nuns,

the grocery clerks and you

we have everything and we have nothing

nd some men do it in churches
nd some men do it by tearing butterflies
n half
nd some men do it in Palm Springs
aying it into butterblondes
with Cadillac souls
Cadillacs and butterflies
othing and everything,
he face melting down to the last puff
n a cellar in Corpus Christi.
heres something for the touts, the nuns,
he grocery clerks and you
omething at 8 a.m., something in the library
omething in the river,
verything and nothing.
n the slaughter house it comes running along
he ceiling on a hook, and you swing it
ne
two
three
nd then youve got it, $200 worth of dead
meat, its bones against your bones
omething and nothing.
s always early enough to die and
s always too late,
nd the drill of blood in the basin white
tells you nothing at all
nd the gravediggers playing poker over
a.m. coffee, waiting for the grass

o dismiss the frost

hey tell you nothing at all.

we have everything and we have nothing

ays with glass edges and the impossible stink
f river mossworse than shit;
heckerboard days of moves and countermoves,
agged interest, with as much sense in defeat as
n victory; slow days like mules
umping it slagged and sullen and sun-glazed
p a road where a madman sits waiting among
lue jays and wrens netted in and sucked a flakey
ray.
ood days too of wine and shouting, fights
n alleys, fat legs of women striving around
our bowels buried in moans,
he signs in bullrings like diamonds hollering
Mother Capri, violets coming out of the ground
elling you to forget the dead armies and the loves
hat robbed you.
ays when children say funny and brilliant things
ke savages trying to send you a message through
heir bodies while their bodies are still
live enough to transmit and feel and run up
nd down without locks and paychecks and
deals and possessions and beetle-like
pinions.
ays when you can cry all day long in
green room with the door locked, days
when you can laugh at the breadman

ecause his legs are too long, days

f looking at hedges

nd nothing, and nothing. the days of

he bosses, yellow men
with bad breath and big feet, men
who look like frogs, hyenas, men who walk
s if melody had never been invented, men
who think it is intelligent to hire and fire and
rofit, men with expensive wives they possess
ke 60 acres of ground to be drilled
r shown off or to be walled away from
he incompetent, men whod kill you
ecause theyre crazy and justify it because
s the law, men who stand in front of
windows 30 feet wide and see nothing,
men with luxury yachts who can sail around
he world and yet never get out of their vest
ockets, men like snails, men like eels, men
ke slugs, and not as good

nd nothing. getting your last paycheck

t a harbor, at a factory, at a hospital, at an
ircraft plant, at a penny arcade, at a
arbershop, at a job you didnt want
nyway.
ncome tax, sickness, servility, broken
rms, broken headsall the stuffing
ome out like an old pillow.

we have everything and we have nothing.

ome do it well enough for a while and
hen give way. fame gets them or disgust
r age or lack of proper diet or ink
cross the eyes or children in college
r new cars or broken backs while skiing
n Switzerland or new politics or new wives
r just natural change and decay
he man you knew yesterday hooking
or ten rounds or drinking for three days and
hree nights by the Sawtooth mountains now
ust something under a sheet or a cross
r a stone or under an easy delusion,
r packing a bible or a golf bag or a
riefcase: how they go, how they go!all
he ones you thought would never go.

ays like this. like your day today.

maybe the rain on the window trying to
et through to you. what do you see today?
what is it? where are you? the best
ays are sometimes the first, sometimes
he middle and even sometimes the last.
he vacant lots are not bad, churches in
Europe on postcards are not bad. people in
wax museums frozen into their best sterility
re not bad, horrible but not bad. the
annon, think of the cannon. and toast for
reakfast the coffee hot enough you

now your tongue is still there. three

eraniums outside a window, trying to be
ed and trying to be pink and trying to be
eraniums. no wonder sometimes the women
ry, no wonder the mules dont want
o go up the hill. are you in a hotel room
n Detroit looking for a cigarette? one more
ood day. a little bit of it. and as
he nurses come out of the building after
heir shift, having had enough, eight nurses
with different names and different places
o gowalking across the lawn, some of them

want cocoa and a paper, some of them want a

ot bath, some of them want a man, some
f them are hardly thinking at all. enough
nd not enough. arcs and pilgrims, oranges,
utters, ferns, antibodies, boxes of
ssue paper.

n the most decent sometimes sun

here is the softsmoke feeling from urns
nd the canned sound of old battleplanes
nd if you go inside and run your finger
long the window ledge youll find
irt, maybe even earth.
nd if you look out the window
here will be the day, and as you
et older youll keep looking
eep looking

ucking your tongue in a little

h ah no no maybe

ome do it naturally
ome obscenely
verywhere.

blue beads and bones

s the orchid dies

nd the grass goes
nsane, lets have one for the lost:

met an old man

nd a tired whore
n a bar
t 8:00 in the morning
cross from MacArthur Park
we were sitting over our beers
e and I and the old whore
who had slept in an unlocked car
he night before
nd wore a blue necklace.
he old guy said to me:
ook at my arms. Im all bone.
o meat on me.
nd he pulled back his sleeves
nd he was right
one with just a layer of skin
anging like paper.
e said, I dont eat
othin.
bought him a beer and the
whore a beer.
ow there, I thought, is a man
who doesnt eat
meat, he doesnt eat
egetables. kind of a saint.
was like a church in there
s only the truly lost
it in bars on Tuesday mornings

t 8:00 a.m.
hen the whore said, Jesus,
I dont score to night Im
nished. Im scared, Im really
cared. you guys can go to skid row
when things get bad. but where can a
woman go?
we couldnt answer her.
he picked up her beer with one hand
nd played with her blue beads with the
ther.
finished my beer, went to the
orner and got a Racing Form from Teddy the
ewsboyage 61.
you got a hot one today?
no, Teddy, I gotta see the board; money
makes them run.
ll give you 4 bucks. bet one for
me.
took his 4 bucks. that would buy a sandwich,
ay parking, plus 2
offees. I got into my car, drove
ff. too early for the
ack. blue beads and bones. the
niverse was
ent. a cop rode his bike right up
ehind me. the day had really
egun.

like a cherry seed in the throat

aked in that bright

ght
he four horse falls
nd throws a 112-pound
oy into the hooves
f 35,000 eyes.

ood night, sweet

ttle
motherfucker.

turnabout

he drives into the parking lot while

am leaning up against the fender of my car.
hes drunk and her eyes are wet with tears:
you son of a bitch, you fucked me when you
idnt want to. you told me to keep phoning
ou, you told me to move closer into town,
hen you told me to leave you alone.

s all quite dramatic and I enjoy it.

sure, well, what do you want?

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

lace and talk to you

m with somebody now. shes in getting a

andwich.

want to talk to youit takes a while

o get over things. I need more time.

sure. wait until she comes out. were not

nhuman. well all have a drink together.

shit, she says, oh shit!

he jumps into her car and drives off.

he other one comes out: who was that?

an ex-friend.

ow shes gone and Im sitting here drunk

nd my eyes seem wet with tears.

s very quiet and I feel like I have a spear

ammed into the center of my gut.

walk to the bathroom and puke.

mercy, I think, doesnt the human race know anything

bout mercy?

mystery leg

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

ocating the parking lot for the building.
wasnt off the main boulevard where
he cars all driven by merciless killers
were doing 55 mph in a 25 mph zone.
he man riding my bumper so
lose I could see his snarling face
n my rearview mirror caused me
o miss the narrow alley that would have
llowed me to circle the west
nd of the building in search of parking.
went to the next street, took a right, then
ook another right, spotted the building, a blue
eartless-looking structure, then took
nother right and finally saw it, a tiny
ign: parking.
drove in.
he guard had the wooden red and white
arrier down.
e stuck his head out a little window.
yeah? he asked.
e looked like a retired hit man.
o see Dr. Manx, I said.
e looked at me disdainfully, then said,
go ahead!
he red and white barrier lifted.
drove in,
rove around and around.
finally found a parking spot a good distance away,
football field away.
walked in.
finally found the entrance and the elevator

nd the floor
nd then the office number.
walked in.
he waiting room was full.
here was an old lady talking to the
eceptionist.
but cant I see him now?
Mrs. Miller, you are here at the right time
ut on the wrong day.
his is Wednesday, youll have to come
ack Friday.
but I took a cab. Im an old lady, I have almost
o money, cant I see him now?
Mrs. Miller, Im sorry but your appointment
s on Friday, youll have to come back
hen.
Mrs. Miller turned away: unwanted,
ld and poor, she walked to the
oor.
stepped up smartly, informed them who I was.
was told to sit down and wait.
sat with the others.
hen I noticed the magazine rack.
walked over and looked at the magazines.
was odd: they werent of recent
intage: in fact, all of them were over a
ear old.
sat back down.
0 minutes passed.
5 minutes passed.
n hour passed.
he man next to me spoke:

ve been waiting an hour and a half, he

aid.
hats hell, I said, they shouldnt do that!
e didnt reply.
ust then the receptionist called my
ame.
got up and told her that the other man had
een waiting an hour and a half.
he acted as if she hadnt heard.
please follow me, she said.
followed her down a dark hall, then she
pened a door, pointed. in there, she said.
walked in and she closed the door behind me.
sat down and looked at a map of
he human body hanging from the wall.
could see the veins, the heart, the
ntestines, all that.
was cold in there and dark, darker
han in the hall.
waited maybe 15 minutes before the door
pened.
was Dr. Manx.
e was followed by a tired-looking young lady
n a white gown; she held a clipboard;
he looked depressed.
well, now, said Dr. Manx, what is it?
ts my leg, I said.
saw the lady writing on the clipboard.
he wrote LEG.
what is it about the leg? asked the Dr.
t hurts, I said.
AIN wrote the lady.

hen she saw me looking at the clipboard and

urned away.
did you fill out the form they gave you at
he desk? the Dr. asked.
hey didnt give me a form, I said.
Florence, he said, give him a form.
lorence pulled a form out from her
lipboard, handed it to me.
ill that out, said Dr. Manx, well be right
ack.
hen they were gone and I worked at the
orm.
was the usual: name, address, phone,
mployer, relatives, etc.
here was also a long list of questions.
marked them all no.
hen I sat there.
0 minutes passed.
hen they were back.
he doctor began twisting my leg.
ts the right leg, I said.
oh, he said.
lorence wrote something on her
lipboard.
robably RIGHT LEG.
e 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

ou do that, it hurts more.

but not real bad?
whats real bad?
ike you cant stand on it.
can stand on it.
hmmmstand up!
all right.
now, rock on your toes, back and
orth, back and forth.
did.
hurt real bad? he asked.
ust medium.
you know what? Dr. Manx asked.
no.
weve got a Mystery Leg here!
lorence wrote something on the
lipboard.
have?
yes, I dont know yet whats wrong with
.
want you to come back in 30 days.
30 days?
yes, and stop at the desk on your
way out, see the girl.
hen they walked out.

t the checkout desk there was a long

ow of bottles waiting, white bottles with
right orange labels.
he girl at the desk looked at me.

ake 4 of those bottles.

did.
he didnt offer me a bag so I stuck
hem in my pockets.
hatll be $143, she said.
$143? I asked.
ts for the pills, she said.
pulled out my credit card.
oh, we dont take credit cards, she told
me.
but I dont have that much money on
me.
how much do you have?
looked in my wallet.
23 dollars.
well take that and bill you for the
est.
handed her the money.
see you in 30 days, she smiled.
walked out and into the waiting room.
he man who had been waiting an hour and
half was still there.
walked out into the hall, found the
levator.
hen I was on the first floor and out
nto the parking lot.
my car was still a football field
way
nd my right leg began to hurt like hell,
fter all that twisting Dr.
Manx had done to it.
moved slowly to my car, got in.

started and soon I was out on the

oulevard again.
he 4 bottles of pills bulged painfully in my
ockets as I drove along.
ow I only had one problem left, I had
o tell my wife

had a Mystery Leg.

could hear her already:
what? you mean he couldnt tell
ou what was wrong with your
eg?
what do you mean, he didnt
now?
nd what are those PILLS?
ere, let me see those!

s I drove along, I switched on the

adio in search of some soothing
music.

here wasnt any.

the girl outside the supermarket

very tall girl lifts her nose at me

utside a supermarket
s if I were a walking garbage
an; and I had no desire for her,
o more desire
han for a
hone pole.
what was her message?
hat I would never see the top of her
antyhose?

am a man in his 50s

ex is no longer an aching mystery
o me, so I cant understand
eing snubbed by a
hone pole.
ll leave young girls to young
men.

s a lonely world
f frightened people,
ust as it has always
een.

(uncollected)

it is not much

suppose like others

have come through fire and sword,
ove gone wrong,
ead-on crashes, drunk at sea,
nd I have listened to the simple sound of water running
n tubs
nd wished to drown
ut simply couldnt bear the others
arrying my body down three flights of stairs
o the round mouths of curious biddies;
he psyche has been burned
nd left us senseless,
he world has been darker than lights out
n a closet full of hungry bats,
nd the whiskey and wine entered our veins
when blood was too weak to carry on;
nd it will happen to others,
nd our few good times will be rare
ecause we have a critical sense
nd are not easy to fool with laughter;
mall gnats crawl our screen
ut we see through
o a wasted landscape
nd let them have their moment;
we only asked for leopards to guard
ur thinning dreams.
once lay in a
white hospital
or the dying and the dying
elf, where some god pissed a rain of
eason to make things grow
nly to die, where on my knees

prayed for LIGHT,

prayed for 1*i*g*h*t,
nd praying
rawled like a blind slug into the
web
where threads of wind stuck against my mind
nd I died of pity
or Man, for myself,
n a cross without nails,
watching in fear as
he pig belches in his sty, farts,
links and eats.

2 Outside, As Bones Break

in My Kitchen

hey get up on their garage roof

oth of them 80 or 90 years old
tanding on the slant
he wanting to fall really
ll the way
ut hacking at the old roofing
with a hoe

nd he
more coward
n his knees praying for more days
luing chunks of tar
is ear listening
or more green rain
more green rain
nd he says
mama be careful

nd she says nothing

nd hacks a hole
where a tulip
ever grew.

The Japanese Wife

O lord, he said, Japanese women,

eal women, they have not forgotten,
owing and smiling
losing the wounds men have made;
ut American women will kill you like they
ear a lampshade,
American women care less than a dime,
heyve gotten derailed,
heyre too nervous to make good:
lways scowling, belly-aching,
isillusioned, overwrought;
ut oh lord, say, the Japanese women:
here was this one,
came home and the door was locked
nd when I broke in she broke out the bread knife
nd chased me under the bed
nd her sister came
nd they kept me under that bed for two days,
nd when I came out, at last,
he didnt mention attorneys,
ust said, you will never wrong me again,
nd I didnt; but she died on me,
nd dying, said, you can wrong me now,
nd I did,
ut you know, I felt worse then
han when she was living;
here was no voice, no knife,
othing but little Japanese prints on the wall,
ll those tiny people sitting by red rivers
with flying green birds,
nd I took them down and put them face down
n a drawer with my shirts,

nd it was the first time I realized

hat she was dead, even though I buried her;
nd some day Ill take them all out again,
ll the tan-faced little people
itting happily by their bridges and huts
nd mountains
ut not right now,
ot just yet.

the harder you try

he waste of words
ontinues with a stunning
ersistence
s the waiter runs by carrying the loaded
ay
or all the wise white boys who laugh at
s.
o matter. no matter,
s long as your shoes are tied and
obody is walking too close
ehind.
ust being able to scratch yourself and
e nonchalant is victory
nough.
hose constipated minds that seek
arger meaning
will be dispatched with the other
arbage.
ack off.
there is light
will find
ou.

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 didnt 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 pocketthat showed you had
it, you could roll with one handplenty of time to practice and if somebody looked at you wrong or said something you didnt 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

like the water hotter than she)
nd her face is always soft and peaceful
nd shell wash me first
pread the soap over my balls
ft the balls
queeze them,
hen wash the cock:
hey, this thing is still hard!
hen get all the hair down there,
he belly, the back, the neck, the legs,
grin grin grin,
nd then I wash her
rst the cunt, I
tand behind her, my cock in the cheeks of her ass
gently soap up the cunt hairs,
wash there with a soothing motion,
linger perhaps longer than necessary,
hen I get the backs of the legs, the ass,
he back, the neck, I turn her, kiss her,
oap up the breasts, get them and the belly, the neck,
he fronts of the legs, the ankles, the feet,
nd then the cunt, once more, for luck
nother kiss, and she gets out first,
oweling, sometimes singing while I stay in
urn the water on hotter
eeling the good times of loves miracle
then get out
is usually mid-afternoon and quiet,
nd getting dressed we talk about what else
here might be to do,
ut being together solves most of it,

n fact, solves all of it

or as long as those things stay solved
n the history of woman and
man, its different for each
etter and worse for each
or me, its splendid enough to remember
ast the marching of armies
nd the horses that walk the streets outside
ast the memories of pain and defeat and unhappiness:
inda, you brought it to me,
when you take it away
o it slowly and easily
make it as if I were dying in my sleep instead of in
my life, amen.

i was glad

was glad I had money in the Savings and Loan

riday afternoon hungover
didnt have a job

was glad I had money in the Savings and Loan

didnt know how to play a guitar
riday afternoon hungover

riday afternoon hungover

cross the street from Norms
cross the street from The Red Fez

was glad I had money in the Savings and Loan

plit with my girlfriend and blue and demented
was glad to have my passbook and stand in line

watched the buses run up Vermont

was too crazy to get a job as a driver of buses
nd I didnt even look at the young girls

got dizzy standing in line but I

ust kept thinking I have money in this building
riday afternoon hungover

didnt know how to play the piano

r even hustle a damnfool job in a carwash
was glad I had money in the Savings and Loan

nally I was at the window

was my Japanese girl
he smiled at me as if I were some amazing god

ack again, eh? she said and laughed

s I showed her my withdrawal slip and my passbook
s the buses ran up and down Vermont

he camels trotted across the Sahara

he gave me the money and I took the money
riday afternoon hungover

walked into the market and got a cart

nd I threw sausages and eggs and bacon and bread in there
threw beer and salami and relish and pickles and mustard in there

looked at the young house wives wiggling casually

threw t-bone steaks and porter house and cube steaks in my cart
nd tomatoes and cucumbers and oranges in my cart

riday afternoon hungover

plit with my girlfriend and blue and demented
was glad I had money in the Savings and Loan.

the angel who pushed his wheelchair

ong ago he edited a little magazine

was up in San Francisco
uring the beat era
uring the reading-poetry-with-jazz experiments
nd I remember him because he never returned my manuscripts
ven though I wrote him many letters,
umble letters, sane letters, and, at last, violent letters;
m told he jumped off a roof
ecause a woman wouldnt love him.
o matter. when I saw him again
e was in a wheelchair and carried a wine bottle to piss in;
e wrote very delicate poetry
hat I, naturally, couldnt understand;
e autographed his book for me
which he said I wouldnt like)
nd once at a party I threatened to punch him and
was drunk and he wept and
took pity and instead hit the next poet who walked by
n the head with his piss bottle; so,
we had an understanding after all.

e had this very thin and intense woman

ushing him about, she was his arms and legs and
maybe for a while
is heart.
was almost commonplace
t poetry readings where he was scheduled to read
o see her swiftly rolling him in,
ometimes stopping by me, saying,
dont see how we are going to get him up on the stage!
ometimes she did. often she did.

hen she began writing poetry, I didnt see much of it,

ut, somehow, I was glad for her.
hen she injured her neck while doing her yoga
nd she went on disability, and again I was glad for her,
ll the poets wanted to get disability insurance
was better than immortality.

met her in the market one day

n the bread section, and she held my hands and
embled all over
nd I wondered if they ever had sex
hose two. well, they had the muse anyhow
nd she told me she was writing poetry and articles
ut really more poetry, she was really writing a lot,
nd thats the last I saw of her
ntil one night somebody told me shed o.d.d
nd I said, no, not her
nd they said, yes, her.

was a day or so later

ometime in the afternoon
had to go to the Los Feliz post office
o mail some dirty stories to a sex mag.
oming back
utside a church
saw these smiling creatures
o many of them smiling
he men with beards and long hair and wearing
lue jeans
nd most of the women blonde
with sunken cheeks and tiny grins,

nd I thought, ah, a wedding,

nice old-fashioned wedding,

nd then I saw him on the sidewalk
n his wheelchair
agic yet somehow calm
ooking grayer, a profile like a tamed hawk,
nd I knew it was her funeral,
he had really o.d.d
nd he did look tragic out there.

do have feelings, you know.

maybe to night Ill try to read his book.

a time to remember

t North Avenue 21 drunk tank you slept on the floor and at night
here was always some guy who would step on your face on his
way to the crapper
nd then you would curse him good, set him straight, so that
e would know enough to either be more careful or to
ust lay there and hold it.

here was a large hill in back dense with foliage

ou could see it through the barred window
nd a few of the guys after being released would not go back to
kid row, theyd just walk up into that green hill where
hey lived like animals.
art of it was a campground and some lived out of the
ash cans while others trekked back to skid row for meals but then
eturned
nd they all sold their blood each week for
wine.

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

hey were more or less just as happy as corporate lawyers
tockbrokers or airline
i lots.

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

eel the skin off, pull the sections apart, chew it, the
nal result is a mouthful of pale pulp which you can either
wallow or spit
ut.

ome just swallow it

ke the guys down at North Avenue
1.

the wrong way

uxury ocean liners

rossing the water
ull of the indolent
nd rich
assing from this place to that
with their hearts gone
nd their guts empty
ke Xmas turkeys
he great blue sky above
wasted
ll that water
wasted
ll those
ngers, heads, toes, buttocks,
yes, ears, legs, feet
sleep in
heir American Express Card
taterooms.

s like a floating tomb

oing nowhere.

hese are the floating dead.

et the dead are not ugly

ut the near-dead surely
re
most
urely are.

when do they laugh?

what do they think about
ove?

what are they

oing
midst all that water?
nd where do they seek
o go?

no wonder

ony phoned and told me that

an had left him but that he was all right;
helped him he said to think about other great men
ke D. H. Lawrence
issed off with life in general but still
milking his cow;
r to think about
. Dreiser with his masses of copious
otes
ainfully constructing his novels which then made
he very walls applaud;
r I think about van Gogh, Tony continued, a madman
who continued to make great paintings as the
illage children threw rocks at his
window;
r, there was Harry Crosby and his mistress
n that fancy hotel room, dying together, swallowed by
he Black Sun;
r, take Tchaikovsky, that homo, marrying a
emale opera singer and then standing in a freezing
ver hoping to catch pneumonia while she went mad;
r Dos Passos, after all those left-wing books,
utting on a suit and a necktie and voting Republican;
r that homo Lorca, shot dead in the road, supposedly
or his politics but really because the mayor of that
own thought his wife had the hots for the poet;
r that other homo Crane, jumping over the rail of the boat
nd into the propellor because while drunk he had
romised to marry some woman;
r Dostoyevsky crucified on the roulette wheel with
Christ on his mind;
r Hemingway, getting his ass kicked by Callaghan

but Hem was correct in maintaining that F.

Scott couldnt write);
r sometimes, Tony continued, I remember that guy
with syphilis who went mad and just kept rowing in
ircles on some lakea Frenchmananyhow, he
wrote great short stories

sten, I asked, you gonna be all

ght?

ure, sure, he answered, just thought Id phone, good

ight.

nd he hung up
nd I hung up, thinking Jesus
Christ no wonder Jan left
im.

a threat to my immortality

he undressed in front of me
eeping her pussy to the front
while I lay in bed with a bottle of
eer.

whered you get that wart on

our ass? I asked.

hats no wart, she said,

hats a mole, a kind of
irthmark.

hat thing scares me, I said,

ets call
off.

got out of bed and

walked into the other room and
at on the rocker
nd rocked.

he walked out. now, listen, you

ld fart. youve got warts and scars and
ll kinds of things all over
ou. I do believe youre the ugliest
ld man
ve ever seen.

orget that, I said, tell me some more

bout that
mole on your butt.

he walked into the other room

nd got dressed and then ran past me
lammed the door
nd was
one.

nd to think,
hed read all my books of
oetry too.

just hoped she wouldnt tell

nybody that
wasnt pretty.

my telephone

he telephone has not been kind of late,

f late there have been more and more calls
om people who want to come over and talk
om people who are depressed
om people who are lonely
om people who just dont know what to do
with their time;
m no snob, I try to help, try to suggest something that
might be of assistance
ut there have been more calls
more and more calls
nd what the callers dont realize is that
too have
roblems
nd even when I dont
s
ecessary for me
ometimes
ust to be alone and quiet and
oing nothing.
o the other day
fter many days of listening to depressed and lonely people
wanting me to assuage their grief,
was lying there
njoying looking at the ceiling
when the phone rang
nd I picked it up and said,
isten, what ever your problem is or what ever it is you want,
cant help you.
fter a moment of silence
whoever it was hung up
nd I felt like a man who had escaped.

napped then, perhaps an hour, when the phone rang

gain and I picked it up:
what ever your problem is
cant help you!

s this Mr. Chinaski?

yes.

his is Helen at your dentists

ffice to remind you
hat you have an appointment at
:30 tomorrow
fternoon.

told her Id be
here for her.

Carson McCullers

he died of alcoholism
wrapped in a blanket
n a deck chair
n an ocean
teamer.

ll her books of
errified loneliness

ll her books about

he cruelty
f loveless love

were all that was left

f her

s the strolling vacationer

iscovered her body

otified the captain

nd she was quickly dispatched

o somewhere else
n the ship

s everything
ontinued just
s
he had written it.

Mongolian coasts shining in light

Mongolian coasts shining in light,

listen to the pulse of the sun,
he tiger is the same to all of us
nd high oh
o high on the branch
ur oriole
ings.

putrefaction

f late
ve had this thought
hat this country
as gone backwards
or 5 de cades
nd that all the
ocial advancement
he good feeling of
erson toward
erson
as been washed
way
nd replaced by the same
ld
igotries.

we have
more than ever
he selfish wants of power
he disregard for the
weak
he old
he impoverished
he
elpless.

we are replacing want with

war
alvation with
lavery.

we have wasted the

ains

we have become
apidly
ess.

we have our Bomb

is our fear
ur damnation
nd our
hame.

ow
omething so sad
as hold of us
hat
he breath
eaves
nd we cant even
ry.

where was Jane?

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

Motion Picture Home.
ed been there for years waiting to die.
e spent much of his time
unning in and out of the wards
nto the cafeteria and out into the yard where hed yell,

ME TARZAN!

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

ME TARZAN!

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

he ancient script writers, the aged cameramen, the prop men, stunt men, the old
ctresses, all of whom were also there
waiting to die; they enjoyed his verve,
is antics, he was harmless and he took them back to the time when they
were still in the business.

hen the doctors in authority decided that Tarzan was possibly dangerous
nd one day he was shipped off to a mental institution.
e vanished as suddenly as if hed been eaten by a
on.
nd the other patients were outraged, they instituted legal proceedings
o have him returned at once but
took some months.

when Tarzan returned he was changed.

e would not leave his room.
e just sat by the window as if he had
orgotten

is old role
nd the other patients missed
is antics, his verve, and
hey too felt somehow defeated and
iminished.
hey complained about the change in Tarzan
oped and drugged in his room
nd they knew he would soon die like that
nd then he did
nd then he was back in that other jungle
o where we will all someday retire)
nleashing the joyful primal call they could no longer
ear.

here were some small notices in the

ewspapers
nd the paint continued to chip from the hospital
walls,
many plants died, there was an unfortunate
uicide,
growing lack of trust and
ope, and
pervasive sadness:
wasnt so much Tarzans death the others mourned,
was the cold, willful attitude of the
oung and powerful doctors
espite the wishes of the
elpless old.

nd finally they knew the truth

while sitting in their rooms
hat it wasnt only the attitude of the doctors

hey had to fear,

nd that as silly as all those Tarzan films had been,
nd as much as they would miss their own lost
arzan,

hat all that was much kinder than the final vigil
hey would now have to sit and patiently endure
lone.

something about a woman

h, Merryman,
fighter on the docks,
illed a man while they were unloading
ananas.
mean the man he killed
lubbed him first
om behind
with an anchor chain
something about a woman)
nd we all circled around
while
Merryman
id him in
nder a hard-on sun,
nally strangling him to death
hrowing him into the
cean.
Merryman leaped to the dock
nd walked
way, nobody tried to stop
im.
hen we went back to work and
nloaded the rest of the bananas.
othing was ever said about the murder
etween any of us
nd I never saw anything about it
n the papers.
lthough I saw some of the bananas
ater in the

markets:
lbs. for a quarter
hey seemed a
argain.

