Come on In! - Charles Bukowski [21]
I watch
6 or 7 telephone wires
taut against the
sky
as fresh hell slides
toward me
along the wires.
hell is where I
am.
and I am
here.
there isn’t any
place
else.
see me now
reaching for a
cigarette,
my hand pushing
through boiling space.
there is nothing more
I can do.
I light the
cigarette,
lean back here
alone
in
this
chair.
talking about the poets
“correctly so,” I told him,
“I would much rather they all
robbed banks or sold
drugs and if you please may
I have a vodka-7?”
“I agree,” said the
barkeep mixing the
drink, “I’d rather they
collected garbage
or ran for Congress
or taught
biology.”
“or,” I said, reaching
for the drink, “sold
flowers on the corner
or gave back rubs or
tried blowing glass.”
“absolutely right,” said
the barkeep
pouring himself a
drink, “I’d rather they
plowed the good
earth or
delivered the mail.”
“or,” I said, “mugged
old ladies or
pulled teeth.”
“or directed traffic or
worked the factories,”
said the barkeep, “or
caught the bus to
the nearest harvest.”
“that will be a great day,” I said,
“when it arrives.”
“beautiful,” said the
barkeep, “but isn’t it the
mediocrity of the masses
which diminishes the
wealth of its entertainers
and artists?”
“absolutely not,” I said, “and may I
have another vodka- 7?”
“if I was the policeman
of the world,” the barkeep
continued, moving the drink
toward me, “many a darling
poet would either be allowed to
starve or forced to get a
real job.”
“and correctly so,” I
said, raising my
drink.
“that will be a beautiful day,”
said the barkeep,
“when it arrives.”
“a hell of a beautiful
day,” I agreed.
was Li Po wrong?
you know what Li Po said when asked if he’d rather be an
Artist or Rich?
“I’d rather be Rich,” he replied, “for Artists can usually be found
sitting on the doorsteps of the
Rich.”
I’ve sat on the doorsteps of some expensive and
unbelievable homes
myself
but somehow I always managed to disgrace myself and / or insult
my Rich hosts
(mostly after drinking large quantities of their fine
liquor).
perhaps I was afraid of the Rich?
all I knew then was poverty and the very poor,
and I felt instinctively that the Rich shouldn’t be so
Rich,
that it was some kind of clever
twist of fate
based on something rotten and
unfair.
of course, one could say the same thing
about being poor,
only there were so many poor, it all seemed completely
out of proportion.
and so when I, as an Artist, visited the
homes of the Rich, I felt ashamed to be
there, and I drank too much of their fine wines,
broke their expensive glassware and antique dishes,
burned cigarette holes in their Persian rugs and
mauled their wives,
reacting badly to the whole damned
situation.
yet I had no political or social solution.
I was just a lousy houseguest,
I guess,
and after a while
I protected both myself and the Rich
by rejecting their
invitations
and everybody felt much better after
that.
I went back to
drinking alone,
breaking my own cheap glassware,
filling the room with cigar
smoke and feeling
wonderful
instead of feeling trapped,
used,
pissed on,
fucked.
operator
the phone doesn’t ring.
the hours hang limp and empty.
everybody else is having it
all.
it seems to never end.
one night it got very bad.
I needed just a voice.
I dialed the time on the
telephone and listened to her
voice as she said:
“it’s eleven ten and ten seconds.
it’s eleven ten and twenty seconds.
it’s eleven ten and thirty seconds …”
then she told me that it
was:
“eleven ten and forty seconds.”
she might have saved my life
although I’m not sure.
a note from Hades in the mailbox
it reads:
Mr. Chinaski, we stopped by to see if
you’re interested in a free lunch.
we’ll stop by again later this
afternoon.
we’ll bring some beer.
it is now 2 p.m.
call meanwhile if you’re interested.
397- 8211
Steve and Frank
on the sunny banks of the university
I think that all the decades of teaching English
Lit has gotten to him.
his own writing has