Love Is a Dog From Hell_ Poems, 1974-1977 - Charles Bukowski [13]
I finish my duty
come out
and they are still playing.
one of the women is heavily rouged
wearing false eyelashes and smoking
a cigarette.
the men are very thin
very pale
wear wristwatches that hurt
their wrists.
the other woman is very fat
and giggles
each time a score is made
some of them are my age.
they disgust me
the way they wait for death
with as much passion
as a traffic signal.
these are the people who believe advertisements
these are the people who buy dentures on credit
these are the people who celebrate holidays
these are the people who have grandchildren
these are the people who vote
these are the people who have funerals
these are the dead
the smog
the stink in the air
the lepers.
these are almost everybody
finally.
seagulls are better
seaweed is better
dirty sand is better
if I could turn that old cannon
on them
and make it work
I would.
they disgust me.
462-0614
I get many phonecalls now.
They are all alike.
“are you Charles Bukowski,
the writer?”
“yes,” I tell them.
and they tell me
that they understand my
writing,
and some of them are writers
or want to be writers
and they have dull and
horrible jobs
and they can’t face the room
the apartment
the walls
that night—
they want somebody to talk
to,
and they can’t believe
that I can’t help them
that I don’t know the words.
they can’t believe
that often now
I double up in my room
grab my gut
and say
“Jesus Jesus Jesus, not
again!”
they can’t believe
that the loveless people
the streets
the loneliness
the walls
are mine too.
and when I hang up the phone
they think I have held back my
secret.
I don’t write out of
knowledge.
when the phone rings
I too would like to hear words
that might ease
some of this.
that’s why my number’s
listed.
photographs
they photograph you on your porch
and on your couch
and standing in the courtyard
or leaning against your car
these photographers
women with big asses
which look better to you
than do their eyes or their souls
—this playing at author
it’s real Hemingway
James Joyce
stageshit
but look—
there are the books
you’ve written them
you haven’t been to Paris
but you’ve written all those books
there behind you
(and others not there,
lost or stolen)
all you’ve got to do
is look like Bukowski
for the cameras
but
you keep watching
those
astonishingly big asses
and thinking—
somebody else is getting
it
“look into my eyes,”
they say and click their cameras
and flash their cameras
and fondle their cameras
Hemingway used to box or go
fishing or to the bullfights
but after they leave
you jerk-off into the sheets
and take a hot bath
they never send the photos
like they promise to send the photos
and the astonishingly big asses are
gone forever
and you’ve been a fine literary fellow—
now alive
dead soon enough
looking into and at their eyes and souls
and more.
social
the blue pencil of the wave
shots of yellow road
a steering wheel
an insane woman sitting
next to you
complaining as the ocean
creams-off
and people in yellow and
white
campers
block your way
a frantic
time
as you listen
guilty of this and
guilty of that
you admit
this and that
but it’s not
enough
she wants splendid
conquest
and you’re weary of
splendid
conquest
getting there
she climbs out
walks toward the
house
you piss across the
fender of your car
drunk on beer
little spots of you
dripping down into
the dust
the dry
dust
zipping up you
march in to
meet her
friends.
one to the breastplate
I have a saying, “the tough ones always come
back.”
but Vera was kinder than most,
and so I was surprised when
she arrived that night
and said, “let me in.”
“no, no, I’m working on a sonnet.”
“I’ll just stay a minute, then I’ll
leave.”
“Vera, if I let you in you’ll be here
for 3 or 4 days.”
it was night and I hadn’t turned the
porch light on so I couldn’t see it
coming
but
she threw a right that
exploded in the center of my
chest.
“baby, that was a beautiful punch.