(uncollected)

Sunday lunch at the Holy Mission

e got knifed in broad daylight, came up the street

olding his hands over his gut, dripping red
n the pavement.
obody waiting in line left their place to help him.
e made it to the Mission doorway, collapsed in the
obby where the desk clerk screamed, hey, you
on-of-a-bitch, what are you doing?
hen he called an ambulance but the man was dead
when they got there.
he police came and circled the spots of blood
n the pavement
with white chalk
hotographed everything
hen asked the men waiting for their Sunday meal
they had seen anything
they knew anything.
hey all said no to both.

while the police strutted in their uniforms

he others finally loaded the body into an ambulance.

fterwards the homeless men rolled cigarettes

s they waited for their meal
alking about the action
lowing farts and smoke
njoying the sun
eeling quite like
elebrities.

trashcan lives

he wind blows hard to night

nd its a cold wind
nd I think about
he boys on the row.
hope some of them have a bottle
f red.

s when youre on the row

hat you notice that

verything

s owned
nd that there are locks on

verything.

his is the way a democracy

works:
ou get what you can,
y to keep that
nd add to it
possible.

his is the way a dictatorship

works too
nly they either enslave or
estroy their
erelicts.

we just forget
urs.

n either case
s a hard
old
wind.

school days

m in bed.
s morning
nd I hear:
where are your socks?
lease get dressed!
why does it take you so long to
et dressed?
wheres the brush?
ll right, Ill give you a head
and!
what time is it?
wheres the clock?
where did you put the clock?
rent you dressed yet?
wheres the brush?
wheres your sandwich?
id you make a sandwich?
ll make your sandwich.
oney and peanut butter.
nd an orange.
here.
wheres the brush?
ll use a comb.
ll right, holler. you lost the brush!
where did you lose the brush?
ll right. now isnt that better?
wheres your coat?
o find your coat.
our coat has to be around somewhere!
sten, what are you doing?
what are you playing with?
ow youve spilled it all!

hear them open the door

o down the stairway,
et into the car.
hear them drive away. they are gone, down the hill
n the way to
ursery school.

grass

t the window
watch a man with a
ower mower
he sounds of his doing race like
ies and bees
n the wallpaper,
is like a warm fire, and
etter than eating steak,
nd the grass is green enough
nd the sun is sun enough
nd whats left of my life
tands there
hecking glints of green flying;
is a giant disrobing of
are, stumbling away from
oing.

uddenly I understand
ld men in rockers
ats in Colorado caves
ny lice crawling into
he eyes of dead birds.

ack and forth

e follows his gasoline
ound. it is
nteresting enough,
with
he streets
at on their Spring backs
nd smiling.

crucifix in a deathhand

es, they begin out in a willow, I think

he starch mountains begin out in the willow
nd keep right on going without regard for
umas and nectarines
omehow these mountains are like
n old woman with a bad memory and
shopping basket.
we are in a basin. that is the
dea. down in the sand and the alleys,
his land punched-in, cuffed-out, divided,
eld like a crucifix in a deathhand,
his land bought, resold, bought again and
old again, the wars long over,
he Spaniards all the way back in Spain
own in the thimble again, and now
eal estaters, subdividers, landlords, freeway
ngineers arguing. this is their land and
walk on it, live on it a little while
ear Hollywood here I see young men in rooms
stening to glazed recordings
nd I think too of old men sick of music
ick of everything, and death like suicide
think is sometimes voluntary, and to get your
old on the land here it is best to return to the
Grand Central Market, see the old Mexican women,
he poorI am sure you have seen these same women
many years before
rguing
with the same young Japanese clerks
witty, knowledgeable and golden
mong their soaring store of oranges, apples

vocados, tomatoes, cucumbers

nd you know how these look, they do look good
s if you could eat them all
ght a cigar and smoke away the bad world.
hen its best to go back to the bars, the same bars
wooden, stale, merciless, green
with the young policeman walking through
cared and looking for trouble,
nd the beer is still bad
has an edge that already mixes with vomit and
ecay, and youve got to be strong in the shadows
o ignore it, to ignore the poor and to ignore yourself
nd the shopping bag between your legs
own there feeling good with its avocados and
ranges and fresh fish and wine bottles, who needs
Fort Lauderdale winter?
5 years ago there used to be a whore there
with a film over one eye, who was too fat
nd made little silver bells out of cigarette
nfoil. the sun seemed warmer then
lthough this was probably not
ue, and you take your shopping bag
utside and walk along the street
nd the green beer hangs there
ust above your stomach like
short and shameful shawl, and
ou look around and no longer
ee any
ld men.

the screw-game

ne of the terrible things is

eally
eing in bed
ight after night
with a woman you no longer
want to screw.

hey get old, they dont look very good

nymorethey even tend to
nore, lose
pirit.

o, in bed, you turn sometimes,

our foot touches hers
od, awful!
nd the night is out there
eyond the curtains
ealing you together
n the
omb.

nd in the morning you go to the

athroom, pass in the hall, talk,
ay odd things; eggs fry, motors
tart.

ut sitting across
ou have 2 strangers
amming toast into mouths
urning the sullen head and gut with
offee.

n 10 million places in America

is the same
tale lives propped against each
ther
nd no place to
o.

ou get in the car

nd you drive to work
nd there are more strangers there, most of them
wives and husbands of somebody
lse, and besides the guillotine of work, they
irt and joke and pinch, sometimes tend to
work off a quick screw somewhere
hey cant do it at home
nd then
he drive back home
waiting for Christmas or Labor Day or
Sunday or
omething.

millionaires

ou
o faces
o faces
t all
aughing at nothing
et me tell you
have drunk in skid row rooms with
mbecile winos
whose cause was better
whose eyes still held some light
whose voices retained some sensibility,
nd when the morning came
we were sick but not ill,
oor but not deluded,
nd we stretched in our beds and rose
n the late afternoons
ke millionaires.

when you wait for the dawn to crawl through the

screen like a burglar to take your life away

creen like a burglar to take your life away

he snake had crawled the hole,
nd she said,
ell me about
ourself.

nd
said,
was beaten down
ong ago
n some alley
n another
world.

nd she said,
were all
ke pigs
lapped down some lane,
ur
rassbrains
inging
oward the
lade.

y
od,
oure an
dd one,
said.

we
at there

moking
igarettes
t

n the morning.

the talkers

he boy walks with his muddy feet across my

oul
alking about recitals, virtuosi, conductors,
he lesser known novels of Dostoyevsky;
alking about how he corrected a waitress,
hasher who didnt know that French dressing
was composed of so and so;
e gabbles about the Arts until
hate the Arts,
nd there is nothing cleaner
han getting back to a bar or
ack to the track and watching them run,
watching things go without this
lamor and chatter,
alk, talk, talk,
he small mouth going, the eyes blinking,
boy, a child, sick with the Arts,
rabbing at it like the skirt of a mother,
nd I wonder how many tens of thousands
here are like him across the land
n rainy nights
n sunny mornings
n evenings meant for peace
n concert halls
n cafes
t poetry recitals
alking, soiling, arguing.

s like a pig going to bed

with a good woman
nd you dont want
he woman any more.

s the
pirit
wanes
he
orm
ppears.

art

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

et me speak as a friend
lthough the centuries hang
etween us and neither you nor I
an see the moon.

e careful less the onion blind the eye

r the snake sting
r the beetle possess the house
r the lover your wife
r the government your child
r the wine your will
r the doctor your heart
r the butcher your belly
r the cat your chair
r the lawyer your ignorance of the law
r the law dressed as a uniformed man and killing you.

ismiss perfection as an ache of the

reedy
ut do not give in to the mass modesty of
asy imperfection.

nd remember
he belly of the whale is laden with
reat men.

(uncollected)

ice for the eagles

keep remembering the horses

nder the moon
keep remembering feeding the horses
ugar
white oblongs of sugar
more like ice,
nd they had heads like
agles
ald heads that could bite and
id not.

he horses were more real than

my father
more real than God
nd they could have stepped on my
eet but they didnt
hey could have done all kinds of horrors
ut they didnt.

was almost 5
ut I have not forgotten yet;
my god they were strong and good
hose red tongues slobbering
ut of their souls.

girl in a mini skirt reading the Bible

outside my window

utside my window
Sunday. I am eating a
rapefruit. church is over at the Russian
Orthodox to the
west.
he is dark
f Eastern descent,
arge brown eyes look up from the Bible
hen down. a small red and black
Bible, and as she reads
er legs keep moving, moving,
he is doing a slow rhythmic dance
eading the Bible
ong gold earrings;
gold bracelets on each arm,
nd its a mini-suit, I suppose,
he cloth hugs her body,
he lightest of tans is that cloth,
he twists this way and that,
ong young legs warm in the sun

here is no escaping her being

here is no desire to
my radio is playing symphonic music
hat she cannot hear
ut her movements coincide exactly

o the rhythms of the

ymphony

he is dark, she is dark

he is reading about God.

am God.

hell is a lonely place

e was 65, his wife was 66, had

Alzheimers disease.

e had cancer of the

mouth.
here were
perations, radiation
eatments
which decayed the bones in his
aw
which then had to be
wired.

aily he put his wife in

ubber diapers
ke a
aby.

nable to drive in his

ondition
e had to take a taxi to
he medical
enter,
ad difficulty speaking,
ad to
write the directions
own.

n his last visit

hey informed him
here would be another
peration: a bit more

eft
heek and a bit more
ongue.

when he returned
e changed his wifes
iapers
ut on the tv
inners, watched the
vening news
hen went to the
edroom, got the
un, put it to her
emple, fired.

he fell to the
eft, he sat upon the
ouch
ut the gun into his
mouth, pulled the
igger.

he shots didnt arouse

he neighbors.

ater
he burning tv dinners
id.

omebody arrived, pushed

he door open, saw
.

oon
he police arrived and
went through their
outine, found
ome items:
closed savings
ccount and
checkbook with a
alance of
1.14

uicide, they
educed.

n three weeks
here were two
ew tenants:
computer engineer
amed
Ross
nd his wife
Anatana
who studied
allet.

hey looked like another

pwardly mobile
air.

the girls and the birds

he girls were young

nd worked the
treets
ut often couldnt
core, they
nded up
n my hotel
oom
or 4 of
hem
ucking at the
wine,
air in face,
uns in
tockings,
ursing, telling
tories

omehow
hose were
eaceful
ights

ut really
hey reminded me
f long
go
when I was a
oy
watching my grandmothers
anaries make

roppings
nto their
eed
nd into their
water
nd the
anaries were
eautiful
nd
hattered
ut
ever
ang.

18131883

stening to Wagner
s outside in the dark the wind blows a cold rain the
ees wave and shake lights go
ff and on the walls creak and the cats run under the
ed

Wagner battles the agonies, hes emotional but

olid, hes the supreme fighter, a giant in a world of
ygmies, he takes it straight on through, he breaks
arriers
n
stonishing FORCE of sound as

verything here shakes

hivers
ends
lasts
n fierce gamble

es, Wagner and the storm intermix with the wine as

ights like this run up my wrists and up into my head and
ack down into the
ut

ome men never

ie
nd some men never
ve

ut were all alive

o night.

no leaders, please

nvent yourself and then reinvent yourself,

ont swim in the same slough.
nvent yourself and then reinvent yourself
nd
tay out of the clutches of mediocrity.

nvent yourself and then reinvent yourself,

hange your tone and shape so often that they can
ever
ategorize you.

einvigorate yourself and

ccept what is
ut only on the terms that you have invented
nd reinvented.

e self-taught.

nd reinvent your life because you must;

is your life and
s history
nd the present
elong only to
ou.

song

ulio came by with his guitar and sang his

atest song.
ulio was famous, he wrote songs and also
ublished books of little drawings and
oems.
hey were very
ood.

ulio sang a song about his latest love

ffair.
e sang that
began so well
hen it went to
ell.

hose were not the words exactly

ut that was the meaning of the
words.

ulio finished
inging.

hen he said, I still care for

er, I cant get her off my
mind.

what will I do? Julio

sked.

drink, Henry said,

ouring.

ulio just looked at his

lass:
wonder what shes doing
ow?

probably engaging in oral

opulation, Henry
uggested.

ulio put his guitar back in

he case and
walked to the
oor.

Henry walked Julio to his car which

was parked in the
rive.

was a nice moonlit

ight.

s Julio started his car and

acked out the drive
Henry waved him a
arewell.

hen he went inside

at
own.

e finished Julios untouched

rink

hen he
honed

er.

he was just by, Henry told

er, hes feeling very
ad

youll have to excuse me,

he said, but Im busy right
ow.

he hung
p.

nd Henry poured one of his

wn
s outside the crickets sang
heir own
ong.

one for Sherwood Anderson

ometimes I forget about him and his peculiar

nnocence, almost idiotic, awkward and mawkish,
e liked walking over bridges and through cornfields.
o night I think about him, the way the lines were,
ne felt space between his lines, air
nd he told it so the lines remained
arved there
omething like van Gogh.
e took his time
ooking about
ometimes running to save something
eaving everything to save something,
hen at other times giving it all away.
e didnt understand Hemingways neon tattoo,
ound Faulkner much too clever.
e was a midwestern hick
e took his time.
e was as far away from Fitzgerald as he was
om Paris.
e told stories and left the meaning open
nd sometimes he told meaningless stories
ecause that was the way it was.
e told the same story again and again
nd he never wrote a story that was unreadable.
nd nobody ever talks about his life or
is death.

bow wow love

ere things are tough but

heyre mostly always tough.
asically Im just trying to get along
with the female. when you
rst meet them their eyes
re all moist with understanding;
aughter abounds
ke sand fleas. then, Jesus,
me tinkles on and
hings leak. they
tart BOOMING out DEMANDS.
nd, actually, what they
emand is basically contrary to whatever
ou are or could be.
whats so strange is the sudden
nowledge that theyve never
ead anything youve written,
ot really read it at
ll. or worse, if they have,
heyve come to SAVE
ou! which means mainly
wanting you to act like everybody
lse and be just like them
nd their friends. meanwhile
heyve sucked
ou up and wound you up
n a million webs, and
eing somewhat of a
eeling person you cant
elp but remember their
ood side or the side
hat at first seemed to be good.

nd so you find yourself

lone in your
edroom grabbing your
ut and saying, o, shit
o, not again.

we should have known.

maybe we wanted cotton
andy luck. maybe we
elieved. what trash.
we believed like dogs
elieve.

(uncollected)

the day the epileptic spoke

he other day
m out at the track
etting Early Bird
hats when you bet at the
ack before it opens)
am sitting there having
coffee and going over
he Form
nd this guy slides toward
me
is body is twisted
is head shakes
is eyes are out of
ocus
here is spittle upon his
ps

e manages to get close to

me and asks,
pardon me, sir, but could you
ell me the number of
ady of Dawn in the
rst race?

ts the 7 horse,
tell him.

hank you, sir,

e says.

hat night
r the next morning

eally:
2:04 a.m.
os Alamitos Quarter Horse
Results on radio
KLAC
he man told me
ady of Dawn
won the first at
79.80

hat was two weeks

go
nd Ive been there
very racing day since
nd I havent seen that
oor epileptic fellow
gain.

he gods have ways of

elling you things
when you think you know
lot

r worse

when you think

ou know
ust a
ttle.

when Hugo Wolf went mad

Hugo Wolf went mad while eating an onion

nd writing his 253rd song; it was rainy
April and the worms came out of the ground
umming Tannhuser, and he spilled his milk
with his ink, and his blood fell out to the walls
nd he howled and he roared and he screamed, and
ownstairs
is landlady said, I knew it, that rotten son
fa
itch has dummied up his brain, hes jacked-off
is last piece
f music and now Ill never get the rent, and someday
ell be famous
nd theyll bury him in the rain, but right now
wish hed shut
p that god damned screamingfor my money hes
silly pansy jackass
nd when they move him out of here, I hope they
move in a good solid fisherman
r a hangman
r a seller of
iblical tracts.

in a neighborhood of murder

murder
he roaches spit out
aper clips
nd the helicopter circles and circles
melling for blood
earchlights leering down into our
edroom

guys in this court have pistols

nother a
machete
we are all murderers and
lcoholics
ut there are worse in the hotel
cross the street
hey sit in the green and white doorway
anal and depraved
waiting to be institutionalized

ere we each have a small green plant

n the window
nd when we fight with our women at 3 a.m.
we speak
oftly
nd on each porch
s a small dish of food
lways eaten by morning
we presume
y the
ats.

the strangest sight you ever did see

had this room in front on DeLongpre

nd I used to sit for hours
n the daytime
ooking out the front
window.
here were any number of girls who would
walk by
waying;
helped my afternoons,
dded something to the beer and the
igarettes.

ne day I saw something

xtra.
heard the sound of it first.
come on, push! he said.
here was a long board
bout 2 feet wide and
feet long;
ailed to the ends and in the middle
were roller skates.
e was pulling in front
wo long ropes attached to the board
nd she was in back
uiding and also pushing.
ll their possessions were tied to the
oard:
ots, pans, bed quilts, and so forth
were roped to the board
ed down;
nd the skate wheels were grinding.

e was white, red-necked, a

outherner
hin, slumped, his pants about to
all from his
ss
is face pinked by the sun and
heap wine,
nd she was black
nd walked upright
ushing;
he was simply beautiful
n turban
ong green earrings
ellow dress
om
eck to
nkle.
er face was gloriously
ndifferent.

dont worry! he shouted, looking back

t her, somebody will
ent us a place!

he didnt answer.

hen they were gone

lthough I still heard the
kate wheels.

heyre going to make it,

thought.

m sure they

id.

the 2nd novel

heyd come around and

heyd ask
you finished your
nd novel yet?

no.

whatsamatta? whatsamatta
hat you cant
nish it?

hemorrhoids and
nsomnia.

maybe youve lost

?

ost what?

you know.

ow when they come

round I tell them,
yeh. I finished
. be out in Sept.

you finished it?

yeh.

well, listen, I gotta

o.

ven the cat

ere in the courtyard
wont come to my door
nymore.

s nice.

junk

itting in a dark bedroom with 3 junkies,

emale.
rown paper bags filled with trash are
verywhere.
is one-thirty in the afternoon.
hey talk about mad houses,
ospitals.
hey are waiting for a fix.
one of them work.
s relief and food stamps and
Medi-Cal.

men are usable objects

oward the fix.

is one-thirty in the afternoon

nd outside small plants grow.
heir children are still in school.
he females smoke cigarettes
nd suck listlessly on beer and
equila
which I have purchased.

sit with them.

wait on my fix:
am a poetry junkie.

hey pulled Ezra through the streets

n a wooden cage.
Blake was sure of God.
Villon was a mugger.

orca sucked cock.

. S. Eliot worked a tellers cage.

most poets are swans,

grets.

sit with 3 junkies

t one-thirty in the afternoon.

he smoke pisses upward.

wait.

eath is a nothing jumbo.

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

believe in a simple violence.

his is
ome of it.

Mademoiselle from Armentires

you gotta have wars

suppose World War One was the best.
eally, you know, both sides were much more enthusiastic,
hey really had something to fight for,
hey really thought they had something to fight for,
was bloody and wrong but it was Romantic,
hose dirty Germans with babies stuck on the ends of their
ayonets, and so forth, and
here were lots of patriotic songs, and the women loved both the soldiers
nd their money.

he Mexican war and those other wars hardly ever happened.

nd the Civil War, that was just a movie.

he wars come too fast now

ven the pro-war boys grow weary,
World War Two did them in,
nd then Korea, that Korea,
hat was dirty, nobody won
xcept the black marketeers,
nd BAM!then came Vietnam,
suppose the historians will have a name and a meaning for it,
ut the young wised up first
nd now the old are getting wise,
lmost everybodys anti-war,
o use having a war you cant win,
ght or wrong.

ell, 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
nd Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker
nd we fought in dream trenches with our dream rifles
nd had dream
ayonet fights with the dirty
Hun
nd those movies, full of drama and excitement,
bout good old World War One, where
we almost got the Kaiser, we almost kidnapped him
nce,
nd in the end
we finished off all those spike-helmeted bastards
orever.

he young kids now, they dont build model warplanes

or do they dream fight in dream rice paddies,
hey know its all useless, ordinary,
ust a job like
weeping the streets or picking up the garbage,
heyd rather go watch a Western or hang out at the
mall or go to the zoo or a football game, theyre
lready thinking of college and automobiles and wives
nd homes and barbecues, theyre already trapped
n another kind of dream, another kind of war,
nd I guess it wont kill them as fast, at least not
hysically.

was wrong but World War One was fun for us

gave us Jean Harlow and James Cagney
nd Mademoi selle from Armentires, Parley-Voo?
gave us

ong afternoons and evenings of play

we didnt realize that many of us were soon to die in
another war)
es, they fooled us nicely but we were young and loved it
he lies of our elders
nd see how it has changed
hey cant bullshit
ven a kid anymore,
ot about all that.

now

had boils the size of tomatoes

ll over me
hey stuck a drill into me
own at the county hospital,
nd
ust as the sun went down
very day
here was a man in a nearby ward
ed start hollering for his friend Joe.
OE! hed holler, OH JOE! JOE!!
COME GET ME, JOE!

oe never came by.

ve never heard such mournful
ounds.

oe was probably working off a

iece of ass or
ttempting to solve a crossword puzzle.

ve always said
you want to find out who your friends are
o to a mad house or
ail.

nd if you want to find out where love is not

e a perpetual
oser.

was very lucky with my boils

eing drilled and tortured
gainst 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
ke I have it
ow.

society should realize

ou consult psychiatrists and philosophers

when things arent going well
nd whores when they are.
he whores are there for young boys and old
men; to the young boys they say,
dont be frightened, honey, here Ill put it
n for you.
nd for the old guys
hey put on an act
ke youre really hooking it home.
ociety should realize the value of the
whoreI mean, those girls who really enjoy their
workthose who make it almost an
rt form.

m thinking of the time

n a Mexican whore house
his gal with her little bowl and her rag
washing my dick,
nd it got hard and she laughed and I
aughed and she
issed it, gently and slowly, then she walked over and
pread out
n the bed
nd I got on and we worked easily, no effort, no
ension, and some guy beat on the door and
elled,
Hey! what the hells going on in there?
Hurry it up!
ut it was like a Mahler symphonyyou just dont
ush
.

when I finished and she came back, there was

he bowl and the rag again
nd we both laughed; then she kissed it
ently and
lowly, and I got up and put my clothes back on and
walked out
Jesus, buddy, what the hell were ya doin in
here?
Fuckin, I told the gentleman
nd walked down the hall and down the steps and stood
utside in the road and lit one of those
weet Mexican cigarettes in the moonlight.
berated and human again
or a mere $3, I
oved the night, Mexico and
myself.

the souls of dead animals

fter the slaughter house

here was a bar around the corner
nd I sat in there
nd watched the sun go down
hrough the window,
window that overlooked a lot
ull of tall dry weeds.

never showered with the boys at the

lant
fter work
o I smelled of sweat and
lood.
he smell of sweat lessens after a
while
ut the blood-smell begins to fulminate
nd gain power.

smoked cigarettes and drank beer

ntil I felt good enough to
oard the bus
with the souls of all those dead
nimals riding with
me;
eads would turn slightly
women would rise and move away from
me.

when I got off the bus

only had a block to walk
nd one stairway up to my

oom
where Id turn on my radio and
ght a cigarette
nd nobody minded me
t all.

the tragedy of the leaves

awakened to dryness and the ferns were dead,

he potted plants yellow as corn;
my woman was gone
nd the empty bottles like bled corpses
urrounded me with their uselessness;
he sun was still good, though,
nd my landladys note cracked in fine and
ndemanding yellowness; what was needed now
was a good comedian, ancient style, a jester
with jokes upon absurd pain; pain is absurd
ecause it exists, nothing more;
shaved carefully with an old razor
he man who had once been young and
aid to have genius; but
hats the tragedy of the leaves,
he dead ferns, the dead plants;
nd I walked into a dark hall
where the landlady stood
xecrating and final,
ending me to hell,
waving her fat, sweaty arms
nd screaming
creaming for rent
ecause the world had failed us
oth.

the birds

he acute and terrible air hangs with murder

s summer birds mingle in the branches
nd warble
nd mystify the clamor of the mind;
n old parrot
who never talks,
its thinking in a Chinese laundry,
isgruntled
orsaken
elibate;
here is red on his wing
where there should be green,
nd between us
he recognition of
n immense and wasted life.

.y 2nd wife left me

ecause I set our birds free:
ne yellow, with crippled wing
uickly going down and to the left,
at-meat,
ackling like an organ;
nd the other,
mean green,
f empty thimble head,
opping up like a rocket
igh into the hollow sky,
isappearing like sour love
nd yesterdays desire
nd leaving me
orever.

nd when my wife
eturned that night
with her bags and plans,
er tricks and shining greeds,
he found me
littering over a yellow feather
eeking out the music
which she,
ddly,
ailed to
ear.

the loner

6 and one-half inch

eck
8 years old
fts weights
ody like a young
oy (almost)

ept his head

haved
nd drank port wine
om half-gallon jugs

ept the chain on the

oor
windows boarded

ou had to give
special knock
o get in

e had brass knucks

nives
lubs
uns

e had a chest like a

wrestler
ever lost his
lasses

ever swore
ever looked for
ouble

ever married after the death

f his only
wife

ated
ats
oaches
mice
umans

worked crossword
uzzles
ept up with the
ews

hat 16 and one-half inch

eck

or 68 he was
omething

ll those boards
cross the windows

washed his own underwear

nd socks

my friend Red took me up

o meet him
ne night

we talked a while
ogether

hen we left

Red asked, what do you

hink?

answered, more afraid to die

han the rest of us.

havent seen either of them

ince.

The Genius of the Crowd

here is enough treachery, hatred,

violence,
Absurdity in the average human
being
o 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
FINALLYARE THOSE WHO PREACH
PEACE

hose Who Preach GOD

NEED God
hose Who Preach PEACE
Do Not Have Peace.
HOSE 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

or They Need PRAISE In Return

BEWARE Those Quick To Censure:

hey 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

heir 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
hey Will Attempt To Destroy Anything
hat Differs
rom Their Own
Not Being Able
To Create Art
They Will Not
Understand Art

hey Will Consider Their Failure

As Creators
Only As A Failure
Of The World

Not Being Able To Love Fully

hey Will BELIEVE Your Love
ncomplete
AND THEN THEY WILL HATE
YOU

And Their Hatred Will Be Perfect

ike A Shining Diamond
ike A Knife
ike A Mountain
IKE A TIGER
IKE Hemlock
Their Finest
ART

German bar

had lost the last race big

omebody had stolen my coat
could feel the flu coming on
nd my tires were
ow. I went in to get a
eer at the German bar
ut the waitress was having a fit
er heart strangled by disappointment
rief and loss.
women get troubled all at once,
ou know. I left a tip
nd got out.

obody wins.
sk Caesar.

the snow of Italy

ver my radio now

omes the sound of a truly mad organ,
can see some monk
runk in a cellar
mind gone or found,
alking to God in a different way;
see candles and this man has a red beard
s God has a red beard;
is snowing, it is Italy, it is cold
nd the bread is hard
nd there is no butter,
nly wine
wine in purple bottles
with giraffe necks,
nd now the organ rises, again,
e violates it,
e plays it like a madman,
here is blood and spit in his beard,
e wants to laugh but there isnt time,
he sun is going out,
hen his fingers slow,
ow there is exhaustion and the dream,
es, even holiness,
man going to man,
o the mountain, the elephant, the star,
nd a candle falls
ut continues to burn upon its side,
wax puddle shining in the eyes
f my red monk,
here is moss on the walls
nd the stain of thought and failure and
waiting,

hen again the music comes like hungry tigers,

nd he laughs,
is a childs laugh, an idiots laugh,
aughing at nothing,
he only laugh that understands,
e holds the keys down
ke stopping everything
nd the room blooms with madness,
nd then he stops, stops,
nd sits, the candles burning,
ne up, one down,
he snow of Italy is all thats left,
is over: the essence and the pattern.
watch as
e pinches out the candles with his fingers,
wincing near the outer edge of each eye
nd the room is dark
s everything has always been.

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

which was not enough:

pick up the skirt,
pick up the sparkling beads
n black,
his thing that moved once
round flesh,
nd I call God a liar,
say anything that moved
ke that
r knew
my name
ould never die
n the common verity of dying,
nd I pick
p her lovely
ress,
ll her loveliness gone,
nd I speak
o all the gods,
ewish gods, Christ-gods,
hips of blinking things,
dols, pills, bread,
athoms, risks,
nowledgeable surrender,
ats in the gravy of 2 gone quite mad
without a chance,
ummingbird knowledge, hummingbird chance,
lean upon this,
lean on all of this

nd I know:
er dress upon my arm:
ut
hey will not
ive her back to me.

notice

he swans drown in bilge water,

ake down the signs,
est the poisons,
arricade the cow
om the bull,
he peony from the sun,
ake the lavender kisses from my night,
ut the symphonies out on the streets
ke beggars,
et the nails ready,
og the backs of the saints,
tun frogs and mice for the cat,
urn the enthralling paintings,
iss on the dawn,
my love
s dead.

for Jane

25 days under grass

nd you know more than I.

hey have long taken your blood,

ou are a dry stick in a basket.

s this how it works?

n this room
he hours of love
till make shadows.

when you left

ou took almost
verything.

kneel in the nights

efore tigers
hat will not let me be.

what you were

will not happen again.

he tigers have found me

nd I do not care.

eulogy to a hell of a dame

ame
ome dogs who sleep at night
must dream of bones
nd I remember your bones
n flesh
nd best
n that dark green dress
nd those high-heeled bright
lack shoes,
ou always cursed when you
rank,
our hair coming down you
wanted to explode out of
what was holding you:
otten memories of a
otten
ast, and
ou finally got
ut
y dying,
eaving me with the
otten
resent;
ouve been dead
8 years
et I remember you
etter than any of
he rest;
ou were the only one
who understood
he futility of the
rrangement of

ll the others were only

ispleased with
ivial segments,
arped
onsensically about
onsense;
ane, you were
illed by
nowing too much.
eres a drink
o your bones
hat
his dog
till
reams about.

barfly

ane, who has been dead for 31 years,

ever could have
magined that I would write a screenplay of our drinking
ays together
nd
hat it would be made into a movie
nd
hat a beautiful movie star would play her
art.

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

or Christs sake!

ane, thats show biz, so go back to sleep, dear, because

o matter how hard they tried they
ust couldnt find anybody exactly like
ou.

nd neither can

was Li Po wrong?

ou know what Li Po said when asked if hed rather be an

Artist or Rich?
d rather be Rich, he replied, for Artists can usually be found
itting on the doorsteps of the
Rich.
ve sat on the doorsteps of some expensive and
nbelievable homes
myself
ut somehow I always managed to disgrace myself and / or insult
my Rich hosts
mostly after drinking large quantities of their fine
quor).
erhaps I was afraid of the Rich?
ll I knew then was poverty and the very poor,
nd I felt instinctively that the Rich shouldnt be so
Rich,
hat it was some kind of clever
wist of fate
ased on something rotten and
nfair.
f course, one could say the same thing
bout being poor,
nly there were so many poor, it all seemed completely
ut of proportion.
nd so when I, as an Artist, visited the
omes of the Rich, I felt ashamed to be
here, and I drank too much of their fine wines,
roke their expensive glassware and antique dishes,
urned cigarette holes in their Persian rugs and
mauled their wives,
eacting badly to the whole damned
ituation.

et I had no political or social solution.

was just a lousy house guest,
guess,
nd after a while
protected both myself and the Rich
y rejecting their
nvitations
nd everybody felt much better after
hat.
went back to
rinking alone,
reaking my own cheap glassware,
lling the room with cigar
moke and feeling
wonderful
nstead of feeling trapped,
sed,
issed on,
ucked.

the night I saw George Raft in Vegas

bet on #6, I try red, I stare at the womens legs and breasts,
wonder what Chekhov would do, and over in the corner three men with
lue plates sit eating the carnage of my youth, they have beards
nd 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
he field, I pull out dollars like turnips from the good earth, the lights
laze and nobody says stop.

