deliberately.
I told them all to
get out
and she started hollering down to the guy
who had beat on the fag
and he kept calling her name back up
and then I remembered she had vanished for an hour
before the reading.
she did those things.
maybe not bad things
but consistently careless things
and I told her we were through
and to get out
and I went to bed
then hours later she walked in
and I said, what the hell are you doing here?
she was all wild, hair down in her face,
you’re too callous, I said, I don’t want you.
it was dark and she leaped at me:
I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you!
I was still too drunk to defend myself
and she had me down on the kitchen floor
and she clawed my face and
bit a hole in my arm.
then I went back to bed and listened to her heels
going down the hill.
my friend, andre
this kid used to teach at Kansas U.
then they moved him out
he went to a bean factory
then he and his wife moved to the coast
she got a job and worked while
he looked for a job as an actor.
I really want to be an actor, he told me,
that’s all I want to be.
he came by with his wife.
he came by alone.
the streets around here are full of guys who
want to be actors.
I saw him yesterday.
he was rolling cigarettes.
I poured him some white wine.
my wife is getting tired of waiting, he said,
I’m going to teach karate.
his hands were swollen from hitting
bricks and walls and doors.
he told me about some of the great oriental
fighters. there was one guy so good
he could turn his head 180 degrees
to see who was behind him. that’s very hard to do,
he said.
further: it’s more difficult to fight 4 men properly placed
than to fight many more. when you have many more
they get in each other’s way, and a good fighter who has
strength and agility can do well.
some of the great fighters, he said,
even suck their balls up into their bodies.
this can be done—to some extent—because there are
natural cavities in the body…. if you stand upsidedown
you will notice this.
I gave him a little more white wine,
then he left.
you know, sometimes making it with a typewriter
isn’t so painful
after all.
i was glad
I was glad I had money in the Savings and Loan
Friday afternoon hungover
I didn’t have a job
I was glad I had money in the Savings and Loan
I didn’t know how to play a guitar
Friday afternoon hungover
Friday afternoon hungover
across the street from Norm’s
across the street from The Red Fez
I was glad I had money in the Savings and Loan
split with my girlfriend and blue and demented
I was glad to have my passbook and stand in line
I watched the buses run up Vermont
I was too crazy to get a job as a driver of buses
and I didn’t even look at the young girls
I got dizzy standing in line but I
just kept thinking I have money in this building
Friday afternoon hungover
I didn’t know how to play the piano
or even hustle a damnfool job in a carwash
I was glad I had money in the Savings and Loan
finally I was at the window
it was my Japanese girl
she smiled at me as if I were some amazing god
back again, eh? she said and laughed
as I showed her my withdrawal slip and my passbook
as the buses ran up and down Vermont
the camels trotted across the Sahara
she gave me the money and I took the money
Friday afternoon hungover
I walked into the market and got a cart
and I threw sausages and eggs and bacon and bread in there
I threw beer and salami and relish and pickles and mustard in there
I looked at the young housewives wiggling casually
I threw t-bone steaks and porterhouse and cube steaks in my cart
and tomatoes and cucumbers and oranges in my cart
Friday afternoon hungover
split with my girlfriend and blue and demented
I was glad I had money in the Savings and Loan.
trouble with spain
I got in the shower
and burned my balls
last Wednesday.
met this painter called Spain,
no, he was a cartoonist,
well, I met him at a party
and everybody got mad at me
because I didn’t know who he was
or what he did.
he was rather a handsome guy
and I guess he was jealous because
I was so ugly.
they told me his name
and he was leaning against the wall
looking handsome, and I said:
hey, Spain, I like that name: Spain.
but I don’t like you. why don’t we step out
in the garden and I’ll kick the shit out of your
ass?
this made the hostess angry
and she walked over and rubbed his pecker
while I went to the crapper
and heaved.
but everybody’s angry at me.
Bukowski, he can’t write, he’s had it.
washed-up. look at him drink.
he never used to come to parties.
now he comes to parties and drinks everything
up and insults real talent.
I used to admire him when he cut his wrists
and when he tried to kill himself with
gas. look at him now leering at that 19 year old
girl, and you know he
can’t get it up.
I not only burnt my balls in that shower
last Wednesday, I spun around to get out of the burning
water and burnt my bunghole
too.
wet night
the rag.
she sat there, glooming.
I couldn’t do anything with her.
it was raining.
she got up and left.
well, hell, here it is again, I thought
I picked up my drink and turned the radio up,
took the lampshade off the lamp
and smoked a cheap black bitter cigar
imported from Germany.
there was a knock on the door
and I opened the door
a little man stood in the rain
and he said,
have you seen a pigeon on your porch?
I told him I hadn’t seen a pigeon on my porch
and he said if I saw a pigeon on my porch
to let him know.
I closed the door
sat down
and then a black cat leaped through the
window and jumped on my
lap and purred, it was a beautiful animal
and I took it into the kitchen and we both ate a
slice of ham.
then I turned off all the lights
and went to bed
and that black cat went to bed with me
and
it purred
and I thought, well, somebody likes me,
then the cat started pissing,
it pissed all over me and all over the sheets,
the piss rolled across my belly and slid down my sides
and I said: hey, what’s wrong with you?
I picked up the cat and walked him to the door
and threw him out into the rain
and I thought, that’s very strange, that cat
pissing on me
his piss was cold as the rain.
then I phoned her
and I said, look, what’s wrong with you? have you lost
your god damned mind?
I hung up and pulled the sheets off the bed
and got in and lay there listening to the rain.
sometimes a man doesn’t know what to do about things
and sometimes it’s best to lie very still
and try not to think at all
about anything.
that cat belonged to somebody
it had a flea collar.
