Enquirer.
you son of a bitch, she said, I am
trying to build a meaningful
relationship.
you can’t build it with a hammer,
he said.
are we going to the movies or not?
she asked.
all right, he said, let’s
go…
at the corner of Western and
Franklin he put on the blinker
to make his left turn
and a man in the on-coming lane
speeded-up
as if to cut him off.
brakes grabbed. there wasn’t a
crash but there almost was one.
he cursed at the man in the other
car. the man cursed back. the
man had another person in the car with
him. it was his wife.
they were going to the movies
too.
mermaid
I had to come to the bathroom for something
and I knocked
and you were in the tub
you had washed your face and your hair
and I saw your upper body
and except for the breasts
you looked like a girl of 5, of 8
you were gently gleeful in the water
Linda Lee.
you were not only the essence of that
moment
but of all my moments
up to then
you bathing easily in the ivory
yet there was nothing
I could tell you.
I got what I wanted in the bathroom
something
and I left.
hug the dark
turmoil is the god
madness is the god
permanent living peace is
permanent living death.
agony can kill
or
agony can sustain life
but peace is always horrifying
peace is the worst thing
walking
talking
smiling,
seeming to be.
don’t forget the sidewalks
the whores,
betrayal,
the worm in the apple,
the bars, the jails,
the suicides of lovers.
here in America
we have assassinated a president and his brother,
another president has quit office.
people who believe in politics
are like people who believe in god:
they are sucking wind through bent
straws.
there is no god
there are no politics
there is no peace
there is no love
there is no control
there is no plan
stay away from god
remain disturbed
slide.
59 cents a pound
I like to prowl ordinary places
and taste the people—
from a distance.
I don’t want them too near
because that’s when attrition
starts.
but in supermarkets
laundromats
cafés
street corners
bus stops
eating places
drug stores
I can look at their bodies
and their faces
and their clothing—
watch the way they walk
or stand
or what they are doing.
I’m like an x-ray machine
I like them like that:
on view.
I imagine the best things
about them.
I imagine them brave and crazy
I imagine them beautiful.
I like to prowl the ordinary places.
I feel sorry for us all or glad for us
all
caught alive together
and awkward in that way.
there’s nothing better than the joke
of us
the seriousness of us
the dullness of us
buying stockings and carrots and gum
and magazines
buying birth control
candy
hair spray
and toilet paper.
we should build a great bonfire
we should congratulate ourselves on our
endurance
we stand in long lines
we walk about
we wait.
I like to prowl ordinary places
the people explain themselves to me
and I to them
a woman at 3:35 p.m.
weighing purple grapes on a scale
looking at that scale very
seriously
she is dressed in a simple green dress
with a pattern of white flowers
she takes the grapes
puts them carefully into a white paper
bag
that’s lightning enough
the generals and the doctors may kill us
but we have
won.
promenade
each night
well, almost every night
early in the evening
I see the old man
and his small black and white dog.
it’s dark on these streets
and no matter how often he has seen me
he always gives me
a look that is frightened
and yet bold—
bold because his small brittle dog is
with him.
he wears old clothing
a wrinkled cap
cotton gloves
large square-toed shoes.
we never speak.
he is my age but I feel younger.
I neither like nor dislike the man and his
dog.
I have never seen either of them
defecate but I know that they
must.
he and his dog give me a feeling of
peace.
they belong
like the street signs
the lawns
the yellow windows
the sidewalks
the sirens and the telephone
wires.
the driveways
the parked cars
the moon when there is a
moon.
metamorphosis
a girlfriend came in
built me a bed
scrubbed and waxed the kitchen floor
scrubbed the walls
vacuumed
cleaned the toilet
the bathtub
scrubbed the bathroom floor
and cut my toenails and
my hair.
then
all on the same day
the plumber came and fixed the kitchen faucet
and the toilet
and the gas man fixed the heater
and the phone man fixed the phone.
now I sit here in all this perfection.
it is quiet.
I have broken off with all 3 of my girlfriends.
I felt better when everything was in
disorder.
it will take me some months to get back to
normal:
I can’t even find a roach to commune with.
I have lost my rhythm.
I can’t sleep.
I can’t eat.