Hank, says my whore, for Christs sake youre losing everything except me,
nd I say dont forget, baby, Im a shipping clerk. whatve I got to lose
ut a ball of string?

he gentlemen in the corner who look like Russians get up, knock
heir plates and cups on the floor and wipe their mouths on the tablecloth.
ome belch (and one farts). they laugh evilly and leave without anyone bothering
hem. a ribbed and moiled cat comes out of somewhere,
egins licking the plates on the floor and then jumps up on the
able and walks around like his feet are wet.

try black. the croupiers eyes dart like beetles. he makes futile
lmost habitual movements to brush them away.

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

gainst my chest. Hank, says my whore, lets get out of here!

well, at least,
say, I ought to get a blow job out of this. you neednt get filthy,
the whore
ays. 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.

slap away a filthy thing that runs across my mouth. the cat
eaps and snatches it up as it spins upon its back kicking its
housand legs.

hen George Raft walks in. hello kid, he says, back again? I place
my last few coins on the chest of a dead elephant.
he lightning flares, they are stabbing grapefruit in the backroom, somebody
rops 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 Ill win the Irish Sweepstakes

maybe Ill go nuts
maybe Harcourt Brace will call
r maybe unemployment insurance or
rich lesbian at the top of a hill.

maybe reincarnation as a frog

r $70,000 found floating in a plastic sack
n the bathtub.

need help
am a thin man being eaten by
reen trees
utterflies and
ou.

urn turn
ght the lamp
my teeth ache the teeth of my soul ache
cant sleep I
ray for the dead
he white mice
ngines on fire
lood on a green gown in an operating room
nd I am caught
w ow
wild: my body being there filled with nothing but
me
me caught halfway between suicide and
ld age
ustling in factories next to the
oung boys

eeping pace
urning my blood like gasoline and
making the foreman
rin.

my poems are only bits of scratchings

n the floor of a
age.

(uncollected)

the veryest

ere comes the fishhead singing

ere comes the baked potato in drag
ere comes nothing to do all day long
ere comes another night of no sleep
ere comes the phone ringing the wrong voice
ere comes a termite with a banjo
ere comes a flagpole with blank eyes
ere comes a cat and a dog wearing nylons
ere comes a machine gun singing
ere comes bacon burning in the pan
ere comes a voice saying something dull with authority
ere comes a newspaper stuffed with small red birds
with flat brown beaks
ere comes a woman carrying a torch
grenade
deathly love
ere comes victory carrying one bucket of guts
nd one bucket of blood
while stumbling over the berry bush
nd here comes a little lamb
nd here comes Mary at last
nd the sheet hangs out the window
nd the bombers head east west north south
et lost
et tossed like salad
ll the fish in the sea line up and form
ne line
ne long line
ne very long long line
he veryest longest line you could ever imagine
nd we get lost
walking past purple mountains.

we walk lost
are at last like the knife blade
r the electric shock
aving given
aving spit it out like an unexpected olive seed
s the girl at the call ser vice
creams over the phone:
dont call back! you sound like a jerk!

(uncollected)

man mowing the lawn across the way from me

watch you walking with your machine.

h, youre too stupid to be cut like grass,
oure too stupid to let anything violate you
he girls wont use their knives on you
hey dont want to
heir sharp edge is wasted on you,
ou are interested only in baseball games and
western movies and grass blades.

ant you take just one of my knives?

eres an old onestuck into me in 1955,
hes dead now, it wouldnt hurt much.
cant give you this last one
cant pull it out yet,
ut heres one from 1964, how about taking
his 1964 one from me?

man mowing the lawn across the way from me

ont you have a knife somewhere in your gut
where love left?

man mowing the lawn across the way from me

ont you have a knife somewhere deep in your heart
where love left?

man mowing the lawn across the way from me

ont you see the young girls walking down the sidewalks now
with knives in their purses?
ont you see their beautiful eyes and dresses and
air?
ont you see their beautiful asses and knees and
nkles?

man mowing the lawn across the way from me

s that all you seethose grass blades?
s that all you hearthe drone of the mower?

can see all the way to Italy

to Japan
to the Honduras
can see the young girls sharpening their knives
n the morning and at noon and at night, and
specially at night, o,
specially at night.

oh, yes

here are worse things than

eing alone
ut it often takes de cades
o realize this
nd most often
when you do
s too late
nd theres nothing worse
han
oo late.

poop

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

years old my mother was always taking me
o the doctor and saying, he hasnt pooped.

he was always asking me, have you

ooped?
seemed to be her favorite question.
nd, of course, I couldnt lie, I had real problems
ooping.
was all knotted up inside.
my parents did that to me.

looked at those huge beings, my father,

my mother, and they seemed really stupid.
ometimes I thought they were just pretending
o be stupid because nobody could really be that
tupid.
ut they werent pretending.
hey had me all knotted up inside like a pretzel.

mean, I had to live with them, they told

me what to do and how to do it and when.
hey fed, housed and clothed me.
nd worst of all, there was no other place for
me to go, no other choice:
had to stay with them.

mean, I didnt know much at that age

ut I could sense that they were lumps
f flesh and little else.

innertime was the worst, a nightmare

f slurps, spittle and idiotic conversation.
looked straight down at my plate and tried
o swallow my food but
all turned to glue inside.
couldnt digest my parents or the food.

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

o poop.

have you pooped?

nd there Id be in the doctors office once again.
e had a little more sense than my parents but
ot much.

well, well, my little man, so you havent pooped?

e was fat with bad breath and body odor and

ad a pocket watch with a large gold chain
hat dangled across his gut.

thought, I bet he poops a load.

nd I looked at my mother.
he had large buttocks,
could picture her on the toilet,
itting there a little cross-eyed, pooping.
he was so placid, so
ke a pigeon.

oopers both, I knew it in my heart.

isgusting people.

well, little man, you just cant poop,

uh?

e made a little joke of it: he could,

he could, the world could.
couldnt.

well, now, were going to give you

hese pills.
nd if they dont work, then guess
what?

didnt answer.

come on, little man, tell me.

ll right, I decided to say it.

wanted to get out of there:

an enema.

an enema, he smiled.

hen he turned to my mother.

and are you all right, dear?

oh, Im fine, doctor!

ure she was.

he pooped whenever she wanted.

hen we would leave the office.

snt the doctor a nice man?

o answer from me.

snt he?

yes.

ut in my mind I changed it to, yes,

e can poop.

e looked like a poop.

he whole world pooped while I
was knotted up inside like a pretzel.

hen we would walk out on the street

nd I would look at the people passing
nd all the people had behinds.

hats all I ever noticed, he told me,

t was horrible.

we must have had similar

hildhoods, I said.

somehow, that doesnt help at all,

e said.

weve both got to get over this

hing, I said.

m trying, he
nswered.

Phillipes 1950

Phillipes is an old time

afe off Alameda street
ust a little north and east of
he main post office.
Phillipes opens at 5 a.m.
nd serves a cup of coffee
with cream and sugar
or a nickel.

n the early mornings

he bums come down off Bunker Hill,
s they say,
with our butts wrapped
round our ears.
os Angeles nights have a way
f getting very
old.
Phillipes, they say,
s the only place that doesnt
assle us.

he waitresses are old

nd most of the bums are
oo.

ome down there some

arly morning.

or a nickel
ou can see the most beautiful faces
n town.

downtown

obody goes downtown anymore

he plants and trees have been cut away around
Pershing Square
he grass is brown
nd the street preachers are not as good
s they used to be
nd down on Broadway
he Latinos stand in long colorful lines
waiting to see Latino action movies.
walk down to Cliftons cafeteria
s still there
he waterfall is still there
he few white faces are old and poor
ignified
ressed in 1950s clothing
itting at small tables on the first
oor.
take my food upstairs to the
hird floor
ll Latinos at the tables there
aces more tired than hostile
he men at rest from their factory jobs
heir once beautiful wives now
eavy and satisfied
he men wanting badly to go out and raise hell
ut now the money is needed for
lothing, tires, toys, TV sets
hildrens shoes, the rent.

finish eating
walk down to the first floor and out,
nd nearby is a penny arcade.

remember it from the 1940s.

walk in.
is full of young Latinos and Blacks
etween the ages of six and
fteen
nd they shoot machine guns
lay mechanical soccer
nd the piped-in salsa music is very
oud.
hey fly spacecraft
est their strength
ght in the ring
ave horse races
uto races
ut none of them want their fortunes told.
lean against a wall and
watch them.

go outside again.
walk down and across from the HeraldExaminer building
where my car is parked.
get in. then I drive away.
s Sunday. and its true
ke they say: the old gang never
oes downtown anymore.

elephants in the zoo

n the afternoon
hey lean against
ne another
nd you can see how much
hey like the sun.

(uncollected)

girl on the escalator

s I go to the escalator
young fellow and a lovely young girl
re ahead of me.
er pants, her blouse are skintight.
s we ascend
he rests one foot on the
tep above and her behind
ssumes a fascinating shape.
he young man looks all
round.
e appears worried.
e looks at me.
look
way.

o, young man, I am not looking,

am not looking at your girls behind.
ont worry, I respect her and I respect you.
n fact, I respect everything: the flowers that grow, young women,
hildren, all the animals, our precious complicated
niverse, everyone and everything.

sense that the young man now feels

etter and I am glad for
im. I know his problem: the girl has
mother, a father, maybe a sister or
rother, and undoubtedly a bunch of
nfriendly relatives and she likes to
ance and flirt and she likes to
o to the movies and sometimes she talks
nd chews gum at the same time and

he enjoys really dumb TV shows and

he thinks shes a budding actress and she
oesnt always look so good and she has a
errible temper and sometimes she almost goes
razy and she can talk for hours on the
elephone and she wants to go to
Europe some summer soon and she wants you to
uy her a near-new Mercedes and shes in love with
Mel Gibson and her mother is a
runk and her father is a racist
nd sometimes when she drinks too much she
nores and shes often cold in bed and
he has a guru, a guy who met Christ
n the desert in 1978, and she wants to
e a dancer and shes unemployed and she
ets migraine headaches every time she
ats sugar or cheese.

watch him take her

p
he escalator, his arm
rotectively about her
waist, thinking hes
ucky,
hinking hes a real special
uy, thinking that
obody in the world has
what he has.

nd hes right, terribly

erribly right, his arm around
hat warm bucket of

ntestine,
ladder,
idneys,
ungs,
alt,
ulphur,
arbon dioxide
nd
hlegm.

otsa
uck.

the shit shits

es, its dark in here.

ant open the door.
ant open the jam lid.
ant find a pair of socks that match.
was born in Andernach in 1920 and never thought it
would be like this.

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

his big fat guy with body odor
ept jamming his binoculars into my ass and I turned and
aid,
pardon me, sir. could you please stop jamming those goddamned
inocs into my ass?
e just looked at me with little pig eyes
ather pink with olive pits for pupils
nd the eyes just kept looking at me until I stepped away and then
ot sick, vomited into a
ash can.

keep getting letters from an uncle in Andernach who must be

5 years old and he keeps asking,
my boy, why dont you WRITE?
what can I write him? unfortunately
here is nothing that I can write.

pull on my shorts and they rip.

leep is impossible, I mean good sleep. I just get
mall spurts of it, and then back to the job where the foreman
omes by:
Chinaski, for a pieceworker you crawl like a snail!

m sick and Im tired and I dont know where to go or what to do.

well, at lunchtime we all ride down the elevator together
making jokes and laughing
nd then we sit in the employees cafeteria making jokes and
aughing and eating the recooked food;
rst they buy it then they fry it
hen they reheat it then they sell it, cant be a germ left in there
r a vitamin either.

ut we joke and laugh

therwise we would start
creaming.

n Saturday and Sunday when I dont have money to go to the track

just lay in bed.
never get out of bed.
dont want to go to a movie;
is shameful for a full-grown man to go to a movie alone.
nd women are less than nothing. they terrify
me.

wonder what Andernach is like?

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

et well or strong or at least feel better;
ut its always up and back to the machine,
earching for stockings that match,
horts that wont tear,
ooking at my face in the mirror, disgusted with
my face.

my uncle, what is he thinking with his crazy

etters?

we are all little forgotten pieces of shit

nly we walk and talk

augh
make jokes
nd
he shit shits.

ome day I will tell that foreman off.

will tell everybody off.
nd walk down to the end of the road and
make swans out of the blackbirds and
ons out of berry leaves.

(uncollected)

big time loser

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

o go to the bar car. I had a beer and came
ack and sat down.
pardon me, said the lady next to me, but youre
itting in my husbands seat.
oh yeah? I said. I picked up my Racing Form
nd began studying it. the first race looked tough. then a man was standing there. hey, buddy,
oure in my seat!
already told him, said the lady, but he didnt pay
ny attention.
This is my seat! I told the man.
ts bad enough he takes my seat, said the man looking
round, but now hes reading my Racing Form!
looked up at him, he was puffing his chest out.
ook at you, I said, puffing your goddamned
hest out!
youre in my seat, buddy! he told me.
ook, I said, Ive been in this seat since the
ain left the station. ask anybody!
no, thats not right, said a man behind me,
he had that seat when the train left the
tation! are you sure?
sure Im sure!

got up and walked to the next train car.

here was my empty seat by the window and there was
my Racing Form.

went back to the other car. the

man was reading his Racing Form.
hey, I started to say
orget it, said the man.
ust leave us alone, said his wife.

walked back to my car, sat down and

ooked out the window
retending to be interested in the landcape,
appy that the people in my car didnt know what
he people in the other car knew.

commerce

used to drive those trucks so hard

nd for so long that
my right foot would
o dead from pushing down on the
ccelerator.
elivery after delivery,
4 hours at a time
or $1.10 per hour
nder the table,
p one-way alleys in the worst parts of
own.
t midnight or at high noon,
acing between tall buildings
lways with the stink of something
ying or about to die
n the freight elevator
t your destination,
self-operated elevator,
pening into a large bright room,
ncomfortably so
nder unshielded lights
ver the heads of many women
ach bent mute over a machine,
rucified alive
n piecework,
o hand the package then
o a fat son of a bitch in red
uspenders.
e signs, ripping through the cheap
aper
with his ballpoint pen,

hats power,
hats America at work.

ou think of killing him

n the spot
ut discard that thought and
eave,
own into the urine-stinking
levator,
hey have you crucified too,
America at work,
where they rip out your intestines
nd your brain and your
will and your spirit.
hey suck you dry, then throw
ou away.
he capitalist system.
he work ethic.
he profit motive.
he memory of your fathers words,
work hard and youll be
ppreciated.
f course, only if you make
much more for them than they pay
ou.

ut of the alley and into the

unlight again,
nto heavy traffic,
lanning the route to your next stop,
he best way, the time-

aver,

ou knowing none of the tricks

nd to actually think about
ll the deliveries that still lie ahead
would lead to
madness.

s one at a time,

asing in and out of traffic

etween other work-driven drivers
lso with no concept of danger,
eality, flow or
ompassion.
ou can feel the despair
scaping from their
machines,
heir lives as hopeless and
s numbed as
ours.

ou break through the cluster

f them
n your way to the next
top,
riving through teeming downtown
os Angeles in 1952,
tinking and hungover,
o time for lunch,
o time for coffee,
oure on route #10,
new man,
ive the new man the
all-busting route,

ee if he can swallow the

whale.

ou look down and the

eedle is on
ed.
lmost no gas left.
oo fucking bad.
ou gun it,
ghting a crushed cigarette with
ne hand from a soiled pack of
matches.

hit on the world.

come on in!

welcome to my wormy hell.

he music grinds off-key.
sh eyes watch from the wall.
his is where the last happy shot was
red.
he mind snaps closed
ke a mind snapping
losed.
we need to discover a new will and a new
way.
were stuck here now
stening to the laughter of the
ods.
my temples ache with the fact of
he facts.
get up, move about, scratch
myself.
m a pawn.
am a hungry prayer.
my wormy hell welcomes you.
ello. hello there. come in, come on in!
lenty of room here for us all,
ucker.
we can only blame ourselves so
ome sit with me in the dark.
s half-past
owhere
verywhere.

the bakers of 1935

my mother, father and I

walked to the market
nce a week
or our government relief food:
ans of beans, cans of
weenies, cans of hash,
ome potatoes, some
ggs.
we carried the supplies
n large shopping
ags.

nd as we left the market

we always stopped
utside
where there was a large
window
where we could see the
akers
neading
he flour into the
ough.
here were 5 bakers,
arge young men
nd they stood at
large wooden tables
working very hard,
ot looking up.
hey flipped the dough in
he air
nd all the sizes and

esigns were
ifferent.

we were always hungry

nd the sight of the men
working the dough,
ipping it in the
ir was a wondrous
ight, indeed.
ut then, it would come time
o leave
nd we would walk away
arrying our heavy
hopping bags.

hose men have jobs,

my father would say.
e said it each time.
very time we watched
he bakers he would say
hat.

think Ive found a new way

o make the hash,
my mother would say
ach time.
r sometimes it was
he weenies.
we ate the eggs all
ifferent ways:
ied, poached, boiled.
ne of our favorites was

oached eggs on hash.

ut that favorite finally
ecame almost impossible
o eat.
nd the potatoes, we fried
hem, baked them, boiled
hem.
ut the potatoes had a way
f not becoming as tiresome
s the hash, the eggs, the
eans.

ne day, arriving home,

we placed all our foodstuffs
n the kitchen counter and
tared at them.
hen we turned away.

m going to hold up a
ank! my father suddenly
aid.

oh no, Henry, please!

aid my mother,
please dont!

were going to eat some

teak, were going to eat
teaks until they come out
f our ears!

but Henry, you dont have

gun!

ll hold something in my
oat, Ill pretend its a gun!

ve got a water pistol,

said, you can use that.

my father looked at me.

you, he said, SHUT UP!

walked outside.
sat on the back steps.
could hear them in there
alking but I couldnt quite make it
ut.

hen I could hear them again, it was

ouder.

ll find a new way to cook everything!

my mother said.

m going to rob a goddamned

ank! my father said.

Henry, please, please dont!

heard my mother.

got up from the steps.

walked away into the
fternoon.

secret laughter

he lair of the hunted is

idden in the last place
oud ever look
nd even if you find it
ou wont believe
s really there
n much the same way
s the average person
will not believe a great painting.

Democracy

he problem, of course, isnt the Democratic System,

s the
ving parts which make up the Democratic System.
he next person you pass on the street,
multiply
im or
er by
or 4 or 30 or 40 million
nd you will know
mmediately
why things remain non-functional
or most of
s.

wish I had a cure for the chess pieces

we call Humanity

weve undergone any number of political

ures

nd we all remain
oolish enough to hope
hat the one on the way

OW

will cure almost

verything.

ellow citizens,
he problem never was the Democratic
System, the problem is

ou.

an empire of coins

he legs are gone and the hopesthe lava of outpouring,

nd I havent shaved in sixteen days
ut 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
n golden trunks and 8 oz. gloves when I made the semi-finals
nly to be taken out by a German brute who should have been
ocked in a cage for the insane and allowed to drink blood.
Now I am insane and stare at the wallpaper as one would stare
t a Dal (he has lost it) or an early Picasso, and I send
he girls out for beer, the old girls who barely bother to wipe
heir asses and say, well, I guess I wont comb my hair today:
might bring me luck. well, anyway, they wash the dishes and
hop the wood, and the landlady keeps insisting let me in, I cant
et in, youve got the lock on, and whats all that singing and
ussing in there? but she only wants a piece of ass while she pretends
he wants the rent
but shes not going to get either one of em.
meanwhile the skulls of the dead are full of beetles and Shakespeare
nd old football scores like S.C. 16, N.D. 14 on a John
Baker field goal.

can see the fleet from my window, the sails and the guns, always
he guns poking their eyes in the sky looking for trouble like young
.A. cops too young to shave, and the younger sailors out
here sex-hungry, trying to act tough, trying to act like men
ut really closer to their mothers nipples than to a true evaluation
f existence. I say god damn it, that
my legs are gone and the outpourings too. inside my brain

hey cut and snip and

pour oil
o burn and fire out early dreams.
darling, says one of the girls, youve got to snap out of it,
were running out of MONEY. how do you want
our toast?

light or dark?
womans a woman, I say, and I put my binoculars between her
neecaps and I can see where
mpires have fallen.

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

why? asks one of the

whores.

BECAUSE RATS DONT LIKE OIL! I scream.

cant go on. I dont belong here.) I listen to radio programs and

eoples voices talking and I marvel that they can get excited
nd interested over nothing and I flick out the lights, I
rash out the lights, and I pull the shades down, I
ear the shades down and I light my last cigar imagining
he dreamjump off the Empire State Building
nto the thickheaded bullbrained mob with the hard-on attitude.
lready forgotten are the dead of Normandy, Lincolns stringy beard,
ll the bulls that have died to flashing red capes,
ll the love that has died in real women and real men
while fools have been elevated to the trumpets succulent sneer
nd I have fought red-handed and drunk

n slop-pitted alleys
he bartenders of this rotten land.

nd I laugh, I can still laugh, who cant laugh when the

whole thingis
o ridiculous
that only the insane, the clowns, the half-wits,
he cheaters, the whores, the horse players, the bankrobbers, the
oetsare interesting?

n the dark I hear the hands reaching for the last of my money
ke mice nibbling at paper, automatic feeders on inbred
elplessness, a false drunken God asleep at the wheel
quarter rolls across the floor, and I remember all the faces
and
he football heroes, and everything has meaning, and an editor
writes me, you are good
but

you are too emotional

he way to whip life is to quietly frame the agony,
tudy it and put it to sleep in the abstract.
s there anything less abstract
than dying day by day?

he door closes and the last of the great whores are gone
nd somehow no matter how they have
illed me, they are all great, and I smoke quietly
hinking of Mexico, the tired horses, of Havana
nd Spain and Normandy, of the jabbering insane, of my dear
iends, of no more friends
ver; and the voice of my Mexican buddy saying, you wont die

ou wont die in the war, youre too smart, youll take care
f yourself.

keep thinking of the bulls. the brave bulls dying every day.
he whores are gone. the bombing has stopped for a minute.

uck everybody.

leepy now
t 4 a.m.
hear the siren
f a white
mbulance,
hen a dog
arks
nce
n this tough-boy
Christmas
morning.

what?

the American Flag Shirt

ow more and more

ll these people running around
wearing the American Flag Shirt
nd it was more or less once assumed
think but Im not sure)
hat wearing an A.F.S. meant to
ay you were pissing on

ut now
hey keep making them
nd everybody keeps buying them
nd wearing them
nd the faces are just like
he American Flag Shirt
his one has this face and that shirt
hat one has that shirt and this face
nd somebodys spending money
nd somebodys making money
nd as the patriots become
more and more fashionable
ll be nice
when everybody looks around
nd finds that they are all patriots now
nd therefore
who is there left to
ersecute
xcept their
hildren?

now shes free

Cleos going to make it now

hes got her shit together
he split with Barney
Barney wasnt good for her
he got a bigger apartment
urnished it beautifully
nd bought a new silver Camaro
he works afternoons in a dance joint
rives 30 miles to the job from
Redondo Beach
oes to night school
elps out at the AIDS clinic
eads the I Ching
oes Yoga
s living with a 20-year-old boy
ats health food
Barney wasnt good for her
hes got her shit together now
hes into T.M.
ut shes the same old fun-loving Cleo
hes painted her nails green
ot a butterfly tattoo
saw her yesterday
n her new silver Camaro
er long blonde hair blowing
n the wind.
oor Barney.
e just doesnt know what hes
missing.

the simple truth

ou just dont know how to do it,

ou know that,
nd you cant do a lot of other
seful things either.
s the fault of the
way you were raised,
ome of it,
nd youll never learn now,
s too late.
ou just cant do certain things.
could show you how to do them
ut you still wouldnt do them
ght.
learned how to do a lot of necessary things
when I was a little girl
nd I can still do them now.
had good parents but
our parents never gave you enough
ttention or love
o you never learned how to do
ertain simple things.
know its not your fault but
think you should be aware of how
mited you are.

ere, let me do that!

ow watch me!
ee how easy it is!
ake your time!
ou have no patience!

ow look at you!
oure mad, arent you?
can tell.
ou think I cant tell?

m going downstairs now,

my favorite tv program is coming
n.

nd dont be mad because

tell you the simple truth about
ourself.

o you want anything from

ownstairs?
snack?
o?

re you sure?

gold in your eye

got into my BMW and drove down to my bank to

ick up my American Express Gold Card.

told the girl at the desk what I

wanted.

youre Mr. Chinaski, she

aid.

yes, you want some

d.?

oh no, we know you

slipped the card into my wallet

went back to parking
ot into the BMW (paid for, straight
ash)
nd decided to drive down to the liquor store
or a case of fine
wine.

n the way, I further decided to write a poem

bout the whole thing: the BMW, the bank, the
Gold Card
ust to piss off the
ritics
he writers
he readers

who much preferred the old poems about me

leeping on park benches while

eezing and dying of cheap wine and

malnutrition.

his poem is for those who think that

man can only be a creative
enius
t the very
dge
ven though they never had the
uts to
y it.

a great writer

great writer remains in bed

hades down
oesnt want to see anyone
oesnt want to write anymore
oesnt want to try anymore;
he editors and publishers wonder:
ome say hes insane
ome say hes dead;
is wife now answers all the mail:
.e does not wish to
nd some others even walk up and down
utside his house,
ook at the pulled-down
hades;
ome even go up and ring the
ell.
obody answers.
he great writer does not want to be
isturbed. perhaps the great writer is not
n? perhaps the great writer has gone
way?

ut they all want to know the truth,

o hear his voice, to be told some good
eason for it all.

he has a reason
e does not reveal it.
erhaps there isnt any
eason?

trange and disturbing arrangements are

made; his books and paintings are quietly
uctioned off;
o new work has appeared now for
ears.

et his public wont accept his

ilence
he is dead
hey want to know; if he is
nsane they want to know; if he has a
eason, please tell us!

hey walk past his house

write letters
ng the bell
hey cannot understand and will not
ccept
he way things are.

rather like
.

the smoking car

hey stop out front here

looks as if the car is on fire
he smoke blazes blue from the hood and exhaust
he motor sounds like cannon shots
he car humps wildly
ne guy gets out,
esus, he says, he takes a long drink from a
anvas water bag
nd gives the car an eerie look.
he other guy gets out and looks at the car,
esus, he says,
nd he takes a drink from a pint of whiskey,
hen passes the bottle to his
iend.
hey both stand and look at the car,
ne holding the whiskey, the other the water bag.
hey are not dressed in conventional hippie garb
ut in natural old clothes
aded, dirty and torn.
butterfly goes past my window
nd they get back in the
ar
nd it bucks off in low
ke a rodeo bronc
hey are both laughing
nd one has the bottle
lted

he butterfly is gone
nd outside there is a globe of smoke
0 feet in circumference.

rst human beings Ive seen in Los Angeles

n 15 years.

the shoelace

woman, a
re thats flat, a
isease, a
esire; fears in front of you,
ears that hold so still
ou can study them
ke pieces on a
hessboard
s not the large things that
end a man to the
mad house. death hes ready for, or
murder, incest, robbery, fire, flood
o, its the continuing series of small tragedies
hat send a man to the
mad house
ot the death of his love
ut a shoelace that snaps
with no time left
he dread of life
s that swarm of trivialities
hat can kill quicker than cancer
nd which are always there
cense plates or taxes
r expired drivers license,
r hiring or firing,
oing it or having it done to you, or
onstipation
peeding tickets
ckets or crickets or mice or termites or
oaches or flies or a
roken hook on a
creen, or out of gas

r too much gas,

he sinks stopped up, the landlords drunk,
he president doesnt care and the governors
razy.
ghtswitch broken, mattress like a
orcupine;
105 for a tune-up, carburetor and fuel pump at
Sears Roebuck;
nd the phone bills up and the markets
own
nd the toilet chain is
roken,
nd the light has burned out
he hall light, the front light, the back light,
he inner light; its
arker than hell
nd twice as
xpensive.
hen theres always crabs and ingrown toenails
nd people who insist theyre
our friends;
heres always that and worse;
eaky faucet, Christ and Christmas;
lue salami, 9 day rains,
0 cent avocados
nd purple
verwurst.

r making it
s a waitress at Norms on the split shift,
r as an emptier of
edpans,

r as a carwash or a busboy
r a stealer of old ladys purses
eaving them screaming on the sidewalks
with broken arms at the age of
0.

uddenly
red lights in your rearview mirror
nd blood in your
nderwear;
oothache, and $979 for a bridge
300 for a gold
ooth,
nd China and Russia and America, and
ong hair and short hair and no
air, and beards and no
aces, and plenty of zigzag but no
ot, except maybe one to piss in and
he other one around your
ut.

with each broken shoelace

ut of one hundred broken shoelaces,
ne man, one woman, one
hing
nters a
mad house.

o be careful
when you
end over.

self-inflicted wounds

e talked about Steinbeck and Thomas Wolfe and he

wrote like a cross between the two of them
nd I lived in a hotel on Figueroa Street
lose to the bars
nd he lived further uptown in a small room
nd we both wanted to be writers
nd wed meet at the public library, sit on the stone
enches and talk about that.
e showed me his short stories and he wrote well, he
wrote better than I did, there was a calm and a
trength in his work that mine did not have.
my stories were jagged, harsh, with self-inflicted wounds.

showed him all my work but he was more impressed with

my drinking prowess and my worldly attitude

fter talking a bit we would go to Cliftons Cafeteria

or our only meal of the day
or less than a dollar in 1941)
et
we were in great health.
we lost jobs, found jobs, lost jobs.
mostly we didnt work, we always envisioned we soon
would be receiving regular checks from
The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly and

Harpers.

we ran with a gang of young men who didnt envision

nything at all
ut they had a gallant lawless charm
nd we drank with them and fought with them and
ad a hell of a wild good time.

hen just like that he joined the Marine Corps.

want to prove something to myself was what he told
me.

e did: right after boot camp the war came and in 3 months
e was dead.
nd I promised myself that some day I would write a novel and that
would dedicate it to him.

have now written 5 novels, all dedicated to others.

ou know, you were right, Robert Baun, when you once told
me, Bukowski, about half of what you say is
ullshit.

