Come on In! - Charles Bukowski [30]
nobody cared or would ever
care.
and then, with no feelings left, that was the strangest
feeling of them
all.
so, today I got into my BMW, drove to my
bank and picked up my American Express
Gold Card. (I always promised myself that I’d
write about that when it
happened.)
I know what people will say: “Chinaski! writing about
his American Express Gold Card! who gives a damn
about that? or who cares that he’s now in
Who’s Who in America?”
I can’t think of another poet who makes people as
angry as I do.
I enjoy it
knowing that we are all brothers and sisters
in a very unkind extended
family
and I also never forget that
no matter
what the circumstances,
the park bench is never that far away
from any one of
us.
something cares
a reader writes from Germany
that a lady friend saw me interviewed
on tv and then
told him
that to kiss my face would be a
disgusting thing.
I wrote back that
she might be right, I didn’t know,
I’d never actually tried
it.
but really
I don’t write with my
face
I use my fingers
and this old Olympia
standard,
and with all the luck
I’ve had
I should kiss this
typer
but
I won’t.
well, there, I just
did.
it was a cold kiss
but a faithful
one.
and now the machine
answers back:
I love you too,
old boy.
my cats
I know. I know.
they are limited, have different
needs and
concerns.
but I watch and learn from them.
I like the little they know,
which is so
much.
they complain but never
worry.
they walk with a surprising dignity.
they sleep with a direct simplicity that
humans just can’t
understand.
their eyes are more
beautiful than our eyes.
and they can sleep 20 hours
a day
without
hesitation or
remorse.
when I am feeling
low
all I have to do is
watch my cats
and my
courage
returns.
I study these
creatures.
they are my
teachers.
6:30 a.m.
fondly embracing mad hopes in my dreams the first intrusion
of day begins when that young cat of mine starts knocking
over and attacking things at 6:30 in the
morning. I rise to lead that frisky rascal down the
stairway and open the door where he always pauses
introspectively until I give him a gentle boot in the ass
and then he is gone into the blissful glory of the day while I then
climb back up the stairway to bed down again with wife who
has heard nothing who sleeps so still I must check
her breathing to make certain she’s alive and finding that
she’s o.k. I pull the covers up. I have the best hours of
sleep then before the long drive to the racetrack
one more time one more time and one more time again
until I get so old that the DMV will take away my driver’s
license and I will have to ride the bus out there
with the damned ghost people son-of-a-bitch what an
awful goddamned thought better to stay home with wife and
cats putter with paints a la Henry Miller and also
help with the weeding and the shopping while the last of
the sun slants in like a golden sword.
what I need
I need a light pine kitchen, a new freezer, a picture window,
a first-alert ready-light, a pair of jogging shoes, some real
excitement, a yellow banjo, hot chips, a spark, two love birds,
sheer stockings, a touch of miracle, a March star, a true woman, a
new fantasy, a spicy sky, a charmed quark, some luck, a
VISA card, a walrus, a sunset at the beach, a well-
seasoned cigar, an antelope, a racy subject, an ideal to fight for, a
rainbow, a halcyon holiday and
a winner in the first, a winner in the second, a winner in the
third, a winner in the fourth, a winner in the
fifth.
hell, that’s what I got just now: a winner in the
fifth!
couldn’t you
guess?
gender benders
I’m only guessing, of course, as
usual but here goes:
when the ladies gather over
cocktails they talk about
how their husbands tend to
stifle them, smother their creative
instinct, their natural joy,
their ultimate female
selves.
without their husbands they
would float free
and thrive and grow
without limit
as they were meant to do.
but ladies, I will tell you
this: