way
leaving
empty spaces
where people should
be.
our progenitors, our
educational systems, the
land, the media, the
way
have
deluded and misled the
masses: they have been
defeated
by the aridity of
the actual
dream.
they were
unaware that
achievement or victory or
luck or
whatever the hell you
want to call
it
must have
its defeats.
it’s only the re-gathering and
going on
which lends substance
to whatever magic
might possibly
evolve.
and now
as we ready to self-destruct
there is very little left to
kill
which makes the tragedy
less and more
much much
more.
termites of the page
the problem that I’ve found with
most poets that I have known is that
they’ve never had an 8 hour job
and there is nothing
that will put a person
more in touch
with the realities
than
an 8 hour job.
most of these poets
that I have known
have
seemingly existed on
air alone
but
it hasn’t been truly
so:
behind them has been
a family member
usually a wife or mother
supporting these
souls
and
so it’s no wonder
they have written so
poorly:
they have been protected
against the actualities
from the
beginning
and they
understand nothing
but the ends of their
fingernails
and
their delicate
hairlines
and
their lymph
nodes.
their words are
unlived, unfurnished, un-
true, and worse—so
fashionably
dull.
soft and safe
they gather together to
plot, hate,
gossip, most of these
American poets
pushing and hustling their
talents
playing at
greatness.
poet (?):
that word needs re-
defining.
when I hear that
word
I get a rising in the
gut
as if I were about to
puke.
let them have the
stage
so long
as I need not be
in the
audience.
a good time
now look, she said, stretched out on the bed, I don’t want anything
personal, let’s just do it, I don’t want to get involved, got
it?
she kicked off her high-heeled shoes…
sure, he said, standing there, let’s just pretend that we’ve
already done it, there’s nothing less involved than that, is
there?
what the hell do you mean? she asked.
I mean, he said, I’d rather drink
anyhow.
and he poured himself one.
it was a lousy night in Vegas and he walked to the window and
looked out at the dumb lights.
you a fag? she asked, you a god damned
fag?
no, he said.
you don’t have to get shitty, she said, just because you lost at
the tables—we drove all the way here to have a good time and
now look at you: sucking at that booze, you coulda done that in
L.A.!
right, he said, one thing I do like to get involved with is the
fucking bottle.
I want you to take me home, she said.
my pleasure, he said, let’s
go.
it was one of those times where nothing was lost because nothing
had ever been found and as she got dressed it was sad for
him
not because of him and the lady but because of all the millions
like him and the lady
as the lights blinked out there, everything so effortlessly
false.
she was ready, fast: let’s get the hell out of here, she
said.
right, he said, and they walked out the door together.
the still trapeze
Saroyan told his wife, “I’ve got to
gamble in order to
write.” she told him to
go ahead.
he lost $350,000.00
mostly at the racetrack
but still couldn’t write or
pay his taxes.
he ran from the govt. and exiled himself
in Paris.
he later came back, sweated it
out
in hock up to his
ass—
royalties dropping
off.
he still couldn’t write or
what he wrote didn’t
work
because that tremendous
brave optimism
that buoyed everybody up
so well
during the depression
just turned to
sugar water
during
good times.
he died
a dwindling legend
with a huge handlebar
mustache
just like his father
used to have
in the old Fresno
Armenian way
in a world that
could no longer
use
William.
January
here
you see this
hand
here you see this
sky
this
bridge
hear this
sound
the agony of the
elephant
the nightmare of the
midget
while
caged parrots
sit in a
flourish of
color
while pieces of
people
fall over the
edge
like pebbles
like
rocks
madhouses screaming in
pain
as the royalty of the
world is
photographed
say
on horseback
or
say
watching a procession
in their
honor
as
the junkies junk
as the alkies drink
as the whores whore
as the killers kill
the albatross blinks its
eyes
the weather stays
mostly
the same.
sunny side down
NOTHING. sitting in a cafe having breakfast. NOTHING. the waitress,
and the people eating. the traffic runs by. doesn’t matter what
Napoleon did, what Plato said. Turgenev could have been a fly. we are worn-
down, hope stamped out. we reach for coffee cu
ps like the robots about
to replace us. courage at Salerno, bloodbaths on the Eastern front didn’t
matter. we know that we are beaten. NOTHING. now it’s just a matter of
continuing
anyhow—
chew the food and read the paper. we
read about ourselves. the news is
bad. something about
NOTHING.