Verdi

nd
o
we suck on a cigar
nd a beer
ttempting to mend the love
wounds of the soul.
beer.
cigar.

listen to Verdi
cratch my hindquarters
nd
tare out of
cloud of
lue
moke.

ave you ever been to

Venice?

Madrid?

he stress of continually facing the

owered
orn
s wearing.

hen too
sometimes think of a
ess stressful kind of

ove
can and should be so
asy
ke falling asleep
n a chair or
ke a church full of
windows.

ad enough,
wish only for that careless love
which is sweet
entle
nd which is
ow
ike
this light
over my head)
here only to serve me
while I
moke smoke smoke
ut of a certain center dressed
n an old brown shirt.

ut I am caught under a pile of

ricks;
oetry is shot in the head
nd walks down the alley
issing on its legs.

iends, stop writing of

reathing
n this sky of fire.

mall children,
walk well behind us.

ut now Verdi
bides with the
wallpaper
with beerlove,
with the taste of wet gold as
my fingers dabble in ashes
s strange young ladies walk outside
my window
reaming of broomsticks,
alaces
nd
lueberry pie.

(uncollected)

the young lady who lives in Canoga Park

he only fucks the ones she doesnt want

o marry.
o the others she says
ouve got to marry me.
r maybe she just fucks the ones she wants
o fuck?
he talks about it freely
nd lives in the apartment at the end
with a 9-year-old red-haired boy
nd a 7-month-old baby.
he gets child support
nd when she works
he works in the factories or as a
ocktail waitress.
he has a boyfriend 60 years old
who drinks a jug of wine a day
as a bad leg
nd lives at the YMCA.
he smokes dope, mostly grass,
akes pills
wears large dark glasses
nd talks talks talks
while not looking at you and
wisting a long beaded necklace with her thin
ervous fingers.
he has a neck like a swan,
ould be a movie star,
wice in the mad house,
mother in the mad house,
nd a sister in prison.
ou never know when she is going to

o mad again and

hrow tiny fits
nd 3 a.m. phone calls at you.

he kids trundle about the apartment

nd she fucks and doesnt fuck,
as an exercise chart on her wall
ends this way and that
ouches her toes
eaps
tretches and so
orth. she goes from dope to religion
nd from religion back to dope and
om black guys to white guys and from white to
lack again.

when she takes off those dark glasses

er eyes are blue
nd she tries to smile
s she twists that necklace
round and around.
here are 3 keys on the end of it:
er car key
er apartment key
nd one that Ive never
sked her about.
hes not given up,
hes not dead yet,
hes hardly even old,
er air conditioner doesnt

work and thats really all I know

bout her because Im one of those

he wants to
marry.

(uncollected)

life of the king

awaken at 11:30 a.m.

et into my chinos and a clean green shirt
pen a Millers,
nd nothing in the mailbox but the

Berkeley Tribe

which I dont subscribe to,

nd on KUSC there is organ music
omething by Bach
nd I leave the door open
tand on the porch
walk out front
ot damn
hat air is good
nd the sun like golden butter on my
ody. no racetrack today, nothing but this
eastly and magic
eisure, rolled cigarette dangling
scratch my belly in the sun
s Paul Hindemith
des by on a bicycle,
nd down the street a lady in a
ery red dress
ends down into a laundry basket
ses
angs a sheet on a line,
ends again, rises, in all that red,
hat red like snake skin
linging moving flashing
ot damn
keep looking, and
he sees me
auses bent over basket

lothespin in mouth
he rises with a pair of pink
an ties
miles around the
lothespin
waves to me.
whats next? rape in the streets?
wave back,
o in,
it down at the machine
y the window, and now its someones
iolin concerto in D,
nd a pretty black girl in very tight pants
walking a hound,
hey stop outside my window,
ook in;
he has on dark shades
nd her mouth opens a little, then she and the dog
move on.
omeone might have bombed cities for this or
old apples in the
ain.
ut whoever is responsible, today I wish to
hank him
ll the
way.

my failure

think of de vils in hell

nd stare at a
eautiful vase of
owers
s the woman in my bedroom
ngrily switches the light
n and off.
we have had a very bad
rgument
nd I sit in here smoking
igarettes from
ndia
s on the radio an
pera singers prayers are
ot in my
anguage.
utside, the window to
my left reveals the night
ghts of the
ity and I only wish
had the courage to
reak through this simple horror
nd make things well
gain
ut my petty anger
revents
me.

realize hell is only what we

reate,
moking these cigarettes,
waiting here,

wondering here,
while in the other room
he continues to
it and
witch the light
n and off,
n and
ff.

a boy and his dog

heres Barry in his ripped walking shorts

es on Thorazine
s 24
ooks 38
ves with his mother in the same
partment building
nd they fight like married folk.
e wears dirty white t-shirts
nd every time he gets a new dog
e names him Brownie.
es like an old woman really.
ell see me getting into my Volks.
hey, ya goin ta work?
oh, no Barry, I dont work. Im going to
he racetrack.
yeah?
e walks over to the car window.
ya heard them last night?
who?
hem! they were playin that shit all night!
couldnt sleep! they played until one-thirty!
idnt cha hear em?
no, but Im in the back, Barry, youre up
ont.
we live in east Hollywood among the massage parlors,
dult bookstores and the sex film theatres.
yeah, says Barry. I dont know what this neighborhood
s comin to! ya know those other people in
the front
nit?
yes.

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

hey were doin?
no, Barry.
his! he says and then takes his right forefinger and
okes it against a vein in his left arm.
really?
yeah! and if it aint that, now we got all these
runks in the neighborhood!
ook, Barry, Ive 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!
hats stupid! he gave me a ticket! I almost smashed him
n the face!
oh yeah?
yeah! I almost smashed him!
Barry, Ive got to make the first race.
how much does it cost you to get in?
our dollars and twenty-five cents.
got into the Pomona County Fair for a dollar.
all right, Barry.
he motor has been running. I put it into first and pull
ut. in the rearview mirror I see him walk
ack across the lawn.
Brownie is waiting for him,
wagging his tail.
is mother is inside waiting.
maybe Barry will slam her against the refrigerator
hinking about that cop.
r maybe theyll play checkers.

find the Hollywood freeway

hen the Pasadena freeway.
fe has been tough on Barry:
es 24
ooks 38
ut it all evens out finally:
es aged a good many other people
oo.

liberated woman and liberated man

ook there.
he one you considered killing yourself
or.
ou saw her the other day
etting out of her car
n the Safeway parking lot.
he was wearing a torn green
ress and old dirty
oots
er face raw with living.
he saw you
o you walked over
nd spoke and then
stened.
er hair did not glisten
er eyes and her conversation were
ull.
where was she?
where had she gone?
he one you were going to kill yourself
or?

he conversation finished
he walked into the store
nd you looked at her automobile
nd even that
which used to drive up and park
n front of your door
with such verve and in a spirit of
dventure
ow looked

ke a junkyard
oke.

ou decide not to shop at

Safeway
oull drive 6 blocks
ast and buy what you need
t Ralphs.

etting into your car

ou are quite pleased that
ou didnt
ill yourself;
verything is delightful and
he air is clear.
our hands on the wheel,
ou grin as you check for traffic in
he rearview mirror.

my man, you think,

ouve saved yourself
or somebody else, but
who?

slim young creature walks by

n a mini skirt and sandals
howing a marvelous leg.
hes going in to shop at Safeway
oo.

ou turn off the engine and

ollow her in.

small talk

ll right, while we are gently celebrating to night

nd while crazy classical music leaps at me from
my small radio, I light a fresh cigar
nd realize that I am still very much alive and that
he 21st century is almost upon me!

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
re full of their own private fears wrought by previous
enturies of cruelty and abuse
ut I think that they love me as much as they
an, anyhow, what I am trying to say here
s that writing is just as exciting and mad and
ust as big a gamble for me as it ever was, because Death
fter all these years
walks around in the room with me now and speaks softly,
sking, do you still think that you are a genuine
writer? are you pleased with what youve done?
sten, let me have one of those
igars.

elp yourself, motherfucker, I say.

Death lights up and we sit quietly for a time.

can feel him here with me.

ont you long for the ferocity

f youth? He finally asks.

ot so much, I say.

ut dont you regret those things

hat have been lost?

ot at all, I say.

ont you miss, He asks slyly, the young girls

limbing through your window?

ll they brought was bad news, I tell him.

ut the illusion, He says, dont you miss the

lusion?

ell yes, dont you? I ask.

have no illusions, He says sadly.

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

o the window
nafraid and strangely satisfied
o watch the warm dawn
nfold.

the crunch

oo much
oo little

oo fat
oo thin
r nobody.

aughter or
ears

aters
overs

trangers with faces like

he backs of
humb tacks

rmies running through

treets of blood
waving winebottles
ayoneting and fucking
irgins.

r an old guy in a cheap room

with a photograph of M. Monroe.

here is a loneliness in this world so great

hat you can see it in the slow movement of
he hands of a clock.

eople so tired
mutilated
ither by love or no love.

eople just are not good to each other

ne on one

he rich are not good to the rich

he poor are not good to the poor.

we are afraid.

ur educational system tells us

hat we can all be
ig-ass winners.

hasnt told us
bout the gutters
r the suicides.

r the terror of one person

ching in one place
lone

ntouched
nspoken to

watering a plant.

eople are not good to each other.

eople are not good to each other.
eople are not good to each other.

suppose they never will be.

dont ask them to be.

ut sometimes I think about

he beads will swing

he clouds will cloud
nd the killer will behead the child
ke taking a bite out of an ice cream cone.

oo much
oo little
oo fat
oo thin
r nobody

more haters than lovers.

eople are not good to each other.

erhaps if they were
ur deaths would not be so sad.

meanwhile I look at young girls

tems
owers of chance.

here must be a way.

urely there must be a way we have not yet

hought of.

who put this brain inside of me?

cries
demands
says that there is a chance.

will not say

no.

funhouse

drive to the beach at night

n the winter
nd sit and look at the burned-down amusement pier
wonder why they just let it sit there
n the water.
want it out of there,
lown up,
anished,
rased;
hat pier should no longer sit there
with madmen sleeping inside
he burned-out guts of the fun house
s awful, I say, blow the damn thing up,
et it out of my eyes,
hat tombstone in the sea.

he madmen can find other holes

o crawl into.
used to walk that pier when I was 8
ears old.

the poetry reading

t high noon
t a small college near the beach
ober
he sweat running down my arms
spot of sweat on the table
flatten it with my finger
lood money blood money
my god they must think I love this like the others
ut its for bread and beer and rent
lood money
m tense lousy feel bad
oor people Im failing Im failing

woman gets up
walks out
lams the door

dirty poem
omebody told me not to read dirty poems
ere

s too late.

my eyes cant see some lines

read it
ut
esperate trembling
ousy

hey cant hear my voice

nd I say,

quit, thats it, Im

nished.

nd later in my room
heres scotch and beer:
he blood of a coward.

his then
will be my destiny:
crabbling for pennies in dark tiny halls
eading poems I have long since become tired
f.

nd I used to think
hat men who drove buses
r cleaned out latrines
r murdered men in alleys were
ools.

somebody

od I got the sad blue blues,

his woman sat there and she
aid
re you really Charles
Bukowski?
nd I said
forget that
do not feel good
ve got the sad sads
ll I want to do is
uck you

nd she laughed
he thought I was being
lever
ndust looked up her long slim legs of heaven
saw her liver and her quivering intestine
saw Christ in there
umping to a folk-rock

ll the long lines of starvation within me

ose
nd I walked over
nd grabbed her on the couch
pped her dress up around her face

nd I didnt care
ape or the end of the earth
ne more time
o be there
nywhere
eal

es
er pan ties were on the
oor
nd my cock went in
my cock my god my cock went in

was Charles
Somebody.

the colored birds

is a highrise apt. next door

nd he beats her at night and she screams and nobody stops it
nd I see her the next day
tanding in the driveway with curlers in her hair
nd she has her huge buttocks jammed into black
lacks and she says, standing in the sun,
god damn it, 24 hours a day in this place, I never go anywhere!

hen he comes out, proud, the little matador,

pail of shit, his belly hanging over his bathing trunks
e might have been a handsome man once, might have,
ow they both stand there and he says,
think Im goin for a swim.
he doesnt answer and he goes to the pool and
umps into the fishless, sandless water, the peroxide-codeine water,
nd I stand by the kitchen window drinking coffee
ying to unboil the fuzzy, stinking picture
fter all, you cant live elbow to elbow to people without wanting to
raw a number on them.
very time my toilet flushes they can hear it. every time they
o to bed I can hear them.

oon she goes inside and then comes out with 2 colored birds
n a cage. I dont know what they are. they dont talk. they
ust move a little, seeming to twitch their tail-feathers and
hit. thats all they do.
he stands there looking at them.
e comes out: the little tuna, the little matador, out of the pool,
dripping unbeautiful white, the cloth of his wet suit gripping.
get those birds in the house!
but the birds need sun!
said, get those birds in the house!

he birds are gonna die!

you listen to me, I said, GET THOSE BIRDS IN THE HOUSE!
he bends and lifts them, her huge buttocks in the black slacks
ooking so sad.
e slams the door behind them. then I hear it.
BAM!
she screams
BAM! BAM!
she screams
then: BAM!
and she screams.

pour another coffee and decide that thats a new

ne: he usually only beats her at
ight. it takes a man to beat his wife night and
ay. although he doesnt look like much
es one of the few real men around
ere.

poem for personnel managers:

An old man asked me for a cigarette

nd I carefully dealt out two.
Been lookin for job. Gonna stand
n the sun and smoke.

He was close to rags and rage

nd he leaned against death.
was a cold day, indeed, and trucks
oaded and heavy as old whores
anged and tangled on the streets

We drop like planks from a rotting floor

s the world strives to unlock the bone
hat weights its brain.
God is a lonely place without steak.)

We are dying birds

we are sinking ships
he world rocks down against us
nd we
hrow out our arms
nd we
hrow out our legs
ke the death kiss of the centipede:
ut they kindly snap our backs
nd call our poison politics.

Well, we smoked, he and Ilittle men

ibbling fish-head thoughts

All the horses do not come in,

nd as you watch the lights of the jails

nd hospitals wink on and out,

nd men handle flags as carefully as babies,
emember this:

ou are a great-gutted instrument of

eart and belly, carefully planned
o if you take a plane for Savannah,
ake the best plane;
r if you eat chicken on a rock,
make it a very special animal.
You call it a bird; I call birds
owers.)

And if you decide to kill somebody,

make it anybody and not somebody:
ome men are made of more special, precious
arts: do not kill
you will
president or a King
r a man
ehind a desk
hese have heavenly longitudes
nlightened attitudes.

you decide,
ake us
who stand and smoke and glower;
we are rusty with sadness and
everish
with climbing broken ladders.

ake us:
we were never children

like your children.

We do not understand love songs
like your inamorata.

Our faces are cracked linoleum,

racked through with the heavy, sure
eet of our masters.

We are shot through with carrot tops

nd poppyseed and tilted grammar;
we waste days like mad blackbirds
nd pray for alcoholic nights.
Our silk-sick human smiles wrap around
s like somebody elses confetti:
we do not even belong to the Party.

We are a scene chalked-out with the

ick white brush of Age.

We smoke, asleep as a dish of figs.

We smoke, dead as a fog.

ake us.

A bathtub murder
r something quick and bright; our names
n the papers.

Known, at last, for a moment

o millions of careless and grape-dull eyes

hat hold themselves private

o only flicker and flame
t the poor cracker-barrel jibes
f their conceited, pampered correct comedians.

Known, at last, for a moment,

s they will be known
nd as you will be known
y an all-gray man on an all-gray horse
who sits and fondles a sword
onger than the night
onger than the mountains aching backbone
onger than all the cries
hat have a-bombed up out of throats
nd exploded in a newer, less-planned
and.

We smoke and the clouds do not notice us.

A cat walks by and shakes Shakespeare off of his back.
allow, tallow, candle like wax: our spines
re limp and our consciousness burns
uilelessly away
he remaining wick life has
oled out to us.

An old man asked me for a cigarette

nd told me his troubles
nd this
s what he said:
hat Age was a crime
nd that Pity picked up the marbles

nd that Hatred picked up the

ash.

He might have been your father

r mine.

He might have been a sex-fiend

r a saint.

But what ever he was,

e was condemned
nd we stood in the sun and
moked
nd looked around
n our leisure
o see who was next in
ne.

my fate

ke the fox
run with the hunted
nd if Im not
he happiest man
n earth
m surely the
uckiest man
live.

(uncollected)

my atomic stockpile

cleaned my place the other day

rst time in ten years
nd found 100 rejected poems:
fastened them all to a clipboard
much bad reading).

ow I will clean their teeth

ll their cavities
ive them eye and ear examinations
weigh them
ffer blood transfusions
hen send them out again into the
ick world of posey.
ither that
r I must burn down your cities,
ape your women,
murder your men,
nslave your children.

very time I clean my room

he world trembles in the balance.
hats why I only do it once every
en years.

(uncollected)

Bruckner (2)

Bruckner wasnt bad

ven though he got down
n his knees
nd proclaimed Wagner
he master.

saddens me, I guess,

n a small way
ecause while Wagner was
itting all those homers
Bruckner was sacrificing
he runners to second
nd he knew it.

nd I know that
mixing baseball metaphors with classical
music
will not please the purists
ither.

prefer Ruth to most of his teammates

ut I appreciate those others who did
he best they could
nd kept on doing it
ven when they knew they
were second best.

his is your club fighter

our back-up quarterback
he unknown jock who sometimes
rings one in
t 40-to-one.

his was Bruckner.

here are times when we should

emember
he strange courage
f the second-rate
who refuse to quit
when the nights
re black and long and sleepless
nd the days are without
nd.

hello, how are you?

his fear of being what they are:

ead.

t least they are not out on the street, they

re careful to stay indoors, those
asty mad who sit alone before their TV sets,
heir lives full of canned, mutilated laughter.

heir ideal neighborhood

f parked cars
f little green lawns
f little homes
he little doors that open and close
s their relatives visit
hroughout the holidays
he doors closing
ehind the dying who die so slowly
ehind the dead who are still alive
n your quiet average neighborhood
f winding streets
f agony
f confusion
f horror
f fear
f ignorance.
dog standing behind a fence.
man silent at the window.

vacancy

un-stroked women
without men
n a Santa Monica Monday;
he men are working or in jail
r insane;
ne girl floats in a rubber suit,
waiting
ouses slide off the edges of cliffs
nd down into the sea.
he bars are empty
he lobster eating houses are empty;
s a recession, they say,
he good days are
ver.
ou cant tell an unemployed man
om an artist any more,
hey all look alike
nd the women look the same,
nly a little more desperate.

we stop at a hippie hole

n Topanga Canyon
nd wait, wait, wait;
he whole area of the canyon and the beach
s listless
seless
VACANCY, it says, PEOPLE WANTED.

he wood has no fire

he sea is dirty
he hills are dry

he temples have no bells

ove has no bed

un-stroked women without men

ne sailboat

fe drowned.

batting slump

he sun slides down through the shades.

have a pair of black shoes and a pair of
rown shoes.
can hardly remember the girls of my youth.
here is numb blood pulsing through the
alcon and the hyena and the pimp
nd theres no escaping this unreasonable
orrow.
heres crabgrass and razor wire and the snoring
f my cat.
here are lifeguards sitting in canvas-back chairs
with salt rotting under their toenails.
heres the hunter with eyes like rose
etals.
orrow, yes, it pulls at me
dont know why.
venues of despair slide into my ears.
he worms wont sing.
he Babe swings again
missing a 3-and-2 pitch
wisting around himself
eaning over his
whiskey gut.
ows give milk
entists pull teeth
hermometers work.

can sing the blues

doesnt cost a dime and
when I lay down to night
ull up the covers
heres the dark factor

heres the unknown factor

heres this manufactured
taggering
lack
mpty
pace.

got to hit one out of here

retty soon.

bang bang

bsolutely sesamoid
aid the skeleton
hoving his chalky foot
pon my desk,
nd that was it,
ang bang,
e looked at me,
nd it was my bone body
nd I was what remained,
nd there was a newspaper
n my desk
nd somebody folded the newspaper
nd I folded,
was the newspaper
nder somebodys arm
nd the sheet of me
ad eyes
nd I saw the skeleton
watching
nd just before the door closed
saw a man who looked
artly like Napoleon,
artly like Hitler,
ghting with my skeleton,
hen the door closed
nd we went down the steps
nd outside
nd I was under
he arm
f a fat little man
who knew nothing
nd I hated him

or his indifference
o fact, how I hated him
s he unfolded me
n the subway
nd I fell against the back
f an old woman.

the pleasures of the damned

he pleasures of the damned

re limited to brief moments
f happiness:
ke the eyes in the look of a dog,
ke a square of wax,
ke a fire taking the city hall,
he county,
he continent,
ke fire taking the hair
f maidens and monsters;
nd hawks buzzing in peach trees,
he sea running between their claws,
ime
runk and damp,
verything burning,
verything wet,
verything fine.

one more good one

o be writing poetry at the age of 50

ke a schoolboy,
urely, I must be crazy;
acetracks and booze and arguments
with the landlord;
watercolor paintings under the bed
with dirty socks;
bathtub full of trash
nd a garbage can lined with
nderground newspapers;
record player that doesnt work,
radio that doesnt work,
nd I dont work
sit between 2 lamps,
ottle on the floor
egging a 20-year-old typewriter
o say something, in a way and
well enough
o they wont confuse me
with the more comfortable
ractitioners;
his is certainly not a game for
yweights or Ping-Pong players
ll arguments to the contrary.

but once you get the taste, its good to get your
eeth into
words. I forgive those who
ant quit.
forgive myself.
his is where the action is,
his is the hot horse that

omes in.
heres no grander fort
o better flag
o better woman
o better way; yet theres much else to say
here seems as much hell in it as
magic; death gets as close as any lover has,
loser,
ou know it like your right hand
ke a mark on the wall
ke your daughters name,
ou know it like the face on the corner
ewsboy,
nd you sit there with flowers and houses
with dogs and death and a boil on the neck,
ou sit down and do it again and again
he machinegun chattering by the window
s the people walk by
s you sit in your undershirt,
0, on an indelicate March evening,
s their faces look in and help you write the next 5
nes,
s they walk by and say,
he old man in the window, whats the deal with
im?
fucked by the muse, friends,
hank you
nd I roll a cigarette with one hand
ke the old bum
am, and then thank and curse the gods
like,
ean forward

rag on the cigarette

hink of the good fighters
ke poor Hem, poor Beau Jack, poor Sugar Ray,
oor Kid Gavilan, poor Villon, poor Babe, poor
Hart Crane, poor
me, hahaha.

lean forward,
edhot ash
alling on my wrists,
eeth into the word.
razy at the age of 50,
send it
ome.

the little girls hissed

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

elieve the school yard was tough: they put itching
owder 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,
nd on top of all that my parents were poor, I wore
ardboard in my shoes to fill in the holes in the
oles, my pants were patched, my shirts threadbare;
nd even my teachers ganged up
n me, they slammed my
alm with rulers and sent me to the principals office as
I was really guilty of something;
nd, of course, the abuse kept coming from my classmates;
was stoned, beaten, pissed on;
he little girls hissed and stuck their tongues out
t me

uchs 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
er.)
uch looked at Raymond: hey, your glass is empty.

eah, said Raymond.

uch touched a button and the English butler silently

lided in. he nodded respectfully to Raymond and in his
eautiful accent asked, another drink, sir?

es, please, Raymond answered.

he butler went off to prepare the drink.

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

alling.

Raymond asked, have you never forgotten it?

did for a while, but then strangely I began to

miss the abuse

he butler returned carrying Raymonds

rink on a silver tray.

ere is your drink, sir, said the butler.

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

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

tart now.

ow? asked the butler.

ow, came the answer.

he butler stood in front of Fuch and screamed:

ucky-boy! fucky-baby! fuck-face! fuck-brain!
where did your name come from, fuck-head?
ow come youre such a fuck-up?
tc.

hey all started laughing uncontrollably

s the butler delivered his tirade in that
eautiful British accent.

hey couldnt stop laughing, they fell out of their

hairs and got down on the rug, pounding it and

aughing, Fuch, his lovely young wife and Raymond
n that sprawling mansion overlooking the shining sea.

ha ha ha ha ha, ha ha

monkey feet
mall and blue
walking toward you
s the back of a building falls off
nd an airplane chews the white sky,
oom is like the handle of a pot,
s there,
now it,
ave ice in your tea,
marry,
ave children, visit your
entist,
o not scream at night
ven if you feel like screaming,
ount ten
make love to your wife,
r if your wife isnt there
there isnt anybody there
ount 20,
et up and walk to the kitchen
you have a kitchen
nd sit there sweating
t 3 a.m. in the morning
monkey feet
mall and blue
walking toward you.

thoughts from a stone bench in Venice

sit on this bench and look

t the sea and the freaks and the
overs.

need new eyes a new mouth new

illows, a new woman.

very old stud with half an eye in

is head loves to charm and ride
new young calf.

when I think of womenless men mowing their

Saturday lawns and playing football,
aseball, basketball with their sons
feel like vomiting into the far
orizon.

he family stinks of Christ

nd the American Stock Exchange.
he family stinks of safety and
umbness and Thanksgiving turkeys.
he family stinks of airless packed
utomobiles driving through
edwood forests.

need new eyes a new woman new

nkles a new voice new betrayals.

dont want a long funeral

ro cession when I die.
want to move on without weight
r obligation.

want just the sullen darkness I want

tomb like this night now:
me here undiluted
olid, cranky, immaculate.
hold fast to me. thats all there
s.

(uncollected)

scene in a tent outside the cotton fields of Bakersfield:

we fought for 17 days inside that tent

hrusting and counter-thrusting
ut finally she got away
nd I walked outside
nd spit
n the dirty sand.

Abdullah, I said, why dont you

wash your shorts? youve been
wearing the same
horts
or 17 years.

Effendi, he said, its the sun,

he sun cleans everything. what
went with the girl?

dont know if I couldnt

lease her
r if I couldnt
atch her. she was
retty young.

what did she cost, Effendi?

7 camel.

e whistled through his broken

eeth. arent you going
o catch her?

owinthehell how? can I get

my camels back?

ou are an American, he said.

walked into the tent

ell upon the ground
nd held my head
within
my hands.

uddenly she burst within

he tent
aughing madly,

Americano,
Americano!

lease

go away
said quietly.

men are, she said sitting down and rolling down

er stockings, some parts titty and some parts
ger. you dont mind
I roll down
my stockings?

dont mind, I said,

you roll down the top
f your dress. whores are

lways rolling down

heir hose. please
o away. I read where
he cruiser crew passed the helmet
or the red cross; I think Ill

ave them pass it

o brace your flabby
utt.

ave em pass the helmet twice, dad,

he said, howcum you dont love me
o more?

been thinking, I said,

ow can Love have a urinary tract
nd distended bowels?
ack up, daughter, and flow,
maneuver out of the mansions
f my sight!

ou forget, daddy-o, were in

my tent!

h, Christ, I said, the trivialities

f private ownership! wheres my
at?

ou were wearing a towel, dad, but

iss me, daddy, hold me in your arms!

walked over and mauled her breasts.

drink too much beer, she said,

cant help it if I
iss.

we fucked for 17 days.

