Come on In! - Charles Bukowski [28]
dog into the last
sunset?
that wrinkled-nosed dog
snorting and sniffing
before you
as the sidewalks part
and the ocean roars in
bearing beautiful
mermaids.
straighten your back,
the sun is rushing past
you,
grin at the gods,
they only lent you the luck and the
mirage.
Chinaski?
you hear me?
the young girls of your dreams
have grown old.
Chinaski,
let it go,
the music has finished.
Chinaski?
Chinaski, don’t you hear
me?
why do you keep trying?
nobody is watching.
nobody cares,
not even you.
you are alone, Chinaski,
and below the stage
the seats are
empty.
the theatre is dark.
why do you keep
acting?
what a bad
habit.
the air is so still,
the air is black and still as
you move through the last of
yourself,
give way, give way
old poet,
hanging by the last thread,
use your courage
write that last line,
get out, get out, get out,
get out, get out, get out,
it’s easy,
the last classic
act.
the coast is clear,
now.
hello and goodbye
there’s no hell like your own hell,
none can compare,
twisting in the sheets at night,
your ass freezing,
your mind on fire,
everything stupid, stupid,
as you are stuck in your poor body and in
your poor life
and it’s all slowly dissolving, dissolving
into nothing.
like all the other bodies, like all the other
lives,
we all are being counted out,
taken down
by disease
by just being rubbed up against
the hard days, the harder years.
there’s no escaping
this,
we just have to take it,
accept it—
or like most—
not think about it.
at all.
shoes off and on.
holidays come and gone.
hello,
goodbye.
dress, undress.
eat, sleep.
drive an automobile.
pay your taxes.
wash under the arms and
behind the neck
and scrub everything
else, for sure.
pick your coffin ahead
of time.
feel the smooth wood.
go for the soft, padded, expensive
interior.
the salesman will commend you
on your good
taste.
then horrify him.
tell him you want to try it for
size.
there’s no hell like your own
hell and there’s nobody else
ever
to share it with
you.
you might as well be the only
person left on earth.
sometimes you feel as if you
were.
and maybe you are.
meanwhile, pluck the lint from
your belly button,
accept what is,
get laid once in a while,
shake hands with nothing at all.
it’s always been like this, it’s always been like
this.
don’t scream.
there’s nobody left to hear
you.
strange things,
strange things these cities, the trees,
our feet walking the sidewalks,
the blood inside us
lubricating our
hearts,
the centuries finally shot apart
as you slip on your stockings and pull them
up over your
ankles.
I will never have
a house in the valley
with little stone men
on the lawn.
don’t call me, I’ll call you
once more
the typing is about
finished
poems scatter the
floor
this smoky room
the radio whispers
the symphony of a
dead
man
the lamp
looks at me
from my
left
it is late
night
moving
into
morning
I have lived
again
the lucky
hours
then the
phone
rings
son-of-a-
bitch:
impossible!
but my wife
will get
the
phone
perhaps
it’s for
her
it can’t be
for
me
I’d kill
anybody
who would
spoil
what
the gods
have sent
this old
fellow
once
again
as the dark
trees
shake
outside
as death
finally
is a monkey
caught
in a
cage.
taking the 8 count
“today,” says the radio announcer,
“is Bastille Day.
203 years ago they stormed the Bastille,”
and that is the highlight of my day.
I have really been burnt out lately.
I go outside,
undress,
get in the pool, wrap my blue
floater around my gut
and water-jog.
I feel like an old man.
hell, I am an old man.
when I was born it was only 132 years back to
Bastille Day.
now, pains in my right leg and foot make for
a long day at the track
and the decades cling to me like
leeches,
sucking my energy and
my spirit.
but I intend to make a comeback
very soon.
I need the action, the gamble.
now I am drinking a cold beer.
I relax and just float.
suddenly things look better.
the