then he returns
to reality.
son-of-a-bitch,
he’s old.
he’s got a bucket
and a
towel.
well, it beats
sucking buttermilk
through a
straw.
the rounds are
finished,
something else
now waits.
yeah.
there’ll be
no more split
decisions for
that
son-of-a-bitch.
defining the magic
a good poem is like a cold beer
when you need it,
a good poem is a hot turkey
sandwich when you’re
hungry,
a good poem is a gun when
the mob corners you,
a good poem is something that
allows you to walk through the streets of
death,
a good poem can make death melt like
hot butter,
a good poem can frame agony and
hang it on a wall,
a good poem can let your feet touch
China,
a good poem can make a broken mind
fly,
a good poem can let you shake hands
with Mozart,
a good poem can let you shoot craps
with the devil
and win,
a good poem can do almost anything,
and most important
a good poem knows when to
stop.
writing
often it is the only
thing
between you and
impossibility.
no drink,
no woman’s love,
no wealth
can
match it.
nothing can save
you
except
writing.
it keeps the walls
from
falling.
the hordes from
closing
in.
it blasts the
darkness.
writing is the
ultimate
psychiatrist,
the kindliest
god of all the
gods.
writing stalks
death.
it knows no
quit.
and writing
laughs
at itself,
at pain.
it is the last
expectation,
the last
explanation.
that’s
what it
is.
views
my friend says, how can you write so many poems
from that window? I write from the womb,
he tells me. the dark thing of pain,
the featherpoint of pain…
well, this is very impressive
only I know that we both receive a good many
rejections, smoke a great many cigarettes,
drink too much and attempt to steal each other’s
women, which is not poetry at all.
and he reads me his poems
he always reads me his poems
and I listen and do not say too much,
I look out of the window,
and there is the same street
my street
my drunken, rained-on, sunned-on,
childrened-on street,
and at night I watch this street
sometimes
when it thinks I am not looking,
the one or 2 cars moving quietly,
the same old man, still alive, on his
nightly walk,
the shades of houses down,
love has failed but
hangs on
then lets go
as the tomcats chase it,
but now it is daylight and children
who will some day be old men and women
walking through last moments,
these children run around a red car
screaming their good nothings,
then my friend puts down his poem…
well, what do you think? he asks.
try so and so, I name a magazine,
and then oddly
I think of guitars under the sea
trying to play music;
it is sad and good and quiet.
he sees me at the window.
what’s out there?
look, I say,
and see…
he is eleven years younger than I.
he turns from the window: I need a beer,
I’m out of beer.
I walk to the refrigerator
and the subject is closed.
the strong man
I went to see him, there in that place in
Echo Park
after my shift at the
post office.
he was a huge bearded fellow
and he sat in his chair like a
Buddha
and he was my Buddha, my guru,
my hero, my roar of
light.
sometimes he wasn’t kind
but he was always more than
interesting.
to come from the post office
a slave
to that explosion of light
confounded me,
but it was a remarkable and
delightful
confusion.
thousands of books upon
hundreds of subjects
lay rotting in his
cellar.
to play chess with him was
to be laughed off the
board.
to challenge him
physically or
mentally was
useless.
but he had the ability to
listen to your
persiflage
patiently
and then the ability
to sum up its
weaknesses,
its delusions in
one sentence.
I often wondered how
he put up with my
railings; he was kind,
after all.
the nights lasted 7,
8 hours.
I had myself.
he had himself
and a beautiful woman
who quietly smiled as she
listened to
us.
she worked at a drawing
board,
designing things.
I never asked what and
she never
said.
the walls and the ceilings
were pasted over
with hundreds of odd
legends,
like the last words of
a man in an electric
chair,
or gangsters on their
death beds,
or a murderer’s instructions
to her children;
photos of Hitler, Al Capone,
Chief Sitting Bull,
Lucky Luciano.
it was an endless honeycomb
of strange faces
and
utterances.
it was darkly refreshing.
and at odd rare times
even I was interesting.
then the Buddha would
nod.
he recorded everything on
tape.
sometimes on another
night he would play a
tape back for
me.
and then I would
realize how pitiful, how
cheap, how
inept I sounded.
he seldom did.
at times I wondered why
the world had not
discovered
him.
he made no effort to be
discovered.
he had other
visitors,
always wild, original
refreshing
folk.
it was crazier than the
sun burning up the
sea,
it was the bats of hell
whirling about the
room.
that was decades ago
and he is still
alive.
he made a place when
there was no
place.
a place to go when all
was closing in,
strangling, crushing,
debilitating,
when there was no
voice, no sound,
no sense,
he lent his easy
saving
natural
grace.
I feel that I owe him
one,
I feel that I owe him
many.
but I can hear him
now, that same
voice
as when he sat
so huge
in that same
chair:
“Nothing is owed,
Bukowski.”
you’re finally wrong,
this time,
John Thomas, you
bastard.
the terror
the terror is in viewing the human
face
and then hearing it talk
and watching the creature
move.
the terror is in knowing its
motives.
the terror is in seeing it
skinned,
opened
for the internal view of the
spirit.
the terror is looking at the
eyes.
the terror is knowing of the
centuries of its
doings.
the terror is the unchangeability
of it.
and its multiplicity,
its duplicity, it’s
everywhere, a giant mass
of it
self-revered,
self-serving,
self-destructive,
the terror of no selves
spreading from here and now into
space,
cluttering the universe,
marring pure space,
poisoning hope,
raping chance,
going on,
this massive zero of
life
labeled
Humanity.
the terror, the
horror,
the waste of them
and you and
me
through and
through.
the kiss-off
it was one of those
half-ass
literary gatherings
and this girl dropped to her
knees on the rug and
said to
him:
“O, Mr. C., let me kiss
that thumb
that great amputated thumb
that appeared in that great American novel
On the Road!”