3:16 and one half

ere Im supposed to be a great poet

nd Im sleepy in the afternoon
ere I am aware of death like a giant bull
harging at me
nd Im sleepy in the afternoon
ere Im aware of wars and men fighting in the ring
nd Im aware of good food and wine and good women
nd Im sleepy in the afternoon
m aware of a womans love
nd Im sleepy in the afternoon,
lean into the sunlight behind a yellow curtain
wonder where the summer flies have gone
remember the most bloody death of Hemingway
nd Im sleepy in the afternoon.

ome day I wont be sleepy in the afternoon

ome day Ill write a poem that will bring volcanoes
o the hills out there
ut right now Im sleepy in the afternoon
nd somebody asks me, Bukowski, what time is it?
nd I say, 3:16 and a half.
feel very guilty, I feel obnoxious, useless,
emented, I feel
leepy in the afternoon,
hey are bombing churches, o.k., thats o.k.,
he children ride ponies in the park, o.k., thats o.k.,
he libraries are filled with thousands of books of knowledge,
reat music sits inside the nearby radio
nd I am sleepy in the afternoon,
have this tomb within myself that says,
h, let the others do it, let them win,

et me sleep,
wisdom is in the dark
weeping through the dark like brooms,
m going where the summer flies have gone,
y to catch me.

a literary discussion

Markov claims I am trying

o stab his soul
ut Id prefer his wife.

put my feet on the coffee table

nd he says,
dont mind you putting
our feet on the coffee table
xcept that the legs are wobbly
nd the thing
will fall apart
ny minute.

leave my feet on the table

ut Id prefer his wife.

would rather, says Markov,

ntertain a ditchdigger
r a news vendor
ecause they are kind enough
o observe the decencies
ven though
hey dont know
Rimbaud from rat poison.

my empty beercan
olls to the floor.

hat I must die

others me less than
straw, says Markov,
my part of the game

s that I must live

he best I can.

grab his wife as she walks by,

nd then her can is against my belly,
nd she has fine knees and breasts
nd I kiss her.

is not so bad, being old, he says,

calmness sets in, but heres the catch:
o keep calmness and deadness
eparate; never to look upon youth
s inferior because you are old,
ever to look upon age as wisdom
ecause you have experience. a
man can be old and a fool
many are, a man can be young
nd wisefew are. a

or Christs all sake, I wailed,

hut up!

e walked over and got his cane and

walked out.

ouve hurt his feelings, she said,

e thinks you are a great poet.

es too slick for me, I said,

es too wise.

had one of her breasts out.

was a monstrous
eautiful

hing.

butterflies

believe in earning ones own way

ut I also believe in the unexpected
ift
nd it is a wondrous thing
when a woman who has read your works
or parts of them, anyhow)
ffers her self to you
ut of the blue
total
tranger.

uch an offer
uch a communion
must be taken as
oly.

he hands
he fingers
he hair
he smell
he light.

ne would like to be strong enough

o turn them away

hose butterflies.

believe in earning ones own way

ut I also believe in the unexpected gift.

have no shame.

we deserve one
nother

hose butterflies
who flutter to my tiny
ame
nd
me.

the great escape

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

ucket?
o, I told him.
well, what happens is that now and then one crab
will climb up on top of the others
nd begin to climb toward the top of the bucket,
hen, just as hes about to escape
nother crab grabs him and pulls him back
own.
eally? I asked.
eally, he said, and this job is just like that, none
f the others want anybody to get out of
ere. thats just the way it is
n the postal ser vice!
believe you, I said.

ust then the supervisor walked up and said,

ou fellows were talking.
here is no talking allowed on this
ob.

had been there eleven and one-half

ears.

got up off my stool and climbed right up the

upervisor
nd then I reached up and pulled myself right
ut of there.

was so easy it was unbelievable.

ut none of the others followed me.

nd after that, whenever I had crab legs

thought about that place.
must have thought about that place
maybe 5 or 6 times

efore I switched to lobster.

my friend William

my friend William is a fortunate man:

e lacks the imagination to suffer

e kept his first job

is first wife

an drive a car 50,000 miles

without a brake job

e dances like a swan

nd has the prettiest blankest eyes
his side of El Paso

is garden is a paradise
he heels of his shoes are always level
nd his handshake is firm

eople love him

when my friend William dies

will hardly be from madness or cancer

ell walk right past the de vil

nd into heaven

oull see him at the party to night

rinning
ver his martini

lissful and delightful

s some guy
ucks his wife in the
athroom.

safe

he house next door makes me

ad.
oth man and wife rise early and
o to work.
hey arrive home in early evening.
hey have a young boy and a girl.
y 9 p.m. all the lights in the house
re out.
he next morning both man and
wife rise early again and go to
work.
hey return in early evening.
y 9 p.m. all the lights are
ut.

he house next door makes me

ad.
he people are nice people, I
ke them.

ut I feel them drowning.

nd I cant save them.

hey are surviving.

hey are not
omeless.

ut the price is
errible.

ometimes during the day

will look at the house

nd the house will look at

me
nd the house will
weep, yes, it does, I
eel it.

he house is sad for the people living

here
nd I am too
nd we look at each other
nd cars go up and down the
treet,
oats cross the harbor
nd the tall palms poke
t the sky
nd to night at 9 p.m.
he lights will go out,
nd not only in that
ouse
nd not only in this
ity.
afe lives hiding,
lmost
topped,
he breathing of
odies and little
lse.

starve, go mad, or kill yourself

m not going to die

asy;
ve sat on your suicide beds
n some of the worst
oles in America,
enniless and mad Ive been,
mean, insane, you know;
ig tears, each one the size of your bastard hearts,
owing down,
oaches crawling into my shoes,
ne dirty 40-watt lightbulb overhead
nd a room that smelled like piss;
while your rich
our falsely famous
aughed in safe stale places
ar away,
ou gave me a suicide bed and two choices,
o three:
tarve, go mad, or kill yourself.

or now enjoy your trips to Paris where

ou consort with great painters and dupes,
ut I am getting ready for your eyes and your brain and
our dirty dishwater souls;
ou men who have created a pigpen for millions
o choke soundlessly in
om India to Los Angeles
om Paris to the tits of the Nile
oure fucked up
ou rich you warty you insecure you pricky
amned imbecile pasty white
diots with your starched shirts and your starched wives and, yes yes,

our starched lives,

et away get away
et away
o to Paris
while you can
while I let you.

he jolly damned man with the hoe (see Markham)

idnt answer the call,
ut your children will be raped and your pigs will be eaten
nd the skies will burn black with crows and your cries,
s you answer for centuries of
nbearable indignity and bullshit.
ou will be dealt with
we know you now
weve known you forever;
he might of the timorous
ies forth like a tremendous and ever beautiful swan,
o shit, friend,
ook up look up look up look up
he jolly damned man with the hoe
s now flying over Milwaukee
rinning
more lovely than the sun
more graceful than all the ugly wounds
more real than you
r I or anything.

(uncollected)

the beautiful lady

we are gathered here now

o bury her in this
oem.

he did not marry an unemployed wino who

eat her every
ight.

er several children will never wear

not-stained shirts
r torn dresses.

he beautiful lady
imply
almly
ied.

nd may the clean dirt of this poem

ury
er.

er and her womb

nd her jewels
nd her combs and her
oems

nd her pale blue eyes

nd her
rinning
ch
ightened
usband.

my life as a sitcom

tepped into the wrong end of the Jacuzzi and twisted my

ght leg which was bad to begin with, then that night got drunk
with a tv writer and an actor, something about using my
fe to make a sitcom and luckily that fell through and the next
ay 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
an barely walk to the betting window and back, then
bout the 3rd race the waiter rushes by, asks, can I
orrow your menu? but he doesnt wait for an answer,
e just grabs it and runs off.
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.
e grabs all my silverware and my napkin and runs off.
HEY! I yell but hes gone.
ll around me people are eating, drinking and laughing.
check my watch after the 6th race and it is 4:30 p.m.
havent been served yet and Im 72 years old with
hangover and a leg from hell.
pull myself to my feet by the edge of the table and manage
o hobble about looking for the maitre d. I see him down
far aisle and wave him in.
can I speak to you? I ask.
certainly, sir!
ook, its the 7th race, they took my menu and my silverware
nd I havent been served yet.
well take care of it right away, sir!
well, the 7th race went, the 8th race went, and
till no ser vice.
purchase my ticket for the 9th race and take the
scalator down.
n the first floor, I purchase a sandwich.
eat it going down another escalator to the parking lot.

he valet laughs as I slowly work my leg into the

ar, making a face of pain as I do so.
got a gimpy leg there, huh, Hank? he asks.
pull out, make it to the boulevard and onto the
eeway which immediately begins to slow down because
f a 3-car crash ahead.

snap on the radio in time to find that my horse

as run out in the 9th.
flash of pain shoots up my right leg.
decide to tell my wife about my
misfortunes at the track
ven though I know she will respond
y telling me that everything as always
was completely my fault
ut when a man is in pain he cant think right,
e only asks for
more.

nd
ets it.

who needs it?

ee this poem?
was
written without drinking.
dont need to drink
o write.
can write without
rinking.
my wife says I can.
say that maybe I can.
m not drinking
nd Im writing.
ee this poem?
was
written without drinking.
who needs a drink now?

robably the reader.

riots

ve watched this city burn twice

n my lifetime
nd the most notable event
was the reaction of the
oliticians in the
ftermath
s they
roclaimed the injustice of
he system
nd demanded a new
eal for the hapless and the
oor.

othing was corrected last

me.
othing will be changed this
me.

he poor will remain poor.

he unemployed will remain
o.
he homeless will remain
omeless

nd the politicians,
at upon the land, will thrive
orever.

those marvelous lunches

when I was in grammar school

my parents were
oor
nd in my lunch bag there was
nly a peanut butter sandwich.

Richardson didnt have a

unch bag,
e had a lunch pail with
ompartments, a
hermos full of
hocolate milk.
e had ham sandwiches,
liced beef sandwiches,
pples, bananas, a
ickle and a large bag of
otato chips.

sat next to Richardson

s we ate.
is potato chips looked
o good
arge and crisp as the
un blazed upon
hem.

you want some potato

hips? he would
sk.
nd each day
would eat some.

s I went to school each

ay
my thoughts
were on Richardsons
unch, and especially
hose chips.

ach morning as we
tudied in class
thought about
unchtime.
nd sitting next to
Richardson.

Richardson was the

issy and the other
oys looked down
n me
or eating with
im
ut I
idnt care.
was the potato
hips, I couldnt
elp myself.

you want some

otato chips, Henry?
e would
sk.

yes.

he other boys got

fter me
when Richardson
wasnt
round.

hey, whos your

issy friend?
ou one
oo?

didnt like that

ut the potato
hips were more
mportant.

fter a while
obody spoke to
me.

ometimes I ate
ne of Richardsons
pples
r I got half a
ickle.

was always
ungry.
Richardson was
at,
e had a big
elly

nd fleshy
highs.
e was the only
iend I had in
rammar
chool.
we seldom spoke
o each
ther.
we just sat
ogether at
unchtime.

walked home with

im after school
nd often some of
he boys would
ollow us.
hey
would gather around
Richardson,
ang up on him,
ush him around,
nock him
own
gain and
gain.

fter they were

nished
would go

ick up his lunch

ail,
which was
pilled on its
ide
with the lid
pen.

would place the

hermos back
nside,
lose the
d.

hen I would
arry the pail as
walked Richardson
ack to his
ouse.

we never spoke.
s we got to his door
would hand him
he lunch
ail.

hen the door would

lose and he would
e gone.

was the only friend

e had.

issies live a hard

fe.

The Look:

once bought a toy rabbit

t a department store
nd now he sits and ponders
me with pink sheer eyes:

He wants golf balls and glass

walls.
want quiet thunder.

Our disappointment sits between us.

the big one

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

hem out, then
esells them at a profit of one or two grand.

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

angs her until the walls shake.

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

ob besides the car gig.

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

oesnt either.

es a nicer fellow than most, always good to see him,

we laugh, say a few bright lines.

ut
ach time
fter I see him
get the blues for him, for me, for all of us:

or want of something to do

we keep slaying our small dragons

s the big one waits.

the genius

his man sometimes forgets who

e is.
ometimes he thinks hes the
Pope.

ther times he thinks hes a

unted rabbit
nd hides under the
ed.

hen
ll at once
ell recapture total
larity
nd begin creating
works of
rt.

hen hell be all right

or some
me.

hen, say,
ell be sitting with his
wife
nd 3 or 4 other
eople
iscussing various
matters

e will be charming,
ncisive,
riginal.

hen hell do
omething
trange.

ke once
e stood up
nzipped
nd began
issing
n the
ug.

nother time
e ate a paper
apkin.

nd there was
he time
e got into his
ar
nd drove it
ackwards
ll the way to
he
rocery store
nd back
gain
ackwards

he other motorists
creaming at
im

ut he
made it
here and
ack
without
ncident
nd without
eing
topped
y a patrol
ar.

ut hes best
s the
Pope
nd his
atin
s very
ood.

is works of
rt
rent that
xceptional
ut they allow him
o
urvive
nd to live with
series of

9-year-old
wives
who
ut his hair
is toenails
ib
uck and
eed
im.

e wears everybody
ut
ut
imself.

about the PEN conference

ake a writer away from his typewriter

nd all you have left
s
he sickness
which started him
yping
n the
eginning.

what a man I was

shot off his left ear

hen his right,
nd then tore off his belt buckle
with hot lead,
nd then
shot off everything that counts
nd when he bent over
o pick up his drawers
nd his marbles
poor critter)
fixed it so he wouldnt have
o straighten up
o more.

Ho Hum.
went in for a fast snort
nd one guy seemed
o be looking at me sideways,
nd thats how he died
ideways,
ookin at me
nd clutchin
or his marbles.

Sight o blood made me kinda

ungry.
Had a ham sandwich.
Played a couple of sentimental songs
Shot out all the lights
nd strolled outside.
Didnt seem to be no one around

o I shot my horse
poor critter).

hen I saw the Sheerf

standin at the end a the road
nd he was shakin
ke he had the Saint Vitus dance;
was a real sorrowful sight
o I slowed him to a quiver
with the first slug
nd mercifully stiffened him
with the second.

hen I laid on my back awhile

nd I shot out the stars one by one
nd then
shot out the moon
nd then I walked around
nd shot out every light
n town,
nd pretty soon it began to get dark
eal dark
he way I like it;
ust cant stand to sleep
with no light shinin
n my face.

laid down and dreamt

was a little boy again
playin with my toy six-shooter
nd winnin all the marble games,

nd when I woke up
my guns was gone

nd I was all bound hand and foot

ust like somebody
was scared a me

nd they was slippin

noose around my ugly neck
ust as if they
meant to hang me,
nd some guy was pinnin
real pretty sign
n my shirt:

heres a law for you

nd a law for me
nd a law that hangs
om the foot of a tree.

Well, pretty poetry always did

make my eyes water
nd can you believe it
ll the women was cryin
nd though they was moanin
ther mens names
just know they was cryin
or me (poor critters)
nd though Id slept with all a them,
d forgotten
n all the big excitement
o tell em my name

nd all the men looked angry

ut I guess it was because the kids
was all being impolite
nd a throwin tin cans at me,
ut I told em not to worry
ecause their aim was bad anyhow
ot a boy there looked like hed turn
nto a man
0% homosexuals, the lot of them,
nd some guy shouted
ets send him to hell!

nd with a jerk I was dancin

my last dance,
ut I swung out wide
nd spit in the bartenders eye
nd stared down
nto Nellie Adams breasts,
nd my mouth watered again.

Scarlet

m glad when they arrive

nd Im glad when they leave

m glad when I hear their heels

pproaching my door
nd Im glad when those heels
walk away

m glad to fuck
m glad to care
nd Im glad when its over

nd
ince its always either
tarting or finishing
m glad
most of the time

nd the cats walk up and down

nd the earth spins around the sun
nd the phone rings:

his is Scarlet.

who?

Scarlet.

o.k., get it on over.

nd I hang up thinking
maybe this is it

o in
ake a quick shit
have

athe

ress

ump the sacks

nd cartons of empty
ottles

it down to the sound of

eels approaching
more an army approaching than
ictory

s Scarlet
nd in my kitchen the faucet
eeps dripping
eeds a washer.

ll take care of it
ater.

like a flower in the rain

cut the middle fingernail of the middle

nger
ght hand
eal short
nd I began rubbing along her cunt
s she sat upright in bed
preading lotion over her arms
ace
nd breasts
fter bathing.
hen she lit a cigarette:
dont let this put you off,
nd smoked and continued to rub the
otion on.
continued to rub the cunt.
you want an apple? I asked.
sure, she said, you got one?
ut I got to her
he began to twist
hen she rolled on her side,
he was getting wet and open
ke a flower in the rain.
hen she rolled on her stomach
nd her most beautiful ass
ooked up at me
nd I reached under and got the
unt again.
he reached around and got my
ock, she rolled and twisted,
mounted
my face falling into the mass
f red hair that overflowed

om her head
nd my fattened cock entered
nto the miracle.

ater we joked about the lotion

nd the cigarette and the apple.
hen I went out and got some chicken
nd shrimp and french fries and buns
nd mashed potatoes and gravy and
ole slaw, and we ate. she told me
ow good she felt and I told her
ow good I felt and we ate
he chicken and the shrimp and the
ench fries and the buns and the
mashed potatoes and the gravy and
he cole slaw too.

a killer

onsistency is terrific:
hark-mouth
rubby interior with an
lmost perfect body,
ong blazing hair
confuses me
nd others

he runs from man to man

ffering endearments

he speaks of love

hen breaks each man

o her will

hark-mouthed
rubby interior

we see it too late:

fter the cock gets swallowed
he heart follows

er long blazing hair

er almost perfect body
walks down the street
s the same sun
alls upon flowers.

prayer in bad weather

y God, I dont know what to

o.
heyre so nice to have around.
hey have a way of playing with
he balls
nd looking at the cock very
eriously
urning it
weeking it
xamining each part
s their long hair falls on
our belly.

s not the fucking and sucking

lone that reaches into a man
nd softens him, its the extras,
s all the extras.

ow its raining to night

nd theres nobody
hey are elsewhere
xamining things
n new bedrooms
n new moods
r maybe in old
edrooms.

nyhow, its raining to night,

ne hell of a dashing, pouring
ain.

ery little to do.

ve read the newspaper
aid the gas bill
he electric co.
he phone bill.
keeps raining.

hey soften a man

nd then let him swim
n his own juice.

need an old-fashioned whore

t the door to night
losing her green umbrella,
rops of moonlit rain on her
urse, saying, shit, man,
ant you get better music
han that on your radio?
nd turn up the heat

s always when a mans swollen

with love and everything
lse
hat it keeps raining
plattering
ooding
ain
ood for the trees and the
rass and the air
ood for things that
ve alone.

would give anything

or a females hand on me

onight.
hey soften a man and
hen leave him
stening to the rain.

melancholia

he history of melancholia
ncludes all of us.

me, I writhe in dirty sheets

while staring at blue walls
nd nothing.

have gotten so used to melancholia

hat
greet it like an old
iend.

will now do 15 minutes of grieving

or the lost redhead,
tell the gods.

do it and feel quite bad

uite sad,
hen I rise
CLEANSED
ven though nothing is
olved.

hats what I get for kicking

eligion in the ass.

should have kicked the redhead

n the ass
where her brains and her bread and
utter are
t

ut, no, Ive felt sad

bout everything:
he lost redhead was just another
mash in a lifelong
oss

listen to drums on the radio now

nd grin.

here is something wrong with me

esides
melancholia.

eat your heart out

ve come by, she says, to tell you

hat this is it. Im not kidding, its
ver. this is it.

sit on the couch watching her arrange

er long red hair before my bedroom
mirror.
he pulls her hair up and
iles it on top of her head
he lets her eyes look at
my eyes
hen she drops the hair and
ets it fall down in front of her face.

we go to bed and I hold her

peechlessly from the back
my arm around her neck
touch her wrists and hands
eel up to
er elbows
o further.

he gets up.

his is it, she says,

at your heart out. you
ot any rubber bands?
dont know.

eres one, she says,

his will do. well,
m going.

get up and walk her

o the door

ust as she leaves

he says,
want you to buy me
ome high-heeled shoes
with tall thin spikes,
lack high-heeled shoes.
o, I want them
ed.

watch her walk down the cement walk

nder the trees
he walks all right and
s the poinsettias drip in the sun
close the door.

I made a mistake

reached up into the top of the closet

nd took out a pair of blue pan ties
nd showed them to her and
sked are these yours?

nd she looked and said,

no, those belong to a dog.

he left after that and I havent seen

er since. shes not at her place.
keep going there, leaving notes stuck
nto the door. I go back and the notes
re still there. I take the Maltese cross
ut it down from my car mirror, tie it
o her doorknob with a shoelace, leave
book of poems.
when I go back the next night everything
s still there.

keep searching the streets for that

lood-wine battleship she drives
with a weak battery, and the doors
anging from broken hinges.

drive around the streets

n inch away from weeping,
shamed of my sentimentality and
ossible love.

confused old man driving in the rain

wondering where the good luck
went.

she comes from somewhere

robably from the belly button or from the shoe under the
ed, or maybe from the mouth of the shark or from
he car crash on the avenue that leaves blood and memories
cattered on the grass.
he comes from love gone wrong under an
sphalt moon.
he comes from screams stuffed with cotton.
he comes from hands without arms
nd arms without bodies
nd bodies without hearts.
he comes out of cannons and shotguns and old victrolas.
he comes from parasites with blue eyes and soft voices.
he comes out from under the organ like a roach.
he keeps coming.
hes inside of sardine cans and letters.
hes under your fingernails pressing blue and flat.
hes the signpost on the barricade
meared in brown.
hes the toy soldiers inside your head
oking their lead bayonets.
hes the first kiss and the last kiss and
he dogs guts spilling like a river.
he comes from somewhere and she never stops
oming.

me, and that

ld woman:
orrow.

The High-Rise of the New World

is an orange
nimal
with
and grenades
re power
ig teeth and
horn of smoke

colored man
with cigar
anks at
ears and the damn thing never gets
red

my neighbor
.n old man in blue
athing trunks
.n old man
fetid white obscene
hing
he old man
fts apart some purple flowers
nd peeks through the fence at the
range animal

nd like a horror movie

see the orange animal open its
mouth
belches it has teeth fastened onto a giraffes
eck
nd it reached over the fence and it gets the
ld man in his blue

athing trunks
eatly
gets him
om behind the fence of purple flowers
nd his whiteness is like
arbage in the air
nd then
es dumped into a
hock of lumber

nd then the orange animal

acks off
pins
urns
uns off into the Hollywood Hills
he palm trees the
oulevards as

he colored man
ucks red steam
om his
igar

ll be glad when its all

ver
he noise is
errible and Im afraid to go and
uy a
aper.

car wash

ot out, fellow said, hey! walked toward

me, we shook hands, he slipped me 2 red
ckets for free car washes, find you later,
told him, walked on through to waiting
rea with wife, we sat on outside bench.
lack fellow with a limp came up, said,
hey, man, hows it going?
answered, fine, bro, you makin it?
no problem, he said, then walked off to
ry down a Caddy.
hese people know you? my wife asked.
no.
how come they talk to you?
hey like me, people have always liked me,
s my cross.
hen our car was finished, fellow flipped
is rag at me, we got up, got to the
ar, I slipped him a buck, we got in, I
tarted the engine, the foreman walked
p, big guy with dark shades, huge guy,
e smiled a big one, good to see you,
man!
smiled back, thanks, but its your party,
man!
pulled out into traffic, they know you,
aid my wife.
sure, I said, Ive been there.

Van Gogh

ain vanilla ladies strutting

while van Gogh did it to
imself.

irls pulling on silk

ose
while van Gogh did it to
imself
n the field

nkissed, and
worse.

pass him on the street:

hows it going, Van?

dunno, man, he says

nd walks on.

here is a blast of color:

ne more creature
izzy with love.

e said,
hen,
want to leave.

nd they look at his paintings

nd love him
ow.

or that kind of love

e did the right
hing

s for the other kind of love

never arrived.

the railroad yard

he feelings I get
riving past the railroad yard
never on purpose but on my way to somewhere)
re the feelings other men have for other things.
see the tracks and all the boxcars
he tank cars the flat cars
ll of them motionless and so many of them
erfectly lined up and not an engine anywhere
where are all the engines?).
drive past looking sideways at it all
wide, still railroad yard
ot a human in sight
hen I am past the yard
nd it wasnt just the romance of it all
hat gives me what I get
ut something back there nameless
lways making me feel better
s some men feel better looking at the open sea
r the mountains or at wild animals
r at a woman
like those things too
specially the wild animals and the woman
ut when I see those lovely old boxcars
with their faded painted lettering
nd those flat cars and those fat round tankers
ll lined up and waiting
get quiet inside
get what other men get from other things
just feel better and its good to feel better
whenever you can
ot needing a reason.

the girls at the green hotel

re more beautiful than

movie stars
nd they lounge on the
awn
unbathing
nd one sits in a short
ress and high
eels, legs crossed
xposing miraculous
highs.
he has a bandanna
n her head
nd smokes a
ong cigarette.
affic slows
lmost stops.

he girls ignore
he traffic.
hey are half
sleep in the afternoon
hey are whores
hey are whores without
ouls
nd they are magic
ecause they lie
bout nothing.

get in my car
wait for traffic to
lear,

rive across the street

o the green hotel
o my favorite:
he is
unbathing on the
awn nearest the
urb.

hello, I say.
he turns eyes like
mitation diamonds
p at me.
er face has no
xpression.

drop my latest
ook of poems
ut the car
window.
falls
y her side.

shift into
ow,
rive off.

herell be some
aughs
o night.

in other words

he Egyptians loved the cat

were often entombed with it
nstead of with the women
nd never with the dog

ut now
ere
ood people with
ood eyes
re very few

et fine cats
with great style
ounge about
n the alleys of
he universe.

bout
ur argument to night
what ever it was
bout
nd
o matter
ow unhappy
made us
eel

emember that
here is a
at
omewhere
djusting to the

pace of itself
with a delightful
race

n other words
magic persists
without us
o matter what
we may try to do
o spoil it.

Destroying Beauty

rose
ed sunlight;
take it apart
n the garage
ke a puzzle:
he petals are as greasy
s old bacon
nd fall
ke the maidens of the world
acks to floor
nd I look up
t the old calendar
ung from a nail
nd touch
my wrinkled face
nd smile
ecause
he secret
s beyond me.

peace

ear the corner table in the

afe
middle-aged couple
it.
hey have finished their
meal
nd they are each drinking a
eer.
is 9 in the evening.
he is smoking a
igarette.
hen he says something.
he nods.
hen she speaks.
e grins, moves his
and.
hen they are
uiet.
hrough the blinds next to
heir table
ashing red neon
links on and
ff.

here is no war.
here is no hell.
hen he raises his beer
ottle.
is green.
e lifts it to his lips,
lts it.
is a coronet.

er right elbow is
n the table
nd in her hand
he holds the
igarette
etween her thumb and
orefinger
nd
s she watches
im
he streets outside
ower
n the
ight.

afternoons into night

ooking out the window

moking rolled cigarettes
rinking Sanka
nd watching the workers
ome on in
wonder, how much longer
an I get away with this?
tories and poems and
aintings
urviving on that.

n insane girlfriend
ears younger
who loves me
ypes at her novel
n the kitchen.

my stories, my poems
what is a poem?

book by Cline sits on

he edge of the bathtub.
read it when I bathe
nd laugh.

he workers come in now

see their faces,
he insides scraped away,
he outsides
missing.
ve had their jobs,

heir goldfish
ecurity.

Segovia plays to me
o softly from the
adio, the daylights going.
ook here
he trips been worth it,
while the jetliners go to New York and
Georgia and Texas
sit surrounded by hymns that
obody can ever take away
s the workers bend over
ot soup and cold
wives.

(uncollected)

we aint got no money, honey, but we got rain

all it the green house effect or what ever

ut it just doesnt rain like it
sed to.

particularly remember the rains of the

epression era.
here wasnt any money but there was
lenty of rain.

wouldnt rain for just a night or

day,
would RAIN for 7 days and 7
ights
nd in Los Angeles the storm drains
werent built to carry off that much
water
nd the rain came down THICK and
MEAN and
STEADY
nd you HEARD it banging against
he roofs and into the ground
waterfalls of it came down
om the roofs
nd often there was HAIL
ig ROCKS OF ICE
ombing
xploding
mashing into things
nd the rain
ust wouldnt
STOP
nd all the roofs leaked

ooking pots
were placed all about;
hey dripped loudly
nd had to be emptied
gain and
gain.

he rain came up over the street curbings,

cross the lawns, climbed the steps and
ntered the houses.
here were mops and bathroom towels,
nd the rain often came up through the
oilets: bubbling, brown, crazy, whirling,
nd the old cars stood in the streets,
ars that had problems starting on a
unny day,
nd the jobless men stood
ooking out the windows
t the old machines dying
ke living things
ut there.

he jobless men,
ailures in a failing time
were imprisoned in their houses with their
wives and children
nd their
ets.
he pets refused to go out
nd left their waste in
trange places.

he jobless men went mad

onfined with
heir once beautiful wives.
here were terrible arguments
s notices of foreclosure
ell into the mailbox.
ain and hail, cans of beans,
read without butter; fried
ggs, boiled eggs, poached
ggs; peanut butter
andwiches, and an invisible
hicken
n every pot.

my father, never a good man

t best, beat my mother
when it rained
s I threw myself
etween them,
he legs, the knees, the
creams
ntil they
eparated.

ll kill you, I screamed

t him. You hit her again
nd Ill kill you!

Get that son-of-a-bitching

id out of here!

no, Henry, you stay with

our mother!

ll the house holds were under

iege but I believe that ours
eld more terror than the
verage.

nd at night
s we attempted to sleep
he rains still came down
nd it was in bed
n the dark
watching the moon against
he scarred window
o bravely
olding out
most of the rain,
thought of Noah and the
Ark
nd I thought, it has come
gain.
we all thought
hat.

nd then, at once, it would

top.
nd it always seemed to
top
round 5 or 6 a.m.,
eaceful then,
ut not an exact silence

ecause things continued to

rip
drip
drip

nd there was no smog then

nd by 8 a.m.
here was a
lazing yellow sunlight,
an Gogh yellow
razy, blinding!
nd then
he roof drains
elieved of the rush of
water
egan to expand in
he warmth:
PANG! PANG! PANG!

nd everybody got up
nd looked outside
nd there were all the lawns
till soaked
reener than green will ever
e
nd there were the birds
n the lawn
CHIRPING like mad,
hey hadnt eaten decently
or 7 days and 7 nights
nd they were weary of
erries

nd
hey waited as the worms
ose to the top,
alf-drowned worms.
he birds plucked them
p
nd gobbled them
own; there were
lackbirds and sparrows.
he blackbirds tried to
rive the sparrows off
ut the sparrows,
maddened with hunger,
maller and quicker,
ot their
ue.

he men stood on their porches

moking cigarettes,
ow knowing
heyd have to go out
here
o look for that job
hat probably wasnt
here, to start that car
hat probably wouldnt
tart.

nd the once beautiful

wives
tood in their bathrooms
ombing their hair,

pplying makeup,
ying to put their world back
ogether again,
ying to forget that
wful sadness that
ripped them,
wondering what they could
x for
reakfast.

nd on the radio
we were told that
chool was now
pen.
nd
oon
here I was
n the way to school,
massive puddles in the
treet,
he sun like a new
world,
my parents back in that
ouse,
arrived at my classroom
n time.

Mrs. Sorenson greeted us

with, we wont have our
sual recess, the grounds
re too wet.

AW! most of the boys

went.

but we are going to do

omething special at
ecess, she went on,
and it will be
un!

well, we all wondered

what that would
e
nd the two-hour wait
eemed a long time
s Mrs. Sorenson
went about
eaching her
essons.

looked at the little

irls, they all looked so
retty and clean and
lert,
hey sat still and
traight
nd their hair was
eautiful
n the California
unshine.

hen the recess bell rang

nd we all waited for the
un.

hen Mrs. Sorenson told

s:
now, what we are going to
o is we are going to tell
ach other what we did
uring the rainstorm!
well begin in the front
ow and go right around!
ow, Michael, youre
rst!

well, we all began to tell

ur stories, Michael began
nd it went on and on,

nd soon we realized that

we were all lying, not
xactly lying but mostly
ying and some of the boys
egan to snicker and some
f the girls began to give
hem dirty looks and
Mrs. Sorenson said,
all right, I demand a
modicum of silence
ere!
am interested in what
ou did
uring the rainstorm

ven if you
rent!

o we had to tell our

tories and they were
tories.

ne girl said that

when the rainbow first
ame
he saw Gods face
t the end of it.
nly she didnt say
which end.

ne boy said he stuck

is fishing pole
ut the window
nd caught a little
sh
nd fed it to his
at.

lmost everybody told

lie.
he truth was just
oo awful and
mbarrassing to
ell.

hen the bell rang

nd recess was
ver.

hank you, said Mrs.

Sorenson, that was very
ice.
nd tomorrow the grounds
will be dry
nd we will put them
o use
gain.

most of the boys

heered
nd the little girls
at very straight and
till,
ooking so pretty and
lean and
lert,
heir hair beautiful
n a sunshine that
he world might
ever see

gain.

marina:

majestic, magic
nfinite
my little girl is
un
n the carpet
ut the door
icking a
ower, ha!,
n old man,
attle-wrecked,
merges from his
hair
nd she looks at me
ut only sees
ove,
a!, and I become
uick with the world
nd love right back
ust like I was meant
o do.

