equity,
1690 cubic feet, anorexia, the shade of
Marcus Junius Brutus &
a new typewriter ribbon.
a photo of Hemingway pasted in my
bathroom.
god christ, Harry, I am a writer,
and it’s not easy when I am the only one who knows it,
except maybe Dirty Jane,
but I’ll probably end up some day so famous
that I won’t be able to stand myself
and it will be the razor.
anyhow, strange ending
to the same dirty game.
Bukowski just by to borrow a razorblade—
wonder what he needs it for
with all that
beard?
men’s crapper
take this one:
first before he shits he wipes with
easy grace the
lid of the seat, he really shines the damn
thing
then he spreads toilet paper over the seat,
quite neatly, even
dangling a gob of it where his powerful genitals will
hang, and then he lowers with
dignity and manliness
his shorts and pants
and
sits and
shits
almost without passion
scuffling an old dirty newspaper
between his feet and reading about yesterday’s basketball
game—
this you see here is a Man: worldly, and no crabs for this
baby, and an easy
a real easy
shit, and he will wipe his ass
while conversing with the man who is washing his hands
at the nearest sink,
and if you are standing nearby
his little mouse eyes will fall upon yours without a
quiver, and then—
the shorts up, the pants up, the hook of belt, the flush of
toilet,
the washing of the hands
and then he stands before the mirror
surveying the glory of himself
combing his hair carefully in neat and
delicate swoops, finishing,
then putting that
face
close to the mirror
and looking in and upon himself, then
satisfied
he leaves
first making sure to give you the elbow
or the ponderous nightmare insult of his empty
eyes, and then with
the twirling of his dumbstruck egotistical buttocks
he leaves the men’s room,
and I am left with facetowels like flowers
mirrors like the sea
and I am left with the sickest of hopes
that someday the real human being will arrive
so that there will be something to save
let alone
shit
out.
like a flyswatter
write to the president
it is coming through
everything is coming through
some day you will kiss dogs on the street
some day all the money that you will need will be
yourself
it will be so easy that we will go completely or
seemingly mad and
sing for hours
making up words and laughing
sweet jesus boy
the dream is so near
you can touch it like a
flyswatter
while working through walls toward
burial
the Bomb itself won’t matter
peanut butter bluebirds torn before your eyes won’t
matter
it is just
the conformation of light and idea and stride all
bunched
ganged
walking along
a hell of a mighty night
a hell of a mighty way
it’s so easy
some day I will walk into a cage with a bear
sit down and light a cigarette
look at Him
and He will sit down and cry,
40 billion people watching without sound
as the sky turns upside down and
splits the backbone
open.
take me out to the ball game
the girls can take it
sideways
standing up
or upside down on their heads
or on your
head
how the girls can take it
front or
back
bite
suck
tongue
leather
slap
punch
knife
burn
tanned or bathed in orgy butter
drunk
sober
high
angry
low
vicious
happy
pretending
the girls can take it
all you’ve
got and room for
more;
what little you’ve
got—
penis, heart, lungbreath, sweatstink
albatross moan
elephant insight
flea scream
warty hogtongued old men
young boys with sad pimples
madman and genius
butchers and nazis
sadists and simpletons
gas men
ass men
half-men
elf-men
bellboys—
how the girls can take it,
you can drive a Helm’s Bakery truck through it
whistle blowing
you can play a harmonica with it,
make men jump bridges for it
or because of it
or because of it not,
but it just isn’t all that good
farting
legs back in ridiculous supine position,
it’s a kind of a cunty trick to chop the blueness out of your
eyes
to boggle your ass like a looney
praying for ejaculation proof
of some pre-created
cardboard
schoolboy Manhood.
the girls can take it
will take it
can take you
make you into a Captain of Industry or
an eater of shit,
anything they want
they can bury you, marry you
flog you
cover you with icing like a cake
put your dick into a jar of black widow spiders
and make you sing
TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME!
the girls walking along on Sunday mornings
can make you think of Mahler
the paintings of Cézanne
they can make you think of quiet things
quiet true and easy
things;
how they sway and glide in their yellow and
blue dresses . . .
they’ve put half the madmen beating their padded walls
where they are, god,
I once chased one half across the state of Nevada
and when I spun her around
I saw I had been chasing the same ass
but it was upon the body of another woman!