Mr. C. held out the amputated thumb
and she kissed
it
and we all came
all around all
around, we all came all
around.
betting on the muse
Jimmy Foxx died an alcoholic
in a skidrow hotel
room.
Beau Jack ended up shining
shoes,
just where he
began.
there are dozens, hundreds
more, maybe
thousands more.
being an athlete grown old
is one of the cruelest of
fates,
to be replaced by others,
to no longer hear the
cheers and the
plaudits,
to no longer be
recognized,
just to be an old man
like other old
men.
to almost not believe it
yourself,
to check the scrapbook
with the yellowing
pages.
there you are,
smiling;
there you are,
victorious;
there you are,
young.
the crowd has other
heroes.
the crowd never
dies,
never grows
old
but the crowd often
forgets.
now the telephone
doesn’t ring,
the young girls are
gone,
the party is
over.
this is why I chose
to be a
writer.
if you’re worth just
half-a-damn
you can keep your
hustle going
until the last minute
of the last
day.
you can keep
getting better instead
of worse,
you can still keep
hitting them over the
wall.
through darkness, war,
good and bad
luck
you keep it going,
hitting them out,
the flashing lightning
of the
word,
beating life at life,
and death too late to
truly win
against
you.
THE UNACCOMMODATING UNIVERSE
Carl sat at the end of the bar where he wouldn’t have to deal with anybody. He kept his head down and didn’t look at anybody. He was on his second drink, a vodka-7. Then he heard two girls behind him talking. He hadn’t heard them walk in.
“Well, we can’t sit at the bar,” one said, “no two empty stools together.”
“Maybe we can get a table?”
“No, the tables are full…”
“Shit.”
“Well, let’s go someplace else.”
“No, this is where the action is!”
Carl felt a finger explore under and around his collar. Then he felt it tickle his ear. One of the girls giggled. Carl didn’t move. Then he said, without looking around, “Didn’t we know each other in Toledo?”
“Athens, Georgia,” came the answer. The finger withdrew.
“I’m Toni,” one of the girls said.
“I’m Cristina,” said the other girl.
“I’m Carl,” said Carl, still not looking around.
“Could you move down one stool?” said Toni. “We can’t find a place to sit together.”
“Too fucking bad,” said Carl.
He drained his drink and nodded Blinky the Barkeep in for a refill.
“Blinky,” said Carl, “I need a ticket to the Laker’s game.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Blinky walked off.
Toni leaned against Carl, pressing her breasts against his back.
“Tell us something about yourself,” she said.
“I’ve got AIDS.”
“Bullshit!”
Toni pulled away.
“Hey, we don’t have to fuck around with this asshole! There are plenty of NICE men around here!”
“Yeah, he’s an asshole!” Cristina said.
The girls walked down to the other end of the bar. They were in their mid-twenties, well-dressed. Toni was the redhead, Cristina was the blonde. They had nice buttocks, were slim-hipped, long of leg. They had bright healthy eyes, clever smiles. They were…attractive.
They stood behind Barney the Hump, talking to him.
Then the phone rang. Blinky answered it and then brought the phone down and placed it in front of Carl. Carl picked it up.
“Hello?”
It was Rissy. Rissy was crying.
“I gotta see ya, Jesus, I gotta see ya!”
“Rissy, there is nobody you got to see unless it’s a shrink.”
“The son-of-a-bitch beat me, Carl! I’m all bruises and lumps, I can’t go out on the street!”
“Good. You need a rest.”
Carl hung up. He went for his drink. The phone rang again. Carl winked at Blinky and picked it up.
“Lion’s Nuts Bar.”
She was still crying. “I gotta see ya, don’t ya understand? Don’t ya have no compassion?”
“Our marriage has been annulled. I like the sound of that word: ANNULLED.”
He hung up.
There was a scream down at the end of the bar. It was Toni. Then Carl saw the girls moving briskly back toward him and the exit. They stopped at his stool. Toni stood in front and Cristina stood behind her as they faced Carl.
Toni was in a fury. “THAT SON-OF-A-BITCH SLAPPED ME! NO SON-OF-A-BITCH SLAPS ME! NO SON-OF-A-BITCH SLAPS TONI EBERT! NOBODY! NOBODY! I NEVER SEEN A BAR SO FULL OF ASSHOLES! YOU GUYS FAGS? ARE YOU AFRAID OF WOMEN? OR ARE YA FUCKIN’ STUPID?”
“We’re just fuckin’ stupid,” somebody said.
“YOU CAN SURE AS SHIT SAY THAT AGAIN!”
“We’re just fuckin’ stupid,” somebody said again.
Blinky walked down to the end of the bar.
“Girls, I’m sorry…”
“SORRY AIN’T ENOUGH, ASSHOLE. I’M GOING TO HAVE THIS DUMP TRASHED!”
Betting on the Muse Page 8