I have been robbed of
my filth.
we’ll take them
those lobsters
those 2 lobsters…
yes, those bastards there.
we’ll take them…
so pink-red.
they say if you put them
in warm water first
they’ll sleep
and when you boil them
they won’
t feel it.
how can we know?
no matter the burning tanks outside
Stalingrad
no matter that Hitler was a
vegetarian
no matter that the house I was born in
is now a brothel
in Andernach
no matter that my Uncle Heinrich
aged 92 and living in that same town
dislikes my novels and short stories.
we’ll take those 2
bastards there
flowers of the sea.
dow average down
when you
first meet them their eyes
are all under-
standing; laughter abounds
like sand fleas. then, Jesus,
time tinkles on and
things leak. they
start making DEMANDS.
what they
demand is contrary to what-
ever you are, or could be.
strange is the
thought that they’ve never
read anything you’ve writ-
ten, not really read it at
all. or worse, if they have,
they’ve come to SAVE
you. which mainly means
making you like everybody
else. meanwhile they’ve sucked
you up and wound you tight
in a million webs, and
being something of a
feeling person you can’t
help but remember the
good parts or the parts
that seemed to be good.
you find yourself
alone again in your
bedroom grabbing your
guts and saying, o, shit
no, not again.
we should have known.
maybe we wanted cotton
candy luck. maybe we
believed. what trash.
we believed like dogs
believe.
to weep
sweating in the kitchen
trying to hit one out of here
56 years old
fear bounding up my arms
toenails much too long
growth on side of leg
the difference in the factories was
we all felt pain
together
the other night I went to see the
great soprano
she was still beautiful
still sensual
still in personal mourning
but she missed note after note
drunk
she murdered art
sweating in the kitchen
I don’t want to murder art
I should see the doctor and get that thing
cut off my leg
but I am a coward
I might scream and frighten a child
in the waiting room
I would like to fuck the great soprano
I’d like to weep in her hair
and there’s Lorca down in the road
eating Spanish bullets in the dust
the great soprano has never read my poems
but we both know how to murder art
drink and mourn
sweating in this kitchen
the formulas are gone
the best poet I ever knew is dead
the others write me letters
I tell them that I want to fuck
the great soprano
but they write back about other
things
useless things
dull things
vain things
I watch a fly land on my radio
he knows what it is
but he can’t talk to me
the soprano is dead.
fair stand the fields of France
in the awesome strumming of no
guitars
I can never get too high
in places where giraffes run like
hate
I can never get too lonely
in bars where celluloid bartenders
serve poisoned laughter
I can never get too drunk
at the bottom of mountains
where suicides flow into the streams
I smile better than the Mona Lisa
high lonely drunken grin of grief
I love you.
art
as the
spirit
wanes
the
form
appears.
About the Author
CHARLES BUKOWSKI is one of America’s 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), Factotum (1975), Women (1978), 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 (1999), Open All Night: New Poems (2000), Beerspit Night and Cursing: The Correspondence of Charles Bukowski and Sheri Martinelli (2001), and Night Torn Mad with Footsteps: New Poems (2001).
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.
BY CHARLES BUKOWSKI
The Days Run A way 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 1955—1973 (1974)
Factotum (1975)
Love Is a Dog from Hell: Poems 1974—1977 (1977)
Women (1978)
You Kissed Lilly (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)
There’s No Business (1984)
War All the Time: Poems 1981—1984 (1984)
You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense (1986)
The Movie: “Barfly” (1987)
The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems 1946—1966 (1988)
Hollywood (1989)
Septuagenarian Stew: Stories & Poems (1990)
The Last Night of the Earth Poems (1992)
Screams from the Balcony: Selected Letters 1960—1970 (Volume 1) (1993)
Pulp (1994)
Living on Luck: Selected Letters 1960s—1970s (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 1978—1994 (Volume 3) (1999)
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 & Sheri Martinelli (2001)
The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps: New Poems (2001)
Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems (2002)
Copyright
PLAY THE PIANO
DRUNK LIKE A PERCUSSION INSTRUMENT UNTIL THE FINGERS BEGIN TO BLEED A BIT. Copyright © 1970, 1973, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, by Charles Bukowski. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into 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.
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