Betting on the Muse

by Charles Bukowski

  and a boy born without eyes

  and a kitten without a bird,

  nothing but twine

  and waiting

  and whores dipping hearts in poison,

  and exhaust and exhaustion

  and the bliss and the kiss of syphilis,

  drag down the vines

  the broken-foot bottles,

  I keep saying

  ha ha ha the giants

  the giant sun

  am I, the giant. our sun

  tonight

  without sun

  your shoes alone without you in them

  and I alone frying steaks and drinking beer

  and listening to Wagner

  the price of the sun,

  the price of the sun,

  and I don’t give a damn if you never come back.

  you don’t know

  you don’t know how good it

  can get

  being in a strange city,

  nobody knowing who you

  are,

  coming in from the low-paying

  job,

  forgetting dinner,

  taking off your shoes,

  climbing onto the bed,

  lights out

  in that cheap dark

  room

  living with the roaches

  or the mice,

  hearing the crackling of

  the wallpaper

  or the rush of small

  feet darting

  across the floor.

  lifting the wine bottle

  there in the moonlight

  or in the light of the

  street lamps and the

  neon signs,

  the wine entering your

  body,

  the flare of your match

  lighting a

  cigarette.

  you don’t know how good

  it can get

  without women,

  without a telephone,

  without a tv set,

  without a car.

  with the bathroom down

  the hall.

  relaxed in the dark

  hearing the voices of the

  other roomers,

  hearing pans rattling,

  food frying,

  toilets flushing,

  arguments,

  occasional

  laughter.

  you don’t know

  the names of the

  streets,

  who the mayor is

  or how long you

  will remain.

  you will remain

  until the next city,

  the next room,

  the next low-paying

  job.

  the mice will become

  bolder.

  one will come up on

  the dresser,

  climb up on the handle

  of the coffee cup,

  hang there,

  looking at you.

  you will get up and

  approach the mouse.

  you are the

  intruder.

  as you get closer

  he still will not

  move.

  his eyes and your eyes

  will intermix.

  it is the clash of

  centuries.

  then he will leap

  through the air

  in the darkness and

  be gone.

  you will return to

  the bed, smiling,

  thinking, he’s lucky,

  he doesn’t have to

  pay the rent.

  you will drink some more

  from the wine

  bottle,

  then rise, take off your

  clothing, stack it on

  the chair.

  you will sit up against

  the pillow,

  listening to the cars

  passing below.

  you will get up,

  check the alarm clock,

  see that it is set for

  7:30 a.m.

  then, foolishly, you’ll

  have to put your pants

  on again

  to make a bathroom

  run.

  the hall will be quiet

  and empty,

  the lights will be out,

  there will only be

  darkness under each

  doorway.

  the roomers are

  sleeping.

  your face

  in the bathroom mirror

  will grin at

  you.

  then you will walk

  back to your room,

  get the pants off

  again, hang them over

  the back of the

  chair that is possibly

  older than

  you.

  the last drink is

  best, the last flare of

  the match

  lighting the last

  cigarette.

  you hold the match,

  still burning,

  up against the palm

  of your right

  hand.

  long life line.

  too bad.

  then to stretch out,

  the covers up

  against your

  neck.

  warm covers.

  rented covers.

  covers of love.

  the day seeps slowly

  back through your

  consciousness.

  not much.

  then, like the other

  roomers, you are

  asleep.

  you are equal to the

  side of a

  triangle,

  to a mountain in

  Peru,

  to a tiger

  licking its

  paw.

  you don’t know

  how good it can be

  until you’ve been

  there.

  let not

  let not the people be your

  foundation,

  not the young girls,

  not the old girls,

  not the young men,

  not the old men,

  not those in-between,

  not any of these,

  let not the people be your

  foundation.

  rather

  build on sand

  build on landfills,

  build over cesspools,

  build over graveyards,

  build even over water,

  but don’t build on the

  people.

  they are a bad bet,

  the worst bet you can make.

  build it elsewhere,

  anywhere else,

  anywhere

  but on the people,

  the headless, heartless

  mass

  mucking up the

  centuries,

  the days,

  the nights,

  the towns, the cities, the

  nations,

  the earth,

  the stratosphere,

  mucking up the

  light,

  mucking up

  all chance,

  here,

  totally mucking

  it up

  then

  now

  tomorrow.

  anything,

  compared to the people,

  is a foundation worth

  searching for.

  anything.

  the death of a roach

  …when the last fig falls and we are pruned from light,

  our golden ladies gleaned of love—

  infest us with the mercy

  of stone.

  calisthenic tempest, kingly pain

  the flowers held kisses and blossoms

  crackling with lightning power against our

  pinioned brain; I watch the roach

  as prophets of exile drink

  and break their cups.

  the gr
asses held long and green their secrets.

  now, old ladies cassocked like monks

  treadmill the slow poor stairs

  bumping their angry canes: solatium! solatium!

  and they close themselves in shawls

  as the sun rallies new buds to color,

  and they think…of onions and biscuits

  (beautiful day, isn’t it?)

  (did you hear Father Francis? Sunday?)

  the roach climbs

  (the mirrors of love are broken)

  blind yet begotten with life, a dedicated wraith

  of pus and antennae.