Trollius and trellises

f course, I may die in the next ten minutes

nd Im ready for that
ut what Im really worried about is
hat my editor-publisher might retire
ven though he is ten years younger than

was just 25 years ago (I was at that ripe

ld age of 45)
when we began our unholy alliance to
est the literary waters,
either of us being much
nown.

think we had some luck and still have some

f same
et
he odds are pretty fair
hat he will opt for warm and pleasant
fternoons
n the garden
ong before I.

writing is its own intoxication

while publishing and editing,
ttempting to collect bills
arries its own
ttrition
which also includes dealing with the
etty bitchings and demands
f many
o-called genius darlings who are
ot.

wont blame him for getting

ut
nd hope he sends me photos of his
Rose Lane, his
Gardenia Avenue.

will I have to seek other

romulgators?
hat fellow in the Russian
ur hat?
r that beast in the East
with all that hair
n his ears, with those wet and
reasy lips?

r will my editor-publisher
pon exiting for that world of Trollius and
ellis
and over the
machinery
f his former trade to a
ousin, a
aughter or
ome Poundian from Big
Sur?

r will he just pass the legacy on

o the
Shipping Clerk
who will rise like
azarus,

ngering newfound

mportance?

ne can imagine terrible

hings:
Mr. Chinaski, all your work
must now be submitted in
Rondo form
nd
yped
iple-spaced on rice
aper.

ower corrupts,
fe aborts
nd all you
ave left
sa
unch of
warts.

no, no, Mr. Chinaski:

Rondo form!

hey, man, Ill ask,

havent you heard of
he thirties?

he thirties? whats
hat?

my present editor-publisher
nd I
t times
id discuss the thirties,
he Depression
nd
ome of the little tricks it
aught us
ke how to endure on almost
othing
nd move forward
nyhow.

well, John, if it happens enjoy your

ivertissement to
lant husbandry,
ultivate and aerate
etween
ushes, water only in the
arly morning, spread
hredding to discourage
weed growth
nd
s I do in my writing:
se plenty of
manure.

nd thank you
or locating me there at
124 DeLongpre Avenue
omewhere between

lcoholism and
madness.

ogether we
aid down the gauntlet
nd there are takers
ven at this late date
till to be
ound

s the fire sings

hrough the
ees.

beagle

o not bother the beagle lying there

way from grass and flowers and paths,
reaming dogdreams, or perhaps dreaming
othing, as men do awake;
es, leave him be, in that simple juxtaposition,
ut of the maelstrom, lucifugous as a bat,
earching bat-inward
or a state of grace.

s good. well not ransom our fate

r his for doorknobs or rasps.
he east wind whirls the blinds,
ur beagle snuffles in his sleep as
utside, outside,
edges break, the night torn mad
with footsteps.

ur beagle spreads a paw,

he lamp burns warm
athed in the life of his
ize.

coffee and babies

sleep at Lilas and in the morning

we get the breakfast special at the local cafe,
hen its up to her friend Buffys.
Buffy has boy twins, father in doubt, and lives on relief
n a $150-a-month apt.
he twins wail, crawl about, I pick one up, he pulls at
my goatee.
how nice, I say, to be sitting with 2 lovely ladies
t ten in the morning in the city of Burbank while
ther men work.

very time the twins get changed I note they have hard-ons
heir troubles begin at the age of one)
nd their asses are red with rash and sadness.
used to open and close the bars, I say,
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

m good for it. Ill buy her a pack
ater.) the girls joke about my ugly face.
smoke. after this I need some profundities but
Buddha doesnt help much.
Buffy gets up and shakes her behind at me:
you cant have me, Chinaski, youre too old, youre too
gly.
well, you see, its difficult for me. Lila and I finish
ur coffees and climb down the green steps to the
lue-green
wimming pool. it is 11 a.m. India and Pakistan are at
war. we get into my smashed 62 Comet. it
tarts. well, we can go to the races, we can screw again,

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

nd split or she can read to me about fresh murders in the
Herald-Examiner.
ends up
we argue and split and I forget to go get
Buffy her pack of
igarettes.

(uncollected)

magical mystery tour

am in this low-slung sports car

ainted a deep, rich yellow
riving under an Italian sun.
have a British accent.
m wearing dark shades
n expensive silk shirt.
heres no dirt under my
ngernails.
he radio plays Vivaldi
nd there are two women with
me
ne with raven hair
he other a blonde.
hey have small breasts and
eautiful legs
nd they laugh at everything I
ay.

s we drive up a steep road

he blonde squeezes my leg
nd nestles closer
while raven hair
eans across and nibbles my
ar.

we stop for lunch at a quaint

ustic inn.
here is more laughter
efore lunch
uring lunch and after
unch.

fter lunch we will have a

at tire on the other side of
he mountain
nd the blonde will change the
re
while
aven hair
hotographs me
ghting my pipe
eaning against a tree
he perfect background
erfectly at peace
with
unlight
owers
louds
irds
verywhere.

(uncollected)

the last generation

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

nly 3 or 4 literary magazines and if you got into them
or 5 times you could end up in Gerties parlor
ou could possibly meet Picasso for a glass of wine, or
maybe only Mir.

nd yes, if you sent your stuff postmarked from Paris

hances of publication became much better.
most writers bottomed their manuscripts with the
word Paris and the date.

nd with a patron there was time to

write, eat, drink and take drives to Italy and sometimes
Greece.
was good to be photod with others of your kind
was good to look tidy, enigmatic and thin.
hotos taken on the beach were great.

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

thers
itching about this and that.

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

o give directions and Hem liked to practice his writing
n his letters when he couldnt do the other.

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

iscovery.

ow

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

undreds of presses, thousands of titles.

who is to survive out of all this mulch?

s almost improper to ask.
go back, I read the books about the lives of the boys
nd girls of the twenties.
they were the Lost Generation, what would you call us?
itting here among the warheads with our electric-touch
ypewriters?

he Last Generation?

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

hem

feel a gentleness and a generosity

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

with his whore
hat seems as real to me as the faucet dripping now
n my bathroom sink.

like to read about them: Joyce blind and prowling the

ookstores like a tarantula, they said.
Dos Passos with his clipped newscasts using a pink typewriter
bbon.
D.H. horny and pissed off, H.D. being smart enough to use
er initials which seemed much more literary than Hilda
Doolittle.

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

umb as royalty, flesh and brain turning to marble. a
ore.

Huxley promenading his brain with great glee, arguing

with Lawrence that it wasnt in the belly and the balls,

hat the glory was in the skull.

nd that hick Sinclair Lewis coming to light.

meanwhile
he revolution being over, the Russians were liberated and
ying.
Gorky with nothing to fight for, sitting in a room trying
o find phrases praising the government.
many others broken in victory.

ow

ow there are so many of us

ut we should be grateful, for in a hundred years
the world is not destroyed, think, how much
here will be left of all of this:
obody really able to fail or to succeedjust
elative merit, diminished further by
ur numerical superiority.
we will all be cata logued and filed.
ll right

you still have doubts of those other golden

mes
here were other curious creatures: Richard

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

Black Sun Press.

ut to me, the twenties centered mostly on Hemingway

oming out of the war and beginning to type.
was all so simple, all so deliciously clear

ow

here are so many of us.

Ernie, you had no idea how good it had been

our de cades later when you blew your brains into
he orange juice

lthough
grant you
hat was not your best work.

about competition

he higher you climb

he greater the pressure.

hose who manage to

ndure
earn
hat the distance
etween the
op and the
ottom
s
bscenely
reat.

nd those who
ucceed
now
his secret:
here isnt
ne.

a radio with guts

was on the 2nd floor on Coronado Street

used to get drunk
nd throw the radio through the window
while it was playing, and, of course,
would break the glass in the window
nd the radio would sit out there on the roof
till playing
nd Id tell my woman,
Ah, what a marvelous radio!

he next morning Id take the window

ff the hinges
nd carry it down the street
o the glass man
who would put in another pane.

kept throwing that radio through the window

ach time I got drunk
nd it would sit out there on the roof
till playing
magic radio
radio with guts,
nd each morning Id take the window
ack to the glass man.

dont remember how it ended exactly

hough I do remember
we finally moved out.
here was a woman downstairs who worked in
he garden in her bathing suit
nd her husband complained he couldnt sleep nights
ecause of me

o we moved out
nd in the next place
either forgot to throw the radio out the window
r I didnt feel like it
nymore.

do remember missing the woman who worked in the

arden in her bathing suit,
he really dug with that trowel
nd she put her behind up in the air
nd I used to sit in the window
nd watch the sun shine all over that thing

while the music played.

the egg

es 17.
mother, he said, how do I crack an
gg?

ll right, she said to me, you dont have to

it there looking like that.

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

cant eat a broken yolk.

ll right, she said to me, youre so tough,

ouve been in the slaughter houses, factories,
he jails, youre so goddamned tough,
ut all people dont have to be like you,
hat doesnt make everybody else wrong and you
ght.

mother, he said, can you bring me some cokes

when you come home from work?

ook, Raleigh, she said, cant you get the cokes

n your bike, Im tired after
work.

ut, mama, theres a hill.

what hill, Raleigh?

heres a hill,
s there and I have to pedal over
.

ll right, she said to me, you think youre so

oddamned tough. you worked on a railroad track
ang, I hear about it every time you get drunk:
worked on a railroad track gang.

well, I said, I did.

mean, what difference does it make?

verybody has to work somewhere.

mama, said the kid, will you bring me those

okes?

really like the kid. I think hes very

entle. and once he learns how to crack an
gg he may do some
nusual things. meanwhile
sleep with his mother
nd try to stay out of
rguments.

a killer gets ready

e was a good one

ay 18, 19,
marine
nd every time
woman came down the train aisle
e seemed to stand up
o I couldnt see
er
nd the woman smiled at him

ut I didnt smile
t him

e kept looking at himself in the

ain window
nd standing up and taking off his
oat and then standing up
nd putting it back
n

e polished his belt buckle with a

elighted vigor

nd his neck was red and

is face was red and his eyes were a
retty blue

ut I didnt like
im

nd every time I went to the can

e was either in one of the cans

r he was in front of one of the mirrors

ombing his hair or
having

nd he was always walking up and down the

isles
r drinking water
watched his Adams apple juggle the water
own

e was always in my
yes

ut we never spoke
nd I remembered all the other trains
ll the other buses
ll the other wars

e got off at Pasadena

ainer than any woman
e got off at Pasadena
roud and
ead

he rest of the train ride

or 10 miles
was perfect.

in the center of the action

n the center of the action

ou have to lay down like an animal
ntil it
harges, you
ave to lay down
n the center of the action

ay down and wait until it charges then you

must get
p
ace it get
before it gets
ou

he whole pro cess is more

hy than
ulnerable so

ay down and wait sometimes its

en minutes sometimes its years sometimes it
ever arrives but you cant rush it push

heres no way to cheat or get a

ump on it you have to

ay down
ay down and wait like
n animal.

akes
lot of

esperation

issatisfaction

nd
isillusion

o
write

ew
ood
oems.

s not
or
verybody

ither to

write

r even to

ead
.

poetry

notes upon the flaxen aspect:

John F. Kennedy flower knocks upon my door and is

hot through the neck;
he gladiolas gather by the dozens around the tip of
ndia
ripping into Ceylon;
ozens of oysters read Germaine Greer.

meanwhile, I itch from the slush of the Philippines

o the eye of the minnow
he minnow being eaten by the cumulative dreams of
Simn Bolvar. O,
eedom from the limitation of angular distance would be
elicious.
war is perfect,
he solid way drips and leaks,
Schopenhauer laughed for 72 years,
nd I was told by a very small man in a New York City
awnshop
ne afternoon:
Christ got more attention than I did
ut I went further on less

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

istance between 3 points is the same as the distance
etween one point:

is all as cordial as a bonbon:

ll this that we are wrapped
n:

unuchs are more exact than sleep

he postage stamp is mad, Indiana is ridiculous

he chameleon is the last walking flower.

the fisherman

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

with 3 peanut butter sandwiches, and
heres one can of beer
which he floats in the bait bucket.
e fishes for hours with a small trout pole
hree-quarters of the way down the pier.
es 75 years old and the sun doesnt tan him,
nd no matter how hot it gets
he brown and green lumberjack stays on.
e catches starfish, baby sharks, and mackerel;
e catches them by the dozen,
peaks to nobody.
ometime during the day
e drinks his can of beer.
t 6 p.m. he gathers his gear and his catch
walks down the pier
cross several streets
where he enters a small Santa Monica apartment
oes to the bedroom and opens the evening paper
s his wife throws the starfish, the sharks, the mackerel
nto the garbage

e lights his pipe

nd waits for dinner.

the 1930s

laces to hunt
laces to hide are
etting harder to find, and pet
anaries and goldfish too, did you notice
hat?
remember when pool halls were pool halls
ot just tables in
ars;
nd I remember when neighborhood women
sed to cook pots of beef stew for their
nemployed husbands
when their bellies were sick with
ear;
nd I remember when kids used to watch the rain
or hours and
would fight to the end over a pet
at; and
remember when the boxers were all Jewish and Irish
nd never gave you a
ad fight; and when the biplanes flew so low you
ould see the pi lots face and goggles;
nd when one ice cream bar in ten had a free coupon inside;
nd when for 3 cents you could buy enough candy
o make you sick
r last a whole
fternoon; and when the people in the neighborhood raised
hickens in their backyards; and when wed stuff a 5-cent
oy auto full of
andle wax to make it last
orever; and when we built our own kites and scooters;
nd I remember
when our parents fought

you could hear them for blocks)

nd they fought for hours, screaming blood-death curses
nd the cops never
ame.

laces to hunt and places to hide,

heyre just not around
nymore. I remember when
ach 4th lot was vacant and overgrown, and the landlord
nly got his rent
when you had
, and each day was clear and good and each moment was
ull of promise.

the burning of the dream

he old L.A. Public Library burned

own
hat library downtown
nd with it went
large part of my
outh.

sat on one of those stone

enches there with my friend
Baldy when he
sked,
you gonna join the
Abraham Lincoln
Brigade?

sure, I told
im.

ut realizing that I wasnt

n intellectual or a political
dealist
backed off on that
ne
ater.

was a reader
hen
oing from room to
oom: literature, philosophy,
eligion, even medicine
nd geology.

arly on
decided to be a writer,
thought it might be the easy
way
ut
nd the big boy novelists didnt look
oo tough to
me.
had more trouble with
Hegel and Kant.

he thing that bothered

me
bout everybody
s that they took so long
o finally say
omething lively and /
r
nteresting.
thought I had it
ver everybody
hen.

was to discover two

hings:
) most publishers thought that anything
oring had something to do with things
rofound.
) that it would take de cades of
ving and writing
efore I would be able to
ut down
sentence that was

nywhere near
what I wanted it to
e.

meanwhile
while other young men chased the
adies
chased the old
ooks.
was a bibliophile, albeit a
isenchanted
ne
nd this
nd the world
haped me.

lived in a plywood hut

ehind a rooming house
or $3.50 a
week
eeling like a
Chatterton
tuffed inside of some
homas
Wolfe.

my greatest problem was

tamps, envelopes, paper
nd
wine,
with the world on the edge

f World War II.

hadnt yet been
onfused by the
emale, I was a virgin
nd I wrote from 3 to
short stories a week
nd they all came
ack
om The New Yorker, Harpers,

The Atlantic Monthly.

had read where

ord Madox Ford used to paper
is bathroom with his
ejection slips
ut I didnt have a
athroom so I stuck them
nto a drawer
nd when it got so stuffed with them
could barely
pen it
took all the rejects out
nd threw them
way along with the
tories.

till
he old L.A. Public Library remained
my home
nd the home of many other
ums.
we discreetly used the
estrooms

nd the only ones of

s
o be evicted were those
who fell asleep at the
brary

ablesnobody snores like a

um
nless its somebody youre married
o.

well, I wasnt quite abum. I had a library card

nd I checked books in and
ut
arge
tacks of them
lways taking the
mit
llowed:
Aldous Huxley, D. H. Lawrence,
. e. cummings, Conrad Aiken, Fyodor
Dos, Dos Passos, Turgenev, Gorky,
H.D., Freddie Nietzsche, Art
Schopenhauer,
Steinbeck,
Hemingway,
nd so
orth

always expected the librarian

o say, you have good taste, young
man

ut the old fried and wasted

itch didnt even know who she
was
et alone
me.

ut those shelves held

emendous grace: they allowed
me to discover
he early Chinese poets
ke Tu Fu and Li
Po
who could say more in one
ne than most could say in
hirty or
hundred.
Sherwood Anderson must have
ead
hese
oo.

also carried the Cantos

n and out
nd Ezra helped me
trengthen my arms if not
my brain.

hat wondrous place

he L.A. Public Library
was a home for a person who had had

ome of

ell
BROOKS TOO BROAD FOR LEAPING
AR FROM THE MADDING CROWD
POINT COUNTER POINT
HE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER

ames Thurber
ohn Fante
Rabelais
e Maupassant

ome didnt work for

me: Shakespeare, G. B. Shaw,
olstoy, Robert Frost, F. Scott
itzgerald

Upton Sinclair worked better for

me
han Sinclair Lewis
nd I considered Gogol and
Dreiser complete
ools

ut such judgments come more

om a mans
orced manner of living than from
is reason.

he old L.A. Public

most probably kept me from
ecoming a
uicide

bank
obber

wifeeater
butcher or a
motorcycle policeman
nd even though some of these
might be fine
is
hanks
o my luck
nd my way
hat this library was
here when I was
oung and looking to
old on to
omething
when there seemed very
ttle
bout.

nd when I opened the

ewspaper
nd read of the fire
which
estroyed the
brary and most of
s contents

said to my
wife: I used to spend my

me
here

HE PRUSSIAN OFFICER
HE DARING YOUNG MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE
O HAVE AND HAVE NOT

YOU CANT GO HOME AGAIN.

sit and endure

well, first Mae West died

nd then George Raft,
nd Eddie G. Robinsons
een gone
long time,
nd Bogart and Gable
nd Grable,
nd Laurel and
Hardy
nd the Marx Brothers,
ll those Saturday
fternoons
t the movies
s a boy
re gone now
nd I look
round this room
nd it looks back at me
nd then out through
he window.
me hangs helpless
om the doorknob
s a gold
aperweight
f an owl
ooks up at me
an old man now)
who must sit and endure
hese many empty
Saturday
fternoons.

Goldfish

my goldfish stares with watery eyes

nto the hemisphere of my sorrow;
pon the thinnest of threads
we hang together,
ang hang hang
n the hangmans noose;
stare into his place and
e into mine
e must have thoughts,
an you deny this?
e has eyes and hunger
nd his love too
ied in January; but he is
old, really gold, and I am gray
nd it is indecent to search him out,
ndecent like the burning of peaches
r the rape of children,
nd I turn and look elsewhere,
ut I know that he is there behind me,
ne gold goblet of blood,
ne thing alone
ung between the reddest cloud
f purgatory
nd apt. no. 303.

od, can it be
hat we are the same?

finish

he hearse comes through the room filled with

he beheaded, the disappeared, the living
mad.
he flies are a glue of sticky paste
heir wings will not
ft.
watch an old woman beat her cat
with a broom.
he weather is unendurable
dirty trick by
God.
he water has evaporated from the
oilet bowl
he telephone rings without
ound
he small limp arm petering against the
ell.
see a boy on his
icycle
he spokes collapse
he tires turn into
nakes and melt
way.
he newspaper is oven-hot
men murder each other in the streets
without reason.
he worst men have the best jobs
he best men have the worst jobs or are
nemployed or locked in
mad houses.
have 4 cans of food left.
ir-conditioned troops go from house to

ouse
om room to room
ailing, shooting, bayoneting
he people.
we have done this to ourselves, we
eserve this
we are like roses that have never bothered to
loom when we should have bloomed and
is as if
he sun has become disgusted with
waiting
is as if the sun were a mind that has
iven up on us.
go out on the back porch
nd look across the sea of dead plants
ow thorns and sticks shivering in a
windless sky.
omehow Im glad were through
nished
he works of Art
he wars
he decayed loves
he way we lived each day.
when the troops come up here
dont care what they do for
we already killed ourselves
ach day we got out of bed.
go back into the kitchen
pill some hash from a soft
an, it is almost cooked
lready
nd I sit

ating, looking at my
ngernails.
he sweat comes down behind my
ars and I hear the
hooting in the streets and
chew and wait
without wonder.

dreaming

live alone in a small room

nd read the newspapers
nd sleep alone in the dark
reaming of crowds.

(uncollected)

my special craving

what is it about lobsters and crabs?

hose white-pink shells
hat always make me hungry just
ooking at them there
n the butchers display case
ossed casually one upon the other
o kind and pink and waiting.
ven alive they make me hungry.
used to unload them from trucks
or the kitchen at the Biltmore Hotel,
nd they looked dangerous
moving about in their slatted boxes
ut still they made me
ungry. there is something about
rabs and lobsters
hey deserve to be eaten,
hey go so well with
ench fries, french bread, radishes
nd beer. they tell me that they boil them
live, and this does
ause some minor sense of disturbance within
me, but outside of that
obsters and crabs are one of the few things
hat make the earth a happy place.
suppose that this is my special
raving. when driving along the beachfront
nd I see a sign,
OBSTER HOUSE, my car turns in of its own
ccord. (if a man cant allow himself a
ew luxuries
e just isnt going to last very
ong.) crabs, beer, lobsters,

n occasional lady,
or 3 days a week at the track,
my small daughter bringing me a bottle of beer
om the refrigerator while
rinning proudly,
here are some wonderful things in life,
et each man find his own)
say lighting my cigar,
hinking about Sunday night lobster dinner,
ove love love
unning wild,
feels good sometimes just to be living
with something so nice
n store.

(uncollected)

A Love Poem

ll the women
ll their kisses the
ifferent ways they love and
alk and need.

heir ears they all have

ars and
hroats and dresses
nd shoes and
utomobiles and exusbands.

mostly
he women are very
warm they remind me of
uttered toast with the butter
melted
n.

here is a look in the

ye: they have been
aken they have been
ooled. I dont quite know what to
o for
hem.

am
fair cook a good
stener
ut I never learned to
anceI was busy
hen with larger things.

ut Ive enjoyed their different

eds
moking cigarettes
taring at the
eilings. I was neither vicious nor
nfair. only
student.

know they all have these

eet and barefoot they go across the floor as
watch their bashful buttocks in the
ark. I know that they like me, some even
ove me
ut I love very
ew.

ome give me oranges and vitamin pills;

thers talk quietly of
hildhood and fathers and
andscapes; some are almost
razy but none of them are without
meaning; some love
well, others not
o; the best at sex are not always the
est in other
ways; each has limits as I have
mits and we learn
ach other
uickly.

ll the women all the

women all the

edrooms
he rugs the
hotos the
urtains, its
omething like a church only
t times theres
aughter.

hose ears those

rms those
lbows those eyes

ooking, the fondness and

he wanting I have been
eld I have been
eld.

one writers funeral

here was a rock-and-mud slide

n the Pacific Coast Highway and we had to take a
etour and they directed us up into the Malibu hills
nd traffic was slow and it was hot, and then
we were lost.
ut I spotted a hearse and said, theres the
earse, well follow it, and my woman said,
hats not the hearse, and I said, yes, thats the
earse.

he hearse took a left and I followed

as it went up
narrow dirt road and then pulled over and I
hought, hes lost too. there was a truck and a man
elling strawberries parked there
nd I pulled over
nd asked
where the church was and he gave me directions and
my woman told the strawberry man, well buy some
trawberries on the way back. then I swung
nto the road and the hearse started up again
nd we continued to drive along
ntil we reached that
hurch.

we were going
o the funeral of a great man
ut
he crowd was very sparse: the
amily, a couple of old screenwriter friends,
wo or three others. we
poke to the family and to the wife of the deceased

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

riest wasnt so good but one of the great mans
ons gave a fine eulogy, and then it was over
nd we were outside again, in our car,
ollowing the hearse again, back down the steep
oad
assing the strawberry truck again and my
woman said, lets not stop for strawberries,
nd as we continued to the graveyard, I thought,
ante, you were one of the best writers ever
nd this is one sad day.
nally we were at the graveside, the priest
aid a few words and then it was over.
walked up to the widow who sat very pale and
eautiful and quite alone on a folding metal chair.
Hank, she said, its hard, and I tried in vain
o say something that might comfort her.

we walked away then, leaving her there, and

felt terrible.

got a friend to drive my girlfriend back to

own while I drove to the racetrack, made it
ust in time for the first race, got my bet
own as the mutuel clerk looked at me in wonder and
aid, Jesus Christ, how come youre wearing a
ecktie?

the wine of forever

e-reading some of Fantes

The Wine of Youth

n bed
his mid-afternoon
my big cat
BEAKER
sleep beside
me.

he writing of some
men
s like a vast bridge
hat carries you
ver
he many things
hat claw and tear.

antes pure and magic

motions
ang on the simple
lean
ne.

hat this man died

ne of the slowest and
most horrible deaths
hat I ever witnessed or
eard
bout

he gods play no
avorites.

put the book down

eside me.

ook on one side,

at on the
ther

ohn, meeting you,

ven the way it
was was the event of my
fe. I cant say
would have died for
ou, I couldnt have handled
that well.

ut it was good to see you

gain
his
fternoon.

the pile-up

he 3 horse clipped the heels of

he 7, they both went down and
he 9 stumbled over them,
ocks rolling, horses legs flung
kyward.
hen the jocks were up, stunned
ut all right
nd I watched the horses
sing in the late afternoon,
had not been a good day for
me
nd I watched the horses rise,
lease, I said inside, no broken
egs!
nd the 9 was all right
nd the 7
nd the 3 also,
hey were walking,
he horses didnt need the van,
he jocks didnt need the
mbulance.
what a beautiful day,
what a perfectly beautiful day,
what a wondrously lovely
ay
winners in a
ingle race.

my big night on the town

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

while
ooking out over the city.
could be worse.

we neednt accomplish great things, we only

eed to accomplish little things that make us feel
etter or
ot so bad.

f course, sometimes the fates will

ot allow us to do
his.

hen, we must outwit the fates.

we must be patient with the gods.
hey like to have fun,
hey like to play with us.
hey like to test us.
hey like to tell us that we are weak
nd stupid, that we are
nished.

he gods need to be amused.

we are their toys.

s I sit on the porch a bird begins

o serenade me from a tree nearby in
he dark.

is a mockingbird.
am in love with mockingbirds.

make bird sounds.

e waits.
hen he makes them back.

e is so good that I laugh.

we are all so easily pleased,

ll of us living things.

ow a slight drizzle begins to

all.
ttle chill drops fall on my
ot skin.

am half asleep.
sit in a folding chair with my
eet up on the railing
s the mockingbird begins
o repeat every bird song
e has heard that
ay.

his is what we old guys do

or amusement
n Saturday
ights:
we laugh at the gods, we
ettle old scores with

hem,
we rejuvenate
s the lights of the city
link below,
s the dark tree

olding the mockingbird

watches over us,
nd as the world,
om here,
ooks as good as it ever
will.

close encounters of another kind

re we going to the movies or not?

he asked him.

ll right, he said, lets go.

m not going to put any pan ties on

o you can finger-fuck me in the
ark, she said.

hould we get buttered popcorn?

e asked.

ure, she said.

eave your pan ties on,

e said.

what is it? she asked.

just want to watch the movie,

e answered.

ook, she said, I could go out on

he street, there are a hundred men
ut there whod be delighted to have
me.

ll right, he said, go ahead out there.

ll stay home and read the National

Enquirer.

ou son of a bitch, she said, I am

ying to build a meaningful
elationship.

ou cant build it with a hammer,

e said.

re we going to the movies or not?

he asked.

ll right, he said, lets

o

t the corner of Western and

ranklin he put on the blinker
o make his left turn
nd a man in the on-coming lane
peeded up
s if to cut him off.

rakes grabbed. there wasnt a

rash but there almost was one.

e cursed at the man in the other

ar. the man cursed back. the
man had another person in the car with
im. it was his wife.

hey were going to the movies

oo.

drying out

we buy the scandal sheets at the supermarket

et into bed and eat pretzels and read as outside
he church bells ring and the dogs bark
we turn on the tv and watch very bad movies
hen she goes down and brings up ice cream
nd we eat the ice cream and she says,
omorrow night is trash night.
hen the cat jumps up on the bed
rops its tongue out and stands there
listening cross-eyed

he phone rings and it is her mother and she

alks to her mother
he hands me the phone
tell her mother that its too bad its freezing
ack there
s about 85 here and,
es, Im feeling well and
hope youre feeling well too

hand the phone back

he talks some more

hen hangs up

mother is a very brave woman, she tells me

tell her that Im sure her mother is

he cat is still standing there glistening

ross-eyed
push it down onto the covers

well, she says, weve gone two nights without

rinking.

good, I say, but tomorrow night Im going to

o it.

ah, come on, she says

you dont have to drink, I tell her, just because

do.

ike hell, she says

he flips the remote control switch until she comes to a

apanese monster movie
think weve seen this one, I say

you didnt see it with me, she says, who did you
ee it with?

you were laying with me, right here, when we saw it,
tell her
dont think I remember this one, she says

you just keep watching, I tell her

we keep watching
m not so sure anymore
ut its a peaceful night as we watch this big thing
ick the shit out of half of Tokyo.

scene from 1940:

knew you were a bad-ass, he said.

you sat in the back of Art class and
ou never said anything.
hen I saw you in that brutal fight
with the guy with the dirty yellow
air.
like guys like you, youre rare, youre
aw, you make your own rules!

get your fucking face out of mine!

told him.

you see? he said. you see?

e disgusted me.
turned and walked off.

e had outwitted me:

raise was the only thing I couldnt
andle.

the area of pause

ou have to have it or the walls will close

n.
ou have to give everything up, throw it
way, everything away.
ou have to look at what you look at
r think what you think
r do what you do
r
ont do
without considering personal
dvantage
without accepting guidance.

eople are worn away with

triving,
hey hide in common
abits.
heir concerns are herd
oncerns.

ew have the ability to stare

t an old shoe for
en minutes
r to think of odd things
ke who invented the
oorknob?

hey become unalive

ecause they are unable to
ause
ndo themselves
nkink

nsee
nlearn
oll clear.
sten to their untrue
aughter, then
walk
way.