I’ve cleaned out entire bars in my fury,
tried to drown myself
in dirty apartment house bathtubs,
and for what?—
a cunt.
a hole in the wall.
a mirage.
cheese on the windowsill
covered with flies.
how the girls can take it.
how the girls can bring it on.
keep it going.
the Soviet ta
nks rolled into Prague today
filled with their children.
the girls wear flowers in their hair.
I love them.
I thought I was going to get some
I had just vomited out the door of my car
had mixed reds, wine, beer and whiskey.
late Saturday night
no, early Sunday morning;
I couldn’t take much more; I was always
killing myself
ending up in jails, hospitals, doorways, floors . . .
translated into 7 languages
taught in half a dozen modern lit. courses,
I still didn’t know anything,
didn’t want to;
I finished the last retch
closed the door
and swung east on Sunset—
when I saw this thing with long blonde hair
vomiting, really letting it
go—spitting out the rotten life the rotten booze—
the slacks were down, dragging,
ass-bare under the cardboard Hollywood moon—
the thing was really sick:
it heaved, then moved down a little ways,
heaved, all that white ass,
and I thought, shit, I’m gonna get me some—
it’s been about 2 years and I’m tired of writing about
hand-jobs—
but when I got up close
I saw that they weren’t slacks but pants;
it was just a long-haired kid with a big naked ass,
but then, like my buddy Benny used to say—
“what the hell difference does it make?”
and I was just about to pull over by him
when the squad car saw him
and cut in between us
and the two cops leaped out
quite happy and excited with their find—
“HEY, MOTHER, WHAT YOU DOING WITH YOUR BUNGHOLE
SHOWING?”
the kid spread his legs, threw his arms up into the air.
“HEY, YOU!” one of the cops yelled at me.
I cut my lights and slowly moved on out as if I hadn’t
heard. then put it to the floorboard at the first
right. at Gramercy Place and Hollywood Blvd. I stopped
opened the door and
vomited again.
poor son of a bitch, I thought, instead of
taking him home or to a hospital
they’ll take him to jail—all that white ass.
maybe they’ll take some of it. well, it was too late for
me.
I closed the door, turned on the lights, drove on,
trying to remember where I
lived.
charity ward
and they threw me in a cellar for 3 days
and it was a very dark place, and it seemed as if
everybody were insane down there and that,
at least, kept me happy. but every now and then
a big bastard who called himself
“Booboo Cullers, the big man of the Avenues!”
would come around, I mean he would get out of his bed
and he was huge and mad and I was weak, very,
and he would beat the other patients with his fists,
but I’d always manage to bluff him
I’d pick up my water pitcher
raise back left-handed, curse, and aim.
Boo gave off.
after carrying off 6 dead
one by natural causes
5 by the hands of the wondrous Booboo Cullers
the big man of the Avenues,
they strapped down the huge Booboo
with great difficulty,
and I watched while the wards beat against his
face and his belly and his genitals until he
stopped screaming and subsided
and I smiled and realized that the word
Humanism meant
only the most comfort for the most humans,
which I thought was
very nice.
like that
one of the most beautiful blondes of the screen
unbelievable breasts hips legs waist
everything,
in that car crash
it took her head right off her
body—
like that—
there was her head rolling along the side of
the road,
lipstick on, eyebrows plucked, suntan powder on,
bandanna around hair, it rolled along
like a beach-ball
and the body sat in the car
with those breasts hips legs waist,
everything,
and in the mortuary they put her together again,
sewed the head back
on,
jesus christ, said the guy with the thread,
what a waste.
then he went out and had a hamburger, french fries
and 2 cups of coffee,
black.
phone call from my 5-year-old daughter in Garden Grove
hi, Hank!