Joe Louis long dead as the medfly invades Beverly Hills.
well, at least we can sit and
eat. it’s been some rough
trip. it could be
worse. it could be worse than
NOTHING.
let’s get more coffee from the
waitress.
that bitch! she knows we are trying to get her
attention.
she just stands there doing
NOTHING.
it doesn’t matter if Prince Charles falls off his horse
or that the hummingbird is so seldom
seen
or that we are too senseless to go
insane.
coffee. give us more of that NOTHING
coffee.
the man in the brown suit
fuck, he was small
maybe 5-3,
135 pounds,
I didn’t like
him,
he sat there at his desk
at the
bank
and as I waited in line
he seemed to have a way
of glancing at
me
and I stared
back,
I don’t know what
it was
that caused the
animosity.
he had this little mustache
that drooped
at the ends,
he was in his mid-forties
and like most people who worked
in banks
he had a non-committal
yet self-important
personality.
one day I almost went
over the railing
to ask him
what the hell
was he looking
at?
today I went in
and stood in line
and saw him leave his
desk.
one of the lady tellers was
having a problem
with a man
at her
window
and the man
in the brown suit
began to hold
counsel with both of
them.
suddenly
the man in the brown suit
vaulted the
railing
got behind the other
man
wrapped his arms
about him
then dragged him along
to a latch
entrance
along the railing
reached over
unhooked the latch
while still managing to
hold the
man.
then he dragged him
in there
latched the
gate
and while holding the
man
he told one of the
girls,
“Phone the
police.”
the man he was holding was
about 20, black, a good 6-2,
maybe 190 pounds,
and I thought, hey,
break loose, man, jail is a
long time.
but he just stood
there
being
held.
I left before the
police
arrived.
the next time
I went to the bank
the man in the brown suit
was behind his
desk.
and when he glanced at
me
I smiled just a
little.
a magician, gone…
they go one by one and as they do it gets closer
to me and
I don’t mind that so much, it’s
just that I can’t be practical about the
mathematics that take others
to the vanishing point.
last Saturday
one of racing’s greatest harness drivers
died—little Joe O’Brien.
I had seen him win many a
race. he
had a peculiar rocking motion
he flicked the reins
and rocked his body back and
forth. he
applied this motion
during the stretch run and
it was quite dramatic and
effective…
he was so small that he couldn’t
lay the whip on as hard as the
others
so
he rocked and rocked
in the sulky
and the horse felt the lightning
of his excitement
that rhythmic crazy rocking was
transferred from man to
beast…
the whole thing had the feel of a
crapshooter calling to the
gods, and the gods
so often answered…
I saw Joe O’Brien win
endless photo finishes
many by a
nose.
he’d take a horse
another driver couldn’t get a
run out of
and Joe would put his touch
to it
and the animal would
most often respond with
a flurry of wild energy.
Joe O’Brien was the finest harness driver
I had ever seen
and I’d seen many over the
decades.
nobody could nurse and cajole
a trotter or a pacer
like little Joe
nobody could make the magic work
like Joe.
they go one by one
presidents
garbage men
killers
actors
pickpockets
boxers
hit men
ballet dancers
fishermen
doctors
fry cooks
like
that
but Joe O’Brien
it’s going to be hard
hard
to find a replacement for
little Joe
and
at the ceremony
held for him
at the track tonight
(Los Alamitos 10-1-84)
as the drivers gathered in a
circle
in their silks
at the finish line
I had to turn my back
to the crowd
and climb the upper grandstand
steps
to the wall
so the people wouldn’t
see me
cry.
well, that’s just the way it is…
sometimes when everything seems at
its worst
when all conspires
and gnaws
and the hours, days, weeks
years
seem wasted—
stretched there upon my bed
in the dark
looking upward at the ceiling
I get what many will consider an
obnoxious thought:
it’s still nice to be
Bukowski.
the chemistry of things
I always thought Mary Lou was skinny and
not much to look at
while almost all the other guys
thought she was a
hot number.
maybe that’s why she hung around me
in Jr. High.
my indifference must have attracted
her.
I was cool and mean in those days
and when the guys asked me,
“you banged Mary Lou yet?”
I answered them with the
truth: “she
bores me.”
there was this guy
he taught chemistry.
Mr. Humm. Humm wore a little bow
tie and a black coat, a
cheap wrinkled job, he was
supposed to have
brains
and one day Mary Lou came to
me
and said Humm kept her
after class
and had taken her into the
closet and
kissed her and
fondled her
panties.
she was crying, “what will I
do?”
“forget it,” I told her,
“those chemicals have scrambled
his brain. we have an English teacher
who hikes her skirt up around her
hips every day and wants to go to bed with
every guy in class. we enjoy her but
ignore her.”
“why don’t you beat Mr. Humm up?”
she asked me.
“I could but they’d transfer me to
Stuart Hall.”
in Stuart Hall they beat the shit
out of you
and they ignored math, English,
music, they just stuck you into auto
shop
where you fixed up old cars
which they resold at big
profits.
“I thought you cared for me,” said Mary
Lou, “don’t you realize he
kissed me, stuck his tongue down my
throat and had his hand up my
behind?”
“well,” I said, “we saw Mrs. Lattimore’s
pussy the other day, in English.”
Mary Lou walked off
crying…
well, she told her
mother and Humm got his, he
had to
resign, poor son of a
bitch.
after that the guys asked me,
“hey, what do you think of Humm
sticking his hand up your girl’s
You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense Page 3