I know you

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

he bar, you like a butcher knife against my throat
s the nightingale sings elsewhere while laughter
mingles with the roachs hiss.
know you as
he piano player in the restaurant who plays badly,
is mouth a tiny cesspool and his eyes little wet rolls of
oilet paper.
ou rode behind me on my bicycle as I pumped toward Venice as
boy, I knew you were there, even in that brisk wind I smelled
our
reath.
knew you in the love bed as you whispered lies of passion while
our
ails dug me into you.
saw you adored by crowds in Spain while pigtail boys with
words
olored the sun for your glory.
saw you complete the circle of friend, enemy, celebrity and
tranger as the fox ran through the sun carrying its heart in its
mouth.
hose madmen I fought in the back alleys of bars were
ou.
ou, yes, heard Platos last words.
ot too many mornings ago I found my old cat in the yard,
ry tongue stuck out awry as if it had never belonged, eyes tangled,
yelids soft yet, I lifted her, daylight shining upon my
ngers and her fur, my ignorant existence roaring against the

edges and the flowers.

know you, you wait while the fountains gush and the scales
weigh,
ou tiresome daughter-of-a-bitch, come on in, the door is
pen.

relentless as the tarantula

heyre not going to let you

it at a front table
t some cafe in Europe
n the mid-afternoon sun.
you do, somebodys going to
rive by and
pray your guts with a
ubmachine gun.

heyre not going to let you

eel good
or very long
nywhere.
he forces arent going to
et you sit around
ucking off and
elaxing.
ouve got to do it
heir way.

he unhappy, the bitter and

he vengeful
eed their
xwhich is
ou or somebody
nybody
n agony, or
etter yet
ead, dropped into some
ole.

s long as there are

uman beings about
here is never going to be
ny peace
or any individual
pon this earth (or
nywhere else
hey might
scape to).

ll you can do
s maybe grab
en lucky minutes
ere
r maybe an hour
here.

omething
s working toward you
ght now, and
mean you
nd nobody but
ou.

the replacements

ack London drinking his life away while

writing of strange and heroic men.
Eugene ONeill drinking himself oblivious
while writing his dark and poetic
works.

ow our moderns
ecture at universities
n tie and suit,
he little boys soberly studious,
he little girls with glazed eyes
ooking
p,
he lawns so green, the books so dull,
he life so dying of
hirst.

to lean back into it

ke in a chair the color of the sun

s you listen to lazy piano music
nd the aircraft overhead are not
t war.
where the last drink is as good as
he first
nd you realized that the promises
ou made yourself were
ept.
hats plenty.
hat last: about the promises:
whats not so good is that the few
iends you had are
ead and they seem
replaceable.
s for women, you didnt know enough
arly enough
nd you knew enough
oo late.
nd if more self-analysis is allowed: its
ice that you turned out welloned,
hat you arrived late
nd remained generally
apable.
utside of that, not much to say
xcept you can leave without
egret.
ntil then, a bit more amusement,
bit more endurance,

eaning back
nto it.

ke the dog who got across

he busy street:
ot all of it was good
uck.

eating my senior citizens dinner at the Sizzler

etween 2 and 5 p.m. any day and any time on Sunday and
Wednesday, its 20% off for
s old dogs approaching the sunset.
s strange to be old and not feel
ld
ut I glance in the mirror
ee some silver hair
oncede that Id look misplaced at a
ock concert.

eat alone.
he other oldies are in groups,
man and a woman
woman and a woman
hree old women
nother man and a
woman.
s 4:30 p.m. on a
uesday
nd just 5 or 6 blocks north is
he cemetery
n a long sloping green hill,
very modern place with
he markers
at on the ground,
s much more pleasant for
assing traffic.

young waitress
moves among us
lling our cups

gain with lovely

oisonous caffeine.
we thank her and
hew on,
ome with our own
eeth.

we wouldnt lose much in a

uclear explosion.

ne good old boy talks

n and on
bout what
es not too
ure.

well, I finish my meal,

eave a tip.
have the last table by the
xit door.
s Im about to leave
m blocked by an old girl
n a walker
ollowed by another old girl
whose back is bent
ke a bow.
heir faces, their arms
heir hands are like
archment
s if they had already been
mbalmed
ut they leave quietly.

s I made ready to leave

gain
am blocked
his time by a huge
wheelchair
he back tilted low
s almost like a bed,
very expensive
mechanism,
n awesome and glorious
eceptacle
he chrome glitters
nd the thick tires are
ir-inflated
nd the lady in the chair and
he lady pushing it
ook alike,
isters no doubt,
nes lucky
ets to ride,
nd they go by
gain very white.

nd then
rise
make it to the door
nto stunning sunlight
make it to the car
et in
oar the engine into
fe
p it into reverse

with a quick back turn of squealing

res
slam to a bouncing halt
p the wheel right
eed the gas
o from first to second
pin into a gap of
affic
m quickly into
rd
th
am up to
0 mph in a flash
moving through
hem.
who can turn the stream
f destiny?
light a cigarette
unch on the radio
nd a young girl
ings,
put it where it hurts,
addy, make me love
ou

its strange

s strange when famous people die

whether they have fought the good fight or
he bad one.
s strange when famous people die
whether we like them or not
hey are like old buildings old streets
hings and places that we are used to
which we accept simply because theyre
here.
s strange when famous people die
s like the death of a father or
pet cat or dog.
nd its strange when famous people are killed
r when they kill themselves.
he trouble with the famous is that they must
e replaced and they can never quite be
eplaced, and that gives us this unique
adness.
s strange when famous people die
he sidewalks look different and our
hildren look different and our bedmates
nd our curtains and our automobiles.
s strange when famous people die:

we become troubled.

The Beast

Beowulf may have killed Grendel and

Grendels mother
ut he
ouldnt kill this
ne:
moves around with broken back and
yes of spittle
as cancer
weeps with a broom
miles and kills
erms germans gladiolas

sits in the bathtub

with a piece of soap and
eads the newspaper about the
Bomb and Vietnam and the freeways
nd it smiles and then
ets out naked
oesnt use a towel
oes outside
nd rapes young girls
ills them and
hrows them aside like
teakbone

walks into a bedroom and watches

overs fuck
stops the clock at
:30 a.m.
turns a man into a rock while he
eads a book

he beast
poils candy
auses mournful songs to be
reated
makes birds stop
ying

even killed Beowulf

he brave Beowulf who
ad killed Grendel and Grendels
mother

ook
ven the whores at the bar
hink about it
rink too much and
lmost
orget business.

woman on the street

er shoes themselves
would light my room
ke many candles.

he walks like all things

hining on glass,
ke all things
hat make a difference.

he walks away.

lost in San Pedro

o way back to Barcelona.

he green soldiers have invaded the tombs.
madmen rule Spain
nd during a heat wave in 1952 I buried my last concubine.

o way back to the Rock of Gibraltar.

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

tay still now, mother

tay still.

he horse tossed the jock

he horse fell
hen got up
n only 3 legs
he 4th bent nearly in two
nd all the people anguished for the jock
ut my heart ached for the horse
he horse
he horse
was terrible
was truly terrible.

sometimes think about one or the other of my women.

wonder what we were hoping for when we lived together
ur minds shattered like the 4th leg of that horse.

emember when women wore dresses and high heels?

emember whenever a car door opened all the men turned to look?
was a beautiful time and Im glad I was there to see it.

o way back to Barcelona.

he world is less than a fishbone.

his place roars with the need for mercy.

here is this fat gold watch sitting here on my desk

ent to me by a German cop.
wrote him a nice letter thanking him for it
ut the police have killed more of my life than the crooks.

othing to do but wait for the pulling of the shade.

pull the shade.

my 3 male cats have had their balls clipped.

ow they sit and look at me with eyes emptied
f all but killing.

Manx

ave we gone wrong again?

we laugh less and less,
ecome more sadly sane.
ll we want is
he absence of others.
ven favorite classical music
as been heard too often and
ll the good books have been
ead

here is a sliding
lass door
nd there outside
white Manx sits
with one crossed eye
is tongue sticks out the
orner of his mouth.
lean over
nd pull the door open
nd he comes running in
ont legs working
n one direction,
ear legs
n the other.

e circles the
oom in a scurvy angle
o where I sit
laws up my legs
my chest
laces front legs
ke arms

n my shoulders
ticks his snout
gainst my nose
nd looks at me as
est he can.
lso befuddled,
look back.

better night now,

ld boy,
better time,
better way now
tuck together
ke this
ere.

am able
o smile again
s suddenly
he Manx
eaps away
cattering across the
ug sideways
hasing something now
hat none of us
an see.

the history of a tough motherfucker

e came to the door one night wet thin beaten and

errorized
white cross-eyed tailless cat
took him in and fed him and he stayed
rew to trust me until a friend drove up the driveway
nd ran him over
took what was left to a vet who said, not much
hancegive him these pillshis backbone
s crushed, but it was crushed before and somehow
mended, if he lives hell never walk, look at
hese x-rays, hes been shot, look here, the pellets
re still therealso, he once had a tail, somebody
ut it off

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

ottest in de cades, I put him on the bathroom
oor, gave him water and pills, he wouldnt eat, he
wouldnt touch the water, I dipped my finger into it
nd wet his mouth and I talked to him, I didnt go anywhere,
put in a lot of bathroom time and talked to
im and gently touched him and he looked back at
me with those pale blue crossed eyes and as the days went
y he made his first move
ragging himself forward by his front legs
he rear ones wouldnt work)
e made it to the litter box
rawled over and in,
was like the trumpet of possible victory
lowing in that bathroom and into the city, I
elated to that catId had it bad, not that
ad but bad enough

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

ust looked at me.

you can make it, I said to him.

e kept trying, getting up and falling down, finally

e walked a few steps, he was like a drunk, the
ear legs just didnt want to do it and he fell again, rested,
hen got up.

ou know the rest: now hes better than ever, cross-eyed,

lmost toothless, but the grace is back, and that look in
is eyes never left

nd now sometimes Im interviewed, they want to hear about

fe and literature and I get drunk and hold up my cross-eyed,
hot, runover de-tailed cat and I say, look, look
t this!

ut they dont understand, they say something like, you

ay youve been influenced by Cline?

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

hings like this, by this, by this!

shake the cat, hold him up in

he smoky and drunken light, hes relaxed he knows

s then that the interviews end

lthough I am proud sometimes when I see the pictures
ater and there I am and there is the cat and we are photoraphed together.

e too knows its bullshit but that somehow it all helps.

bad fix

ld Butch, they fixed him

he girls dont look like much
nymore.

when Big Sam moved out

f the back
inherited big Butch,
0 as cats go,
ld,
xed,
ut still as big and
mean a cat as anybody
ver remembered
eeing.

es damn near gnawed

ff my hand
he hand that feeds him
couple of
mes
ut Ive forgiven him,
es fixed
nd theres something in
im
hat doesnt like
.

t night
hear him mauling and
unning other cats through
he brush.

Butch, hes still a magnificent

ld cat,
ghting
ven without it.

what a bastard he must have been

with it
when he was 19 or 20
walking slowly down
is path
nd I look at him
ow
till feel the courage
nd the strength
n spite of mans smallness
n spite of mans scientific
kill
ld Butch
etains
ndures

eering at me with those

vil yellow eyes
ut of that huge
ndefeated
ead.

one for the old boy

e was just a
at
ross-eyed,
dirty white
with pale blue eyes

wont bore you with his

istory
ust to say
e had much bad luck
nd was a good old
uy
nd he died
ke people die
ke elephants die
ke rats die
ke flowers die
ke water evaporates and
he wind stops blowing

he lungs gave out

ast Monday.
ow hes in the rose
arden
nd Ive heard a
tirring march
laying for him
nside of me
which I know
ot many
ut some of you
would like to

now
bout.

hats
ll.

my cats

know. I know.
hey are limited, have different
eeds and
oncerns.

ut I watch and learn from them.

like the little they know,
which is so
much.

hey complain but never

worry.
hey walk with a surprising dignity.
hey sleep with a direct simplicity that
umans just cant
nderstand.

heir eyes are more

eautiful than our eyes.
nd they can sleep 20 hours
day
without
esitation or
emorse.

when I am feeling
ow
ll I have to do is
watch my cats
nd my
ourage
eturns.

study these
reatures.

hey are my
eachers.

Death Wants More Death

eath wants more death, and its webs are full:

remember my fathers garage, how child-like
would brush the corpses of flies
om the windows they had thought were escape
heir sticky, ugly, vibrant bodies
houting like dumb crazy dogs against the glass
nly to spin and flit
n that second larger than hell or heaven
nto the edge of the ledge,
nd then the spider from his dank hole
ervous and exposed
he puff of body swelling
anging there
ot really quite knowing,
nd then knowing
omething sending it down its string,
he wet web,
oward the weak shield of buzzing,
he pulsing;
last desperate moving hair-leg
here against the glass
here alive in the sun,
pun in white;

nd almost like love:

he closing over,
he first hushed spider-sucking:
lling its sack
pon this thing that lived;
rouching there upon its back
rawing its certain blood
s the world goes by outside

nd my temples scream
nd I hurl the broom against them:
he spider dull with spider-anger
till thinking of its prey
nd waving an amazed broken leg;
he fly very still,
dirty speck stranded to straw;
shake the killer loose
nd he walks lame and peeved
owards some dark corner
ut I intercept his dawdling
is crawling like some broken hero,
nd the straws smash his legs
ow waving
bove his head
nd looking
ooking for the enemy
nd somehow valiant,
ying without apparent pain
imply crawling backward
iece by piece
eaving nothing there
ntil at last the red gut-sack splashes
s secrets,
nd I run child-like
with Gods anger a step behind,
ack to simple sunlight,
wondering
s the world goes by
with curled smile
anyone else
aw or sensed my crime.

the lisp

had her for 3 units

nd at mid-term
hed read off how many assignments
tories
ad been turned in:
Gilbert: 2
Ginsing: 5
McNulty: 4
rijoles: none
ansford: 2
Bukowski: 38

he class laughed
nd she lisped
hat not only did Bukowski
write many stories
ut that they were all of
igh quality.

he flashed her golden legs

n 1940 and there was something
exy about her lisp
exy as a hornet
s a rattler
hat lisp.

nd she lisped to me
fter class
hat I should go to
war,
hat I would make a
ery good sailor,

nd she told me about how

he took my stories home
nd read them to her husband
nd how they both laughed,
nd I told her, o.k., Mrs. Anderson.
nd Id walk out on the campus
where almost every guy had a
irl.

didnt become a sailor,

Mrs. Anderson, Im not crazy
bout the ocean
nd I didnt like war
ven when it was the popular
hing to
o.

ut heres another completed assignment

or you
hose golden legs
hat lisp
till has me typing
ove songs.

on being 20

my mother knocked on my rooming-house door

nd came in
ooked in the dresser drawer:
Henry you dont have any clean
tockings?
o you change your underwear?

Mom, I dont want you poking around in

ere

hear that there is a woman

who comes to your room late at
ight and she drinks with you, she lives
ght down the hall.

shes all right

Henry, you can get a terrible

isease.

yeah

talked with your landlady, shes a

ice lady, she says you must read a lot
f books in bed because as you fall to sleep at
ight the books fall to the floor,
hey can hear it all over the
ouse, heavy books, one at midnight,
nother at one a.m., another at 2 a.m.,
nother at four.

fter she left I took the library books

ack
eturned to the rooming house and
ut the dirty stockings and the dirty
nderwear and the dirty shirts into
he paper suitcase
ook the streetcar downtown
oarded the Trailways bus to
New Orleans
guring to arrive with ten dollars
nd let them do with me
what they would.

hey did.

meanwhile

either does this mean

he dead are
t the door
egging bread
efore
he stockpiles
low
ke all the
torms and hell
n one big love,
ut anyhow
rented a 6 dollar a week
oom
n Chinatown
with a window as large as the
ide of the world
lled with night flies and neon,
ghted like Broadway
o frighten away rats,
nd I walked into a bar and sat down,
nd the Chinaman looked at my rags
nd said
o credit
nd I pulled out a hundred-dollar bill
nd asked for a cup of Confucius juice
nd 2 China dolls with slits of eyes
ust about the size of the rest of them
lid closer
nd we sat
nd we
waited.

the worlds greatest loser

e used to sell papers in front:

Get your winners! Get rich on a dime!
nd about the 3rd or 4th race
oud see him rolling in on his rotten board
with roller skates underneath.
ed propel himself along on his hands;
e just had small stumps for legs
nd the rims of the skate wheels were worn off.
ou could see inside the wheels and they would wobble
omething awful
hooting and flashing
mperialistic sparks!
e moved faster than anybody, rolled cigarette dangling,
ou could hear him coming
god o mighty, what was that? the new ones asked.

e was the worlds greatest loser

ut he never gave up
wheeling toward the 2-dollar window screaming:
TS THE 4 HORSE, YOU FOOLS! HOW THE HELL YA
GONNA BEAT THE
?
p on the board the 4 would be reading
0 to 1.
never heard him pick a winner.

hey say he slept in the bushes. I guess thats where he

ied. hes not around any

more.

here was the big fat blonde whore

who kept touching him for luck, and
aughing.

obody had any luck. the whore is gone

oo.

guess nothing ever works for us. were fools, of course

ucking the inside plus a 15 percent take,
ut how are you going to tell a dreamer
heres a 15 percent take on the
ream? hell just laugh and say,
s that all?

miss those
parks.

human nature

has been going on for some time.

here is this young waitress where I get my coffee
t the racetrack.
how are you doing today? she asks.
winning pretty good, I reply.
you won yesterday, didnt you? she
sks.
yes, I say, and the day before.

dont know exactly what it is but I

elieve we must have incompatible
ersonalities. there is often a hostile
ndertone to our conversations.

you seem to be the only person

round here who keeps winning,
he says, not looking at me,
ot pleased.

s that so? I answer.

here is something very strange about all

his: whenever I do lose
he never seems to be
here.
erhaps its her day off or sometimes she works
nother counter?

he bets too and loses.

he always loses.
nd even though we might have
ncompatible personalities I am sorry for

er.
decide the next time I see her
will tell her that I am
osing.

o I do.
when she asks, how are you doing?
say, god, I dont understand it,
m losing, I cant hit anything, every horse
bet runs last!

really? she asks.

really, I say.

works.
he lowers her gaze
nd here comes one of the largest smiles
have ever seen, it damn near cracks
er face wide open.

get my coffee, tip her well, walk

ut to check the
oteboard.

I died in a flaming crash on the freeway

hed surely be happy for a
week!

take a sip of coffee.

whats this?
hes put in a large shot of cream!
he knows I like it black!

n her excitement,

hed forgotten.

he bitch.

nd thats what I get for lying.

the trash men

ere they come

hese guys
ray truck
adio playing

hey are in a hurry

s quite exciting:
hirt open
ellies hanging out

hey run out the trash bins

oll them out to the fork lift
nd then the truck grinds it upward
with far too much sound

hey had to fill out application forms

o get these jobs
hey are paying for homes and
rive late model cars

hey get drunk on Saturday night

ow in the Los Angeles sunshine

hey run back and forth with their trash bins

ll that trash goes somewhere

nd they shout to each other

hen they are all up in the truck

riving west toward the sea

one of them know

hat I am alive

REX DISPOSAL CO.

a gold pocket watch

my grandfather was a tall German

with a strange smell on his breath.
e stood very straight
n front of his small house
nd his wife hated him
nd his children thought him odd.
was six the first time we met
nd he gave me all his war medals.
he second time I met him
e gave me his gold pocket watch.
was very heavy and I took it home
nd wound it very tight
nd it stopped running
which made me feel bad.
never saw him again
nd my parents never spoke of him
or did my grandmother
who had long ago
topped living with him.
nce I asked about him
nd they told me
e drank too much
ut I liked him best
tanding very straight
n front of his house
nd saying, hello, Henry, you
nd I, we know each
ther.

talking to my mailbox

oy, dont come around here telling me you

ant cut it, that
heyre pitching you low and inside, that
hey are conspiring against you,
hat all you want is a chance but they wont
ive you a
hance.

oy, the problem is that youre not doing

what you want to do, or
youre doing what you want to do, youre
ust not doing it
well.

oy, I agree:
heres not much opportunity, and there are
ome at the top who are
ot doing much better than you
re
ut
oure wasting energy haranguing and
itching.

oy, Im not advising, just suggesting that

nstead of sending your poems to me
long with your letters of
omplaint
ou should enter the
rena
end your work to the editors and
ublishers, it will

uck up your backbone and your

ersatility.

oy, I wish to thank you for the

raise for some of my
ublished works
ut that
as nothing to do with
nything and wont help a
urple shit, youve just got to
earn to hit that low, hard
nside pitch.

his is a form letter

send to almost everybody, but
hope you take it
ersonally,
man.

I liked him

liked D. H. Lawrence
e could get so indignant
e snapped and he ripped
with wonderfully energetic sentences
e could lay the word down
right and writhing
here was the stink of blood and murder
nd sacrifice about him
he only tenderness he allowed
was when he bedded down his large German
wife.
liked D. H. Lawrence
e could talk about Christ
ke he was the man next door
nd he could describe Australian taxi drivers
o well you hated them
liked D. H. Lawrence
ut Im glad I never met him
n some bistro
im lifting his tiny hot cup of
ea
nd looking at me
with his worm-hole eyes.

one for the shoeshine man

he balance is preserved by the snails climbing the

Santa Monica cliffs;
he luck is in walking down Western Avenue
nd having the girls in a massage
arlor holler at you, Hello, Sweetie!
he miracle is having 5 women in love
with you at the age of 55,
nd the goodness is that you are only able
o love one of them.
he gift is having a daughter more gentle
han you are, whose laughter is finer
han yours.
he peace comes from driving a
lue 67 Volks through the streets like a
eenager, radio tuned to The Host Who Loves You
Most, feeling the sun, feeling the solid hum
f the rebuilt motor as you needle through traffic.
he grace is being able to like rock music,
ymphony music, jazzanything that contains the original energy of
oy.

nd the probability that returns

s the deep blue low
ourself flat upon yourself
within the guillotine walls
ngry at the sound of the phone
r anybodys footsteps passing;
ut the other probability
he lilting high that always follows
makes the girl at the checkstand in the

upermarket look like

Marilyn
ke Jackie before they got her Harvard lover
ke the girl in high school that we
ll followed home.

here is that which helps you believe

n something else besides death:
omebody in a car approaching
n a street too narrow,
nd he or she pulls aside to let you
y, or the old fighter Beau Jack
hining shoes
fter blowing the entire bankroll
n parties
n women
n parasites,
umming, breathing on the leather,
working the rag
ooking up and saying:
what the hell, I had it for a
while. that beats the other.

am bitter sometimes
ut the taste has often been
weet. its only that Ive
eared to say it. its like
when your woman says,
ell me you love me, and
ou cant.

you see me grinning from

my blue Volks
unning a yellow light

riving straight into the sun

will be locked in the
rms of a
razy life
hinking of trapeze artists
f midgets with big cigars
f a Russian winter in the early 40s
f Chopin with his bag of Polish soil
f an old waitress bringing me an extra
up of coffee and laughing
s she does so.

he best of you
like more than you think.
he others dont count
xcept that they have fingers and heads
nd some of them eyes
nd most of them
egs and all of them
ood and bad dreams
nd a way to go.

ustice is everywhere and its working

nd the machine guns and the frogs
nd the hedges will tell you
o.

the proud thin dying

see old people on pensions in the

upermarkets and they are thin and they are
roud and they are dying
hey are starving on their feet and saying
othing. long ago, among other lies,
hey were taught that silence was
ravery. now, having worked a lifetime,
nflation has trapped them. they look around
teal a grape
hew on it. finally they make a tiny
urchase, a days worth.
nother lie they were taught:
hou shalt not steal.
heyd rather starve than steal
one grape wont save them)
nd in tiny rooms
while reading the market ads
heyll starve
heyll die without a sound
ulled out of rooming houses
y young blond boys with long hair
wholl slide them in
nd pull away from the curb, these
oys
andsome of eye
hinking of Vegas and pussy and
ictory.
s the order of things: each one
ets a taste of honey
hen the knife.

shot of red-eye

used to hold my social security card

p in the air,
e told me,
ut I was so small
hey couldnt see it,
ll those big
uys around.

ou mean the place with the

ig green screen?
asked.

eah. well, anyhow, I finally got on

he other day
icking tomatoes, and Jesus Christ,
couldnt get anywhere
was too hot, too hot
nd I couldnt get anything in my sack
o I lay under the truck
n the shade and drank
wine. I didnt make a
ime.

ave a drink, I said.

ure, he said.

wo big women came in and

mean BIG
nd they sat next to
s.

hot of red-eye, one of them

aid to the bartender.

kewise, said the other.

hey pulled their dresses up

round their hips and
wung their legs.

m, umm. I think Im going mad, I told

my friend from the tomato fields.

esus, he said, Jesus and Mary, I cant

elieve what I see.

s all

here, I said.

ou a fighter? the one next to me

sked.

o, I said.

what happened to your

ace?

utomobile accident on the San Berdoo

eeway. some drunk jumped the divider. I was
he drunk.

ow old are you, daddy?

ld enough to slice the melon, I said,
apping my cigar ashes into my beer to give me
trength.

an you buy a melon? she asked.

ave you ever been chased across the Mojave and

aped?

o, she said.

pulled out my last 20 and with an old mans

irile abandon ordered
our drinks.

oth girls smiled and pulled their dresses

igher, if that was possible.

whos your friend? they asked.

his is Lord Chesterfield, I told them.

leased ta meetcha, they

aid.

ello, bitches, he answered.

we walked through the 3rd street tunnel

o a green hotel. the girls had a
ey.

here was one bed and we all got

n. I dont know who got
who.

he next morning my friend and

were down at the Farm Labor Market
n San Pedro Street
olding up and waving our social
ecurity cards.

hey couldnt see

is.

was the last one on the truck out. a big woman stood
p against me. she smelled like
ort wine.

oney, she asked, what ever happened to your

ace?

air grounds, a dancing bear who

idnt.

ullshit, she said.

maybe so, I said, but get your hand out

om around my
alls. everybodys looking.

when we got to the

elds the sun was
eally up
nd the world
ooked
errible.

about pain

my first and only wife

ainted
nd she talked to me
bout it:
ts all so painful
or me, each stroke is
ain
ne mistake and
he whole painting is
uined
ou will never understand the
ain

ook, baby, I
aid, why doncha do something easy
omething ya like ta
o?

he just looked at me
nd I think it was her
rst understanding of
he tragedy of our being
ogether.

uch things usually

egin
omewhere.

hot

he was hot, she was so hot

didnt want anybody else to have her,
nd if I didnt get home on time
hed be gone, and I couldnt bear that
d go mad
was foolish I know, childish,
ut I was caught in it, I was caught.

delivered all the mail

nd then Henderson put me on the night pickup run
n an old army truck,
he damn thing began to heat halfway through the run
nd the night went on
me thinking about my hot Miriam
nd jumping in and out of the truck
lling mailsacks
he engine continuing to heat up
he temperature needle was at the top
HOT HOT
ke Miriam.

leaped in and out

more pickups and into the station
d be, my car
waiting to get me to Miriam who sat on my blue couch
with scotch on the rocks
rossing her legs and swinging her ankles
ke she did,
more stops
he truck stalled at a traffic light, it was hell
icking it over

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

made the last pickup and the truck stalled at a signal

/2 block from the station
wouldnt start, it couldnt start
locked the doors, pulled the key and ran down to the
tation
threw the keys down. signed out
our goddamned truck is stalled at the signal,
shouted,
Pico and Western

I ran down the hall, put the key into the door,
pened it. her drinking glass was there, and a note:

sun of a bitch:
I wated until 5 after ate
you dont love me
you sun of a bitch

somebody will love me

I been wateing all day
Miriam

poured a drink and let the water run into the tub
here were 5,000 bars in town
nd Id make 25 of them
ooking for Miriam

er purple teddy bear held the note

s he leaned against a pillow

gave the bear a drink, myself a drink

nd got into the hot

water.

who in the hell is Tom Jones?

was shacked with a

4-year-old girl from
New York City for
wo weeksabout
he time of the garbage
trike out there, and
ne night my 34-yearld woman arrived and
he said, I want to see
my rival. she did
nd then she said, o,
oure a cute little thing!
ext I knew there was a
creech of wildcats
uch screaming and scratching, wounded animal moans,
lood and piss

was drunk and in my

horts. I tried to
eparate them and fell,
wrenched my knee. then
hey were through the screen
oor and down the walk
nd out in the street.

quad cars full of cops

rrived. a police helicopter circled overhead.

stood in the bathroom

nd grinned in the mirror.
s not often at the age
f 55 that such splendid
hings occur.
etter than the Watts
ots.

he 34-year-old
ame back in. she had
issed all over herelf and her clothing
was torn and she was
ollowed by 2 cops who
wanted to know why.

ulling up my shorts
tried to explain.

the price

rinking 15-dollar champagne

Cordon Rougewith the hookers.

ne is named Georgia and she

oesnt like pantyhose:
keep helping her pull up
er long dark stockings.

he other is Pamprettier
ut not much soul, and
we smoke and talk and I
lay with their legs and
tick my bare foot into
Georgias open purse.
s filled with
ottles of pills. I
ake some of the pills.

isten, I say, one of

ou has soul, the other
ooks. cant I combine
he 2 of you? take the soul
nd stick it into the looks?

you want me, says Pam, it

will cost you a hundred.

we drink some more and Georgia

alls to the floor and cant
et up.

tell Pam that I like her

arrings very much. her
air is long and a natural
ed.

was only kidding about the

undred, she says.

oh, I say, what will it cost

me?

he lights her cigarette with

my lighter and looks at me
hrough the flame:

er eyes tell me.

ook, I say, I dont think I

an ever pay that price again.

he crosses her legs

nhales on her cigarette

s she exhales she smiles

nd says, sure you can.