  I take him from his task

  with a stab of a finger that wretches

  like a stomach against the sick black twisted

  death; no bandores here, or philosophical canvas to color

  with tantamounts.

  I hide him in some hasty packet and flush his ugliness away,

  and above me in the mirror, consumed and listening there:

  a crevice, a demon declaring his hand:—

  all about me the old ladies cackle enraged, infirm

  and bleeding

  violate,

  lepisma,

  they attack my tired guts with

  canes and pins,

  with scrolls and bibles,

  with celebrations of

  witchcraft

  they maim my brain with mercy until I fall witless and ill,

  shouting

  shouting roominghouses and grass,

  shouting apes and horses,

  shouting

  flowers and kisses: the insects are

  suspect—

  man can only destroy himself.

  the unwritten

  it’s been months now: the most

  horrible thing I have ever

  felt.

  and I might have avoided

  it.

  might have.

  maybe not.

  but I didn’t and in a way I

  couldn’t.

  it occurred more quickly than

  I could respond.

  I should have been more

  able,

  more ready.

  and for some

  what was a horror for me

  might have been

  trivial to them.

  but I have never been

  “them.”

  it’s over now.

  the pain of that should be

  finished.

  but it stays with me.

  and that I did not act in

  time to prevent it—

  but that moment is

  gone.

  and

  I truly hate myself

  for the first

  time.

  I will never recover.

  it comes back to me

  again and

  again.

  and in its aftermath,

  nothing will ever be

  quite right

  again—

  walking down a

  hill,

  getting out of

  bed,

  common tasks,

  celebrations,

  just

  happenings

  are

  reshaped

  by that occurrence.

  I was gored

  by my own

  stupidity.

  it was an animal.

  it was an animal,

  caused by some

  human

  thing?

  would that it was

  human.

  so I could have

  considered it

  trivial.

  right now

  the party’s over, the rooster is

  crowing and they’ve called in

  the dice, the dancing girls are

  snoring, the mice are crawling

  in the paper cups, the donkey is

  pinned to the tail, the fable has

  crawled away to die, love is

  covered with dust, the temples

  are empty, the bird has flown

  the cage, the cage encloses a

  midget heart weeping, the dream

  has taken a dive and I sit

  looking at my hands, looking at

  my hands

  empty of the sound of the

  moment.

  the sheep

  in centuries past

  audiences at symphony concerts

  were not afraid to act out their

  displeasure at works which

  offended

  them.

  in our time

  I have either attended or

  listened to

  hundreds of concerts

  and never have I heard an

  audience

  express even the mildest displeasure

  with any

  work.

  have our musical artists improved

  to such an

  extent?

  or is it the decay of courage,

  the inability of the

  mass mind to

  reach its own

  decisions?

  not only in the world of

  music

  but in the other

  world?

  the next time you hear

  a symphony concert

  note

  the obedient applause,

  the death of the bluebird,

  the shading of the sun;

  the hooves of the horses from

  hell

  pounding on the barren

  ground

  of the human

  spirit.

  piss

  remember once I was sitting in this hotel

  room when my woman came in drunk and said,

  “Christ, I couldn’t hold it, I had to piss in the

  elevator!”

  I was drunk too, I was barefoot and in

  my shorts.

  I got up and walked out the door and down

  the hall and pushed the elevator

  button.

  it came up.

  the door opened.

  the elevator was empty but sure enough

  there in the corner was the

  puddle.

  as I was standing there a man and a

  woman came out of their place

  and walked toward the

  elevator.

  the door was beginning to close

  so I held it open with my hand

  so they could get

  on.

  as the door began to close I heard the

  woman say,

  “that man was in his shorts.”

  and just as it closed I heard the man say,

  “and he pissed in the elevator.”

  I went back to the room and told her,

  “they think I pissed in the elevator.”

  “who?” she asked.

  “people.”

  “what people?”

  “the people who saw me standing

  in my shorts.”

  “well, screw them,” she said.

  she was sitting there drinking a glass

  of wine.

  “take a bath,” I said.

  “you take a bath,” she said.

  “at least take a shower,” I said.

  “you take a shower,” she said.

  I sat down and poured a glass of

  wine.

  we were always arguing about

  something.

  last fight

  he’s just a handler

  now.

  he’s in the gym

  watching the young

  boxers spar.

  he knows all the

  moves,

  watches the footwork,

  the counter-

  punching, the leads,

  the hooks, the

  timing, the

  will.

  he was a fighter

  once,

  went a num
ber of

  ten rounders.

  now he watches

  the action,

  squinting,

  analyzing.

  he’s got a gut

  now

  it bulges out

  under his old

  sweat shirt.

  it’s an afternoon

  in the gym.

  he can hear them

  grunt,

  he can hear the

  shots, the

  big gloves

  landing.

  inside his head

  he can see

  himself in the

  ring,

  he can hear the

  screams of the

  young girls

  again,

  the yelling of

  the men,

  he can feel the

  lights,

  the canvas

  under his feet,

  the ropes

  squaring him

  into

  battle.

  son-of-a-bitch,

  what a

  time,

  son-of-a-bitch,

  what a

  life!