I’m still climbing the tree and I haven’t fallen
out, so I guess I’ll never fall out
now . . .
tuesday night! mama, mama, Hank’s coming to see us
tuesday night! can we sleep together, Hank?
that’s nice. and we can play in the sandbox before
dinner.
you know, we cleaned it out, Granny and mama and me,
we hosed all these spiders out and we
cleaned the awning. there’s only one place where it’s
all fucked-up . . . what? I said, “there’s only one place
where it’s all fucked-up”
it’s down in the corner
and you and I can dig that
goop outa
there . . .
the solar mass: soul:
genesis and geotropism:
now let me attempt to
attenuate Veechy’s larynx greatness:
for what man of the time could have
said:
“Spooks, Sparks, Spindels—stern strapsin.
Goad oospore from the opine ophite.”
Stithy!
and this was before
Pound, Olson, Williams, John
Muir.
“Plan planifolious planimeters!” he once wrote to
me.
“By the beard of the quinquangular rock,” I rejoined
him, “you’ve struck it!”
I visited him in Italy on All Fools’ Day
and his mastery of the punctate pulvilli
never left me in doubt
drear.
“Trepan,” he said, “ode—whist!—attar astragals.”
it was the last. I saw. of him. Veechy had
emblazoned embouchures, cryptonyms, drosometers;
let the favose favor of him
ring through the ruck,
rubefacient, and give too, rustle in the
rutabaga.
hooked on horse
we used to work on stools next to each other.
he was black and I was white
but this isn’t a racial thing—
we were horseplaying buddies
and we’d sit there sticking letters
all night and through overtime.
our eyes looked like junkies’ eyes:
we were hooked on Horse.
about 2 A.M. I would leap up and throw all my letters down,
“o, jesus!” I’d yell, “o, jesus christ!”
“what what?” my buddy would ask.
I’d stand there with a cigarette burning my lips:
“o, sweet jesus, I’ve got it! I’ve got it! o, sweet jesus,
it’s so simple! it just came to me! why didn’t I think of it?”
“what is it?” he would ask, “tell me.”
then the supervisor would run up:
“Bukowski, what the hell’s wrong with you? man your case! have
you
gone crazy?”
I’d stand there and calmly light a new cigarette:
“look, baby, stand off! you bug me! let me be the first to tell you,
baby,
my working days here are definitely limited! I’ve got it! I’ve really
got it
now!”
“your working days here, Bukowski, are definitely limited! now
man your case and
stop screaming!”
I’d look at him like a dog turd and walk down to the
crapper. why hadn’t I thought of it before? I’d buy a place in the
Hollywood
Hills, drink and screw all night, gamble all
day.
then I’d walk back, feeling calm.
it would be all right until 4 a.m. and then my buddy would leap up
throwing his mail all over the case:
“it’s all over! it’s all over! I’ve got it! o, my god, I’ve got it!
it’s so simple! all ya gotta do is take the horse that . . .”
“yes, yes?” I’d ask.
and the supervisor would come running down again
and ask my buddy:
“now what the hell’s wrong with you? you crazy too?”
“look, man, back off! get your face out of my face
before I cut you loose!”
“you threatenin’ me, man?”
“I’m tellin’ you, I’m through with this job! now back
off!”
we’d run to the track the next day to make our kill
but that night we’d be back on our postal stools, as
usual. of course, it doesn’t make much sense to work for 20 or 30
bucks a night
when you lose 50 bucks a day. he quit first and I soon
followed. I see him at the track every day now.
his wife takes care of him. “I finally got my play straightened out,”
he tells me.
“sure,” I say and walk off, thinking, that son of a bitch is really crazy,
then I walk toward the 5 win window to place a bet on my newest
angle play,
all you do is take the speed rating, add it to the first 2 figures
in the money
earned column, then you . . .
fuck
fuck the censors
and fuck squiggly joe
and fuck fuck
and fuck you
and fuck me
and fuck the blueberry bush
and a jar of mayonnaise
and fuck the refrigerator
Storm for the Living and the Dead Page 3