Im in love

hes young, she said,

ut look at me, I have pretty ankles,
nd look at my wrists, I have pretty
wrists
my god,
thought it was all working,
nd now its her again,
very time she phones you go crazy,
ou told me it was over
ou told me it was finished,
sten, Ive lived long enough to become a
ood woman,
why do you need a bad woman?
ou need to be tortured, dont you?
ou think life is rotten if somebody treats you
otten it all fits,
oesnt it?
ell me, is that it? do you want to be treated like a
iece of shit?
nd my son, my son was going to meet you.
told my son
nd I dropped all my lovers.
stood up in a cafe and screamed
M IN LOVE,
nd now youve made a fool of me

m sorry, I said, Im really sorry.

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

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

hese triangles

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

ver. she paced up and down, wild and crazy. she had
small body. her arms were thin, very thin and when
he screamed and started beating me I held her
wrists and then I got it through the eyes: hatred,
enturies deep and true. I was wrong and graceless and
ick. all the things I had learned had been wasted.
here was no living creature as foul as I
nd all my poems were
alse.

the girls

have been looking at

he same
ampshade
or
5 years

nd it has gathered
bachelors dust
nd
he girls who enter here
re too
usy
o clean it

ut I dont mind
have been too
usy
o notice
ntil now

hat the light

hines
adly

worth.

through
5 years

the ladies of summer

he ladies of summer will die like the rose

nd the lie

he ladies of summer will love

o long as the price is not
orever

he ladies of summer
might love anybody;
hey might even love you
s long as summer
asts

et winter will come to them

oo

white snow and

cold freezing
nd faces so ugly
hat even death
will turn away
wince
efore taking them.

tonight

your poems about the girls will still be around

0 years from now when the girls are gone,
my editor phones me.

ear editor:
he girls appear to be gone
lready.

know what you mean

ut give me one truly alive woman

o night
walking across the floor toward me

nd you can have all the poems

he good ones
he bad ones
r any that I might write
fter this one.

know what you mean.

o you know what I mean?

shoes

when youre young

pair of
emale
igh-heeled shoes
ust sitting
lone
n the closet
an fire your
ones;
when youre old
s just
pair of shoes
without
nybody
n them
nd
ust as
well.

hug the dark

urmoil is the god

madness is the god

ermanent living peace is

ermanent living death.

gony can kill

r agony can sustain life
ut peace is always horrifying
eace is the worst thing
walking
alking
miling,
eeming to be.

ont forget the sidewalks

he whores,
etrayal,
he worm in the apple,
he bars, the jails,
he suicides of lovers.

ere in America
we have assassinated a president and his brother,
nother president has quit office.

eople who believe in politics

re like people who believe in god:
hey are sucking wind through bent
traws.

here is no god
here are no politics
here is no peace
here is no love
here is no control
here is no plan

tay away from god

emain disturbed

lide.

face of a political candidate on a street billboard

here he is:
ot too many hangovers
ot too many fights with women
ot too many flat tires
ever a thought of suicide

ot more than three toothaches

ever missed a meal
ever in jail
ever in love
pairs of shoes
son in college
car one year old

nsurance policies
very green lawn

arbage cans with tight lids

ell be elected.

white dog

went for a walk on Hollywood Boulevard.

looked down and there was a large white dog
walking beside me.
is pace was exactly the same as mine.
we stopped at traffic signals together.
we crossed the side streets together.
woman smiled at us.
e must have walked 8 blocks with me.
hen I went into a grocery store and
when I came out he was gone.
r she was gone.
he wonderful white dog
with a trace of yellow in its fur.
he large blue eyes were gone.
he grinning mouth was gone.
he lolling tongue was gone.

hings are so easily lost.

hings just cant be kept forever.

got the blues.

got the blues.
hat dog loved and
usted me and
let it walk away.

on going out to get the mail

he droll noon
where squadrons of worms creep up like
tripteasers
o be raped by blackbirds.

go outside
nd all up and down the street
he green armies shoot color
ke an everlasting 4th of July,
nd I too seem to swell inside,
kind of unknown bursting, a
eeling, perhaps, that there isnt any
nemy
nywhere.

nd I reach down into the box

nd there is
othingnot even a
etter from the gas co. saying they will
hut it off
gain.

ot even a short note from my x-wife

ragging about her present
appiness.

my hand searches the mailbox in a kind of

isbelief long after the mind has
iven up.

heres not even a dead fly

own in there.

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

works like this.

go inside as all the flowers leap to

lease me.

nything? the woman

sks.

othing, I answer, whats for

reakfast?

spring swan

wans die in the Spring too

nd there it floated
ead on a Sunday
ideways
ircling in the current
nd I walked to the rotunda
nd overhead
ods in chariots
ogs, women
ircled,
nd death
an down my throat
ke a mouse,
nd I heard the people coming
with their picnic bags
nd laughter,
nd I felt guilty
or the swan
s if death
were a thing of shame
nd like a fool
walked away
nd left them
my beautiful swan.

how is your heart?

uring my worst times

n the park benches
n the jails
r living with
whores
always had this certain
ontentment
wouldnt call it
appiness
was more of an inner
alance
hat settled for
whatever was occurring
nd it helped in the
actories
nd when relationships
went wrong
with the
irls.

helped
hrough the
wars and the
angovers
he backalley fights
he
ospitals.

o awaken in a cheap room

n a strange city and
ull up the shade

his was the craziest kind of

ontentment

nd to walk across the floor

o an old dresser with a
racked mirror
ee myself, ugly,
rinning at it all.

what matters most is

ow well you
walk through the
re.

closing time

round 2 a.m.
n my small room
fter turning off the poem
machine
or now
continue to light
igarettes and listen to
Beethoven on the
adio.
listen with a
trange and lazy
plomb,
nowing theres still a poem
r two left to write, and
feel damn
ne, at long
ast,
s once again I
dmire the verve and gamble
f this composer
ow dead for over 100
ears,
whos younger and wilder
han you are
han I am.

he centuries are sprinkled

with rare magic
with divine creatures
who help us get past the common
nd

xtraordinary ills
hat beset us.

light the next to last

igarette
emember all the 2 a.m.s
f my past,
ut out of the bars
t closing time,
ut out on the streets
a ragged band of
olitary lonely
umans
we were)
ach walking home
lone.

his is much better: living

where I now
ve
nd listening to
he reassurance
he kindness
f this unexpected
SYMPHONY OF TRIUMPH:
new life.

racetrack parking lot at the end of the day

watch them push the crippled and the infirm

n their wheelchairs
n to the electric lift
which carries them up into the long bus
where each chair is locked down
nd each person has a window
f their own.
hey are all white-skinned, like
ale paint on thin cardboard;
most of them are truly old;
here are a number of women, a few old
men, and 3 surprisingly young men
of whom wear neck braces that gleam
n the late afternoon sun
nd all 3 with arms as thin as
ope and hands that resemble clenched
laws.
he caretaker seems very kind, very
nderstanding, hes a
marvelous fat fellow with a
ectangular head and he wears a broad
mile which is not
alse.
he old women are either extremely thin
r overweight.
most have humped backs and shoulders
nd wispy
ery straight
white hair.
hey sit motionless, look straight
head as the electric lift raises them

n to the bus.
here is no conversation;
hey appear calm and not embittered
y their plight. both men and women
re soon loaded on to the waiting bus except for
he last one, a very old man, almost skeletal,
with a tiny round head, completely bald, a
hining white dot against the late afternoon sky,
waving a cane above his head as he is
ushed shouting on to the electric lift:
WELL, THEY ROBBED OUR ASSES
GAIN, CLEANED US OUT, WERE A

UNCH OF SUCKERS TOTTERING ON THE

DGE OF OUR GRAVES AND WE LET THEM TAKE
OUR LAST PENNY AGAIN!

as he speaks
e waves the cane above his head and
racks the marvelous fat fellow
who is pushing his chair,
racks the cane against the side of
he caretakers head.
s a mighty blow and
he attendant staggers, grabs
ard at the back of the
wheelchairas
he old man yells: OH, JERRY,
M SORRY, IM SO SORRY, WHAT CAN I
O? WHAT
AN I DO?

erry steadies himself, he is not badly hurt.

s a small concussion but within an hour
e will possess a knot the size of an

pricot.

ts all right, Sandy, only

ve told you again and again, please
e careful with that damned
ane

Sandy is pushed on to the electric

ft, it rises and he disappears into
he buss dark interior.

hen Jerry climbs slowly into the bus, takes

he wheel, starts up, the door closes with a hiss,
he bus begins to move to the exit,
nd on the back of the vehicle
n bold white letters
n dark blue background
see the words:
ARBOR HOME OF LOVE.

there

he centerfielder
urns
ushes back
eaches up his glove
nd
nares the
all,
we are all him for
hat moment,
ucking the air
nto our
ut.
s the crowd roars like
razy
we rifle the ball back
hrough the
miraculous
ir.

Dinosauria, we

orn like this

nto this
s the chalk faces smile
s Mrs. Death laughs
s the elevators break
s political landscapes dissolve
s the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree
s the oily fish spit out their oily prey
s the sun is masked

we are
orn like this
nto this
nto these carefully mad wars
nto the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
nto bars where people no longer speak to each other
nto fist fights that end as shootings and knifings

orn into this

nto hospitals which are so expensive that its cheaper to die
nto lawyers who charge so much its cheaper to plead guilty
nto a country where the jails are full and the mad houses closed
nto a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes

orn into this

walking and living through this
ying because of this
muted because of this
astrated
ebauched
isinherited

ecause of this
ooled by this
sed by this
issed on by this
made crazy and sick by this
made violent
made inhuman
y this

he heart is blackened
he fingers reach for the throat
he gun
he knife
he bomb
he fingers reach toward an unresponsive god

he fingers reach for the bottle

he pill
he powder

we are born into this sorrowful deadliness

we are born into a government 60 years in debt
hat soon will be unable to even pay the interest on that debt
nd the banks will burn
money will be useless
here will be open and unpunished murder in the streets
will be guns and roving mobs
and will be useless
ood will become a diminishing return
uclear power will be taken over by the many
xplosions will continually shake the earth

adiated robot men will stalk each other

he rich and the chosen will watch from space platforms

Dantes Inferno will be made to look like a childrens playground

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

ees will die
ll vegetation will die
adiated men will eat the flesh of radiated men
he sea will be poisoned
he lakes and rivers will vanish
ain will be the new gold

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

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

nd the space platforms will be destroyed by attrition
he petering out of supplies
he natural effect of general decay

nd there will be the most beautiful silence never heard

orn out of that.

he sun still hidden there

waiting the next chapter.

mind and heart

naccountably we are alone

orever alone
nd it was meant to be
hat way,
was never meant
o be any other way
nd when the death struggle
egins
he last thing I wish to see
s
ring of human faces
overing over me
etter just my old friends,
he walls of my self,
et only them be there.

have been alone but seldom

onely.
have satisfied my thirst
t the well
f my self
nd that wine was good,
he best I ever had,
nd to night
itting
taring into the dark
now finally understand
he dark and the
ght and everything
n between.

eace of mind and heart

rrives
when we accept what
s:
aving been
orn into this
trange life
we must accept
he wasted gamble of our
ays
nd take some satisfaction in
he pleasure of
eaving it all
ehind.

ry not for me.

rieve not for me.

ead
what Ive written
hen
orget it
ll.

rink from the well

f your self
nd begin
gain.

TB

had it for a year, really put in

lot of
edroom time, slept upright on
wo pillows to keep from coughing,
ll the blood drained from my head
nd often Id awaken to find myself
lipping sideways off the
ed.
ince my TB was contagious I didnt
ave any visitors and the phone
topped ringing
nd that was the lucky
art.

uring the day I tried TV and food,

either of which went down very
well.
he soap operas and the talk shows
were a
aytime nightmare,
o for the lack of anything else
o do
watched the baseball
ames
nd led the Dodgers to a
ennant.
ot much else for me to do
xcept take antibiotics and the cough
medicine.
also really saved putting
mileage on the car
nd missed the hell out of

he old race
ack.
ou realize when youre
lucked out of the mainstream that
doesnt need you or
nybody else.
he birds dont notice youre gone,
he flowers dont care,
he people out there dont notice,
ut the IRS,
he phone co.,
he gas and electric co.,
he DMV, etc.,
hey keep in touch.

eing very sick and being dead are

ery much the same
n societys
ye.

ither way,
ou might just as well
ay back and
njoy it.

crime does pay

he rooms at the hospital went for

550 a day.
hat was for the room alone.
he amazing thing, though, was that
n some of the rooms
risoners were
odged.
saw them chained to their beds,
sually by an
nkle.
550 a day, plus meals,
ow thats luxury
vingplus first-rate medical attention
nd two guards
n watch.
nd here I was with my cancer,
walking down the halls in my
obe
hinking, if I live through this
will take me years to
ay off the hospital
while the prisoners wont owe
damned
hing.
ot that I didnt have some
ympathy for those fellows
ut when you consider that
when something like a bullet
n one of your buttocks
ets you all that free attention,
medical and otherwise,

lus no billing later

om the hospital business
ffice, maybe I had chosen
he wrong
ccupation?

the orderly

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

eath, on stinking wings, wafts through the
alls forevermore.
remember the hospital stenches from when
was a boy and when I was a man and now
s an old man
sit in my tin chair waiting.

hen an orderly
young man of 23 or 24
ushes in a piece of equipment.
looks like a hamper of
eshly done laundry
ut I cant be sure.

he orderly is awkward.
e is not deformed
ut his legs work
n an unruly fashion
s if disassociated from the
motor workings of the brain.

e is in blue, dressed all in blue,

ushing,
ushing his load.

ngainly little boy blue.

hen he turns his head and yells at

he receptionist at the x-ray window:
anybody wants me, Ill be in 76
or about 20 minutes!

is face reddens as he yells,

is mouth forms a down
urned crescent like a
umpkins halloween mouth.

hen hes gone into some doorway,

robably 76.

ot a very prepossessing chap.

ost as a human,
ong gone down some
umbing road.

ut
es healthy

es healthy.

HES HEALTHY!

the nurses

t the hospital that I have been

oing to
he nurses seem
verweight.
hey are bulky in their
white dresses
at above the hips
nd down
hrough the buttocks
o the heavy
egs.

hey all appear to be

7 years old,
walk wide-legged
ke the old fullbacks
f the
930s.

hey seem distanced

om their profession.
hey attend to their duties
ut with a
ack of
ontact.

pass them in the

walkways
nd in the
orridors.
hey never look into
my eyes.

forgive them their

eavy-shoed
walk,
or the space that they
must forge
etween themselves and
ach patient.

or these ladies are truly

ver-fed:

hey have seen

oo much
eath.

cancer

alf-past nowhere
lone
n the crumbling
ower of myself

tumbling in this the

arkest
our

he last gamble has been

ost

sI
each
or

one
ilence.

first poem back

4 days and nights in that

lace, chemotherapy,
ntibiotics, blood running into
he catheter.
eukemia.
who, me?
t age 72 I had this foolish thought that
d just die peacefully in my sleep
ut
he gods want it their way.
sit at this machine, shattered,
alf alive,
till seeking the Muse,
ut I am back for the moment only;
while nothing seems the same.
am not reborn, only
hasing
few more days, a few more nights,
ke
his
ne.

tired in the afterdusk

moking a cigarette and noting a mosquito who has

attened out against the wall and
ied
s organ music from centuries back plays through
my black radio
s downstairs my wife watches a rented video on
he VCR.

his is the space between spaces, this is when the

ver-war relents for just a moment, this is when
ou consider the inconsiderate years:
he fight has been wearingbut, at times,
nteresting, such as
esting quietly here in the
fterdusk as the sound of the centuries run
hrough my body
his
ld dog
esting in the shade
eaceful
ut ready.

again

ow the territory is taken,

he sacrificial lambs have been slain,
s history is scratched again on the sallow walls,
s the bankers scurry to survive,
s the young girls paint their hungry lips,
s the dogs sleep in temporary peace,
s the shadow gets ready to fall,
s the oceans gobble the poisons of man,
s heaven and hell dance in the anteroom,
s begin again and go again,
s bake the apple,
uy the car,
mow the lawn,
ay the tax,
ang the toilet paper,
lip the nails,
sten to the crickets,
low up the balloons,
rink the orange juice,
orget the past,
ass the mustard,
ull down the shades,
ake the pills,
heck the air in the tires,
ace on the gloves,
he bell is ringing,
he pearl is in the oyster,
he rain falls
s the shadow gets ready to fall again.

so now?

he words have come and gone,

sit ill.
he phone rings, the cats sleep.
inda vacuums.
am waiting to live,
waiting to die.

wish I could ring in some bravery.

s a lousy fix
ut the tree outside doesnt know:
watch it moving with the wind
n the late afternoon sun.

heres nothing to declare here,

ust a waiting.
ach faces it alone.

Oh, I was once young,

Oh, I was once unbelievably
oung!

blue

lue fish, the blue night, a blue knife

verything is blue.
nd my cats are blue: blue fur, blue claws,
lue whiskers, blue eyes.

my bed lamp shines

lue.

nside, my blue heart pumps blue blood.

my fingernails, my toenails are

lue

nd around my bed floats a

lue ghost.

ven the taste inside my mouth is

lue.

nd I am alone and dying and

lue.

a summation

more wasted days,

ored days,
vaporated days.

more squandered days,

ays pissed away,
ays slapped around,
mutilated.

he problem is
hat the days add up
o a life,
my life.

sit here
3 years old
nowing I have been badly
ooled,
icking at my teeth
with a toothpick
which
reaks.

ying should come easy:

ke a freight train you
ont hear when
our back is
urned.

sun coming down

o one is sorry I am leaving,

ot even I;
ut there should be a minstrel
r at least a glass of wine.

bothers the young most, I think:

n unviolent slow death.
till it makes any man dream;
ou wish for an old sailing ship,
he white salt-crusted sail
nd the sea shaking out hints of immortality.

ea in the nose
ea in the hair
ea in the marrow, in the eyes
nd yes, there in the chest.
will we miss
he love of a woman or music or food
r the gambol of the great mad muscled
orse, kicking clods and destinies
igh and away
n just one moment of the sun coming down?

ut now its my turn

nd theres no majesty in it
ecause there was no majesty
efore it
and each of us, like worms bitten out of apples,
eserves no reprieve.

eath enters my mouth

nd snakes along my teeth
nd I wonder if I am frightened of
his voiceless, unsorrowful dying that is
ke the drying of a rose?

twilight musings

he drifting of the mind.

he slow loss, the leaking away.

nes demise is not very interesting.

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

ne coal black, one dark brown, the

ther yellow.

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

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

have no idea who won at the racetrack today.

must go back into the hospital tomorrow.

why me?

why not?

my last winter

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

he world;
here are so many more important things to worry about and to
onsider.

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

he world
nd it shouldnt be thought of as special.
ther storms have been much greater, more dramatic.
see this final storm approaching and calmly
my mind waits.

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

he world.
he world and I have seldom agreed on most
matters but
ow we can agree.
o bring it on, bring on this final storm.
have patiently waited for too long now.

like a dolphin

ying has its rough edge.

o escaping now.
he warden has his eye on me.
is bad eye.
m doing hard time now.
n solitary.
ocked down.
m not the first nor the last.
m just telling you how it is.
sit in my own shadow now.
he face of the people grows dim.
he old songs still play.
and to my chin, I dream of
othing while my lost childhood
eaps like a dolphin
n the frozen sea.

the bluebird

heres a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out
ut Im too tough for him,
say, stay in there, Im not going
o let anybody see
ou.

heres a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out
ut I pour whiskey on him and inhale
igarette smoke
nd the whores and the bartenders
nd the grocery clerks
ever know that
es
n there.

heres a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out
ut Im too tough for him
say,
tay down, do you want to mess
me up?
ou want to screw up the
works?
ou want to blow my book sales in
Europe?

heres a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out
ut Im too clever, I only let him out
t night sometimes

when everybodys asleep.

say, I know that youre there,
o dont be
ad.

hen I put him back,

ut hes singing a little
n there, I havent quite let him
ie
nd we sleep together like
hat
with our
ecret pact
nd its nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I dont
weep, do
ou?

if we take

we take what we can see

he engines driving us mad,
overs finally hating;
his fish in the market
taring upward into our minds;
owers rotting, flies web-caught;
ots, roars of caged lions,
lowns in love with dollar bills,
ations moving people like pawns;
aylight thieves with beautiful
ighttime wives and wines;
he crowded jails,
he commonplace unemployed,
ying grass, 2-bit fires;
men old enough to love the grave.

hese things, and others, in content

how life swinging on a rotten axis.

But theyve left us a bit of music

nd a spiked show in the corner,
jigger of scotch, a blue necktie,
small volume of poems by Rimbaud,
horse running as if the devil were
wisting his tail
ver bluegrass and screaming, and then,
ove again
ke a streetcar turning the corner
n time

he city waiting,
he wine and the flowers,
he water walking across the lake
nd summer and winter and summer and summer
nd winter again.

alphabetical index of poem titles

competition (sifting through the madness)

pain (War All the Time
the PEN conference (You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense)
e for some young man in the year 2064 A.D. (uncollected)
oons into night (uncollected)
(Betting on the Muse)
can Flag Shirt, the (The People Look Like Flowers at Last)
pire of coins (Betting on the Muse)
who pushed his wheelchair, the (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)
of pause, the (The Last Night of the Earth Poems)
ay the piano drunk)
x (Dangling in the Tournefortia)
s of 1935, the (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)
bang (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)
(The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain)
g slump (Open All Night)
e (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)
, The (The Rooming house Madrigals)
ful lady, the (Bone Palace Ballet)
e, the (Bone Palace Ballet)
me loser (Open All Night)
the (The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain)
Come On In!)
eads and bones (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)
rd, the (The Last Night of the Earth Poems)
wow love (uncollected)
nd his dog, a (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire) 247 Bruckner (2) (Open All Night)
g of the dream, the (Septuagenarian Stew)
lies (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)
r (Come On In!)
ash (The Last Night of the Earth Poems)
n McCullers (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)
well-lighted place, a (Slouching Toward Nirvana)
encounters of another kind (play the piano drunk)
g time (Come On In!)
and babies (uncollected)
d birds, the (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)
on in! (Come On In!)
erce (sifting through the madness)
does pay (The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain)
x in a deathhand (Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame)
h, the (Love Is a Dog from Hell)
ight poem (uncollected)
e epileptic spoke, the (War All the Time)
Wants More Death (The Rooming house Madrigals)
cracy (The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain)
oying Beauty (The Rooming house Madrigals)
auria, we (The Last Night of the Earth Poems)
own (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)
ming (uncollected)
ing, the (uncollected)
out (Dangling in the Tournefortia)
my senior citizens dinner at the Sizzler (War All the Time)
ur heart out (Love Is a Dog from Hell)
he (play the piano drunk)
3 (You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense)131 elephants in the zoo (uncollected)
ants of Vietnam, the (The People Look Like Flowers at Last)
y (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)
y to a hell of a dame (War All the Time)

f a political candidate on a street billboard (play the piano drunk)

(The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)
oem back (The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain)
man, the (Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame)
g Marie (the poem) (Come On In!)
ne (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)
ne: with all the love I had, which was not enough: (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)
y had things to say (The People Look Like Flowers at Last)
5-page booklet, a (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)
use (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)
congressman, a (The People Look Like Flowers at Last)
s of the Crowd, The (The Rooming house Madrigals)
s, the (The Last Night of the Earth Poems)
an bar (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)
a mini skirt reading the Bible outside my window (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)
the escalator (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)
tside the supermarket, the (uncollected)
nd the birds, the (Septuagenarian Stew)
t the green hotel, the (Love Is a Dog from Hell)
he (Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame)
n your eye (Septuagenarian Stew)
ocket watch, a (Love Is a Dog from Hell)
sh (The Rooming house Madrigals)
(Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame)
escape, the (sifting through the madness)
writer, a (The People Look Like Flowers at Last)
ha ha ha, ha ha (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)
r freeway south (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)
r you try, the (The People Look Like Flowers at Last)
a lonely place (Septuagenarian Stew)
how are you? (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)
Rise of the New World, The (The Rooming house Madrigals)
y of a tough motherfucker, the (War All the Time)
e, the painter (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)
urning in Water, Drowning in Flame)
your heart? (You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense)
e dark (play the plano drunk)
n nature (The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain)
aten by butterflies (The Rooming house Madrigals)
the eagles (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)
you (Bone Palace Ballet)
him (play the piano drunk)
e a mistake (Love Is a Dog from Hell)
ove (play the piano drunk)
ake(Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)
eighborhood of murder (Love Is a Dog from Hell)
er words (Bone Palace Ballet)
center of the action (Bone Palace Ballet)
lobby (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)
ot much (The People Look Like Flowers at Last)
ange (Dangling in the Tournefortia)
glad (Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame)
ese Wife, The (The Rooming house Madrigals)
play the piano drunk)
a (Love Is a Dog from Hell)
gets ready, a (play the piano drunk)
of summer, the (play the piano drunk)
n red, the (Dangling in the Tournefortia)
ays of the suicide kid, the (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)
eneration, the (War All the Time)
ed woman and liberated man (Open All Night)
the king (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)
cherry seed in the throat (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)
dolphin (sifting through the madness)
flower in the rain (Love Is a Dog from Hell)
he (Dangling in the Tournefortia)

y discussion, a (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)
rls hissed, the (Come On In!)
the (play the piano drunk)
The (The Rooming house Madrigals)
San Pedro (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)
Poem, A (War All the Time)
moi selle from Armentires (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)
al mystery tour (uncollected)
mowing the lawn across the way from me (The People Look Like Flowers at Last)
(Open All Night)
a: (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)
while (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)
cholia (Love Is a Dog from Hell)
morphosis (play the piano drunk)
naires (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)
and heart (Come On In!)
ngbird, the (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)
olian coasts shining in light (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)
omic stockpile (uncollected)
g night on the town (sifting through the madness)
ts (Come On In!)
lure (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)
e (uncollected)
end William (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)
t winter (The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain)
as a sitcom (sifting through the madness)
ecial craving (uncollected)
ry leg (The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain)
ephone (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)
saw George Raft in Vegas, the (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)
, the (The People Look Like Flowers at Last)
ders, please (Come On In!)
nder (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)
upon the flaxen aspect: (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)
(The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)
Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame)
hes free (Open All Night)
s, the (Septuagenarian Stew)
s (War All the Time)
ng 20 (War All the Time)
r Sherwood Anderson (Dangling in the Tournefortia)
r the old boy (War All the Time)
r the shoeshine man (Love Is a Dog from Hell)
ore good one (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)
riters funeral (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)
ng out to get the mail (Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame)
sidewalk and in the sun (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)
y, the (Septuagearian Stew)
(The Last Night of the Earth Poems)
es 1950 (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)
p, the (Betting on the Muse)
ures of the damned, the (Betting on the Muse)
for personnel managers: (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)
is a city, a (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)
reading, the (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)
(The Last Night of the Earth Poems)
(The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain)
r in bad weather (Love Is a Dog from Hell)
the (Love Is a Dog from Hell)
thin dying, the (play the piano drunk)
action (You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense)
ack parking lot at the end of the day (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)
with guts, a (play the piano drunk)
d yard, the (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)
ess as the tarantula (You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense)
ements, the (The Last Night of the Earth Poems)

sifting through the madness)

Bone Palace Ballet)
et (Love Is a Dog from Hell)
from 1940: (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)
in a tent outside the cotton fields of Bakersfield: (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)
l days (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)
lyards of forever (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)
-game, the (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)
ovel, the (Love Is a Dog from Hell)
laughter (Open All Night)
flicted wounds (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)
ove Is a Dog from Hell)
omes from somewhere (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)
hits, the (uncollected)
ace, the (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)
(You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense)
f red-eye (Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame)
er, the (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)
amned thing anyhow (The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain)
e truth, the (sifting through the madness)
d endure (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)
talk (Slouching Toward Nirvana)
to remember, a (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)
ng car, the (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)
of Italy, the (The People Look Like Flowers at Last)
y should realize(Bone Palace Ballet)
body (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)
hing about a woman (uncollected)
hing for the touts, the nuns, the grocery clerks and you(Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame)
hings knocking at the door (Slouching Toward Nirvana)
You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense)
w? (Betting on the Muse)
of dead animals, the (play the piano drunk)
swan (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)
, go mad, or kill yourself (uncollected)
est sight you ever did see, the (Love Is a Dog from Hell)
ation, a (The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain)
oming down (The People Look Like Flowers at Last)
ay lunch at the Holy Mission (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)
cat (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)
s, the (Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame)
g to my mailbox (War All the Time)
he Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)
Bone Palace Ballet)
all of them, know (Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame)
marvelous lunches (Betting on the Muse)
hts from a stone bench in Venice (uncollected)
to my immortality, a (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)
nd one half(Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)
o remember, a (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)
n the afterdusk (Septuagenarian Stew)
n back into it (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)
ht (Love Is a Dog from Hell)
dy of the leaves, the (Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame)
men, the (Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame)
an lives (You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense)
s and trellises (The Last Night of the Earth Poems)
out (Love Is a Dog from Hell)
t musings (Come On In!)
side, As Bones Break in My Kitchen (The Rooming house Madrigals)
eading an interview with a best-selling novelist in our metropolitan daily newspaper (sifting through the madness)
cy (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)
Gogh (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)
(uncollected)
st, the (uncollected)
i Po wrong? (Come On In!)

nt got no money, honey, but we got rain (The Last Night of the Earth Poems)
a man I was (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)
(What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)
Hugo Wolf went mad(The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)
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)
was Jane? (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)
dog (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)
n the hell is Tom Jones? (Love Is a Dog from Hell)
eeds it? (sifting through the madness)
of forever, the (You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense)
n on the street (Betting on the Muse)
s greatest loser, the (Mockingbird Wish Me Luck)
way, the (The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps)
lady who lives in Canoga Park, the (uncollected)
man on the bus stop bench, the (What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)

About the Author

is one of Americas 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, 19601967 (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.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI

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 19551973 (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)
Theres No Business (1984)
War All the Time: Poems 19811984 (1984)
You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense (1986)
The Movie: Barfly (1987)
The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems 19461966 (1988)
Hollywood (1989)
Septuagenarian Stew: Stories & Poems (1990)
The Last Night of the Earth Poems (1992)
Screams from the Balcony: Selected Letters 19601970 (1993)
Pulp (1994)
Living on Luck: Selected Letters 1960s1970s (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 19781994 (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 19601967 (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
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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
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