I don’t know about the
woman.
we, the artists—
in San Francisco the landlady, 80, helped me drag the green
Victrola up the stairway and I played Beethoven’s 5th
until they beat on the walls.
there was a large bucket in the center of the room
filled with beer and winebottles;
so, it might have been the d.t.’s, one afternoon
I heard a sound something like a bell
only the bell was humming instead of ringing,
and then a golden light appeared in the corner of the room
up near the ceiling
and through the sound and light
shone the face of a woman, worn but beautiful,
and she looked down at me
and then a man’s face appeared by hers,
the light became stronger and the man said:
we, the artists, are proud of you!
then the woman said: the poor boy is frightened,
and I was, and then it went away.
I got up, dressed, and went to the bar
wondering who the artists were and why they should be
proud of me. there were some live ones in the bar
and I got some free drinks, set my pants on fire with the
ashes from my corncob pipe, broke a glass deliberately,
was not rousted, met a man who claimed he was William
Saroyan, and we drank until a woman came in and
pulled him out by the ear and I thought, no, that can’t be
William, and another guy came in and said: man, you talk
tough, well, listen, I just got out for assault and
battery, so don’t mess with me! we went outside the
bar, he was a good boy, he knew how to duke, and it went
along fairly even, then they stopped it and we went
back in and drank another couple of hours. I walked
back up to my place, put on Beethoven’s 5th and
when they beat on the walls I beat
back.
I keep thinking of myself young, then, the way I was,
and I can hardly believe it but I don’t mind it.
I hope the artists are still proud of me
but they never came back
again.
the war came running in and next I knew
I was in New Orleans
walking into a bar drunk
after falling down in the mud on a rainy night.
I saw one man stab another and I walked over and
put a nickle in the juke box.
it was a beginning. San
Francisco and New Orleans were two of my
favorite towns.
i can’t stay in the same room with that woman for five minutes
I went over the other day
to pick up my daughter.
her mother came out with workman’s
overalls on.
I gave her the child support money
and she laid a sheaf of poems on me by one
Manfred Anderson.
I read them.
he’s great, she said.
does he send this shit out? I asked.
oh no, she said, Manfred wouldn’t do that.
why?
well, I don’t know exactly.
listen, I said, you know all the poets who
don’t send their shit out.
the magazines aren’t ready for them, she said,
they’re too far advanced for publication.
oh for christ’s sake, I said, do you really
believe that?
yes, yes, I really believe that, she
answered.
look, I said, you don’t even have the kid ready
yet. she doesn’t have her shoes on. can’t you
put her shoes on?
your daughter is 8 years old, she said,
she can put her own shoes on.
listen, I said to my daughter, for christ’s sake
will you put your shoes on?
Manfred never screams, said her mother.
OH HOLY JESUS CHRIST! I yelled
you see, you see? she said, you haven’t changed.
what time is it? I asked.
4:30. Manfred did submit some poems once, she said,
but they sent them back and he was terribly
upset.
you’ve got your shoes on, I said to my daughter,
let’s go.
her mother walked to the door with us.
have a nice day, she said.
fuck off, I said.
when she closed the door there was a sign pasted to
the outside. it said:
SMILE.
I didn’t.
we drove down Pico on the way in.
I stopped outside the Red Ox.
I’ll be right back, I told my daughter.
I walked in, sat down, and ordered a scotch and
water. over the bar there was a little guy popping in and
out of a door holding a very red, curved penis
in his hand.
can’t
can’t you make him stop? I asked the barkeep.
can’t you shut that thing off?
what’s the matter with you, buddy? he asked.
I submit my poems to the magazines, I said.
you submit your poems to the magazines? he asked.
you are god damned right I do, I said.
I finished my drink and got back to the car.
I drove down Pico Boulevard.
the remainder of the day was bound to be better.
charisma
this woman keeps phoning me
even though I tell her I am living with a woman
I love.
I keep hearing noises in the environment,
she phones,
I thought it was you.
me? I haven’t been drunk for several
days.
well, maybe it wasn’t you but I felt it was
somebody who was trying to help
me.
maybe it was God. do you think He’s there?
yes, He’s a hook from the ceiling.
I thought so.
I’m growing tomatoes in my basement,
she says.
that’s sensible.
I want to move, where shall I move?
north is obvious, west is the ocean. the east is the
past. south is the only way.
south?
yes, but not past the border. it’s death to
gringos.
what’s Salinas like? she asks.
if you like lettuce
go to Salinas.
suddenly she hangs up. she always does that. and she
always phones back in a day or a week or a
month. she’ll be at my funeral with tomatoes and the
<
br /> yellow pages of the phonebook stuck into the pockets of
her mince-brown overcoat in 97 degree heat,
I have a way with the ladies.
the sound of human lives
strange warmth, hot and cold females,
I make good love, but love isn’t just
sex. most females I’ve known are
ambitious, and I like to lie around
on large comfortable pillows at 3 o’clock
in the afternoon, I like to watch the sun
through the leaves of a bush outside
while the world out there
holds away from me, I know it so well, all
those dirty pages, and I like to lie around
my belly up to the ceiling after making love
everything flowing in:
it’s so easy to be easy—if you let it, that’s all
that’s necessary.
but the female is strange, she is very
ambitious—shit! I can’t sleep away the day!
all we do is eat! make love! sleep! eat! make love!
my dear, I say, there are men out there now
picking tomatoes, lettuce, even cotton,
there are men and women dying under the sun,
there are men and women dying in factories
for nothing, a pittance…
I can hear the sound of human lives being ripped to
pieces…
you don’t know how lucky we
are…
but you’ve got it made, she says,
Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame Page 13
