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I press the button.

it hisses. I

gag,

think of ancient wars

loves dead.

so much happens in the dark

yet tomorrow

the sun will move up and on,

you’ll get a ticket if you park on the

south side of the street on

Thursday

or the north side on

Friday.

the efficiency of the sun and the

law

bulwarks sanity.

something bites me.

I madden

spray half my

bedsheets.

I turn

see the dark mirror—

the cigar

the loose belly

me

old.

I laugh.

it’s good they don’t

know.

I take my head

put it back on my

neck

get between the sheets and

can’t sleep.

yellow cab

the Mexican dancer shook her fans at

me and her ass at me, I

didn’t ask her to and

my woman got mad and ran out of the cafe and

it began raining and you could hear it on the

roof and I didn’t have a job and I had 13 days left

on the rent.

sometimes when a woman runs out on you like

that you wonder if it’s not

economics, you can’t blame them—

if I had to get fucked I’d rather get fucked

by somebody with money.

we’re all scared but when you’re ugly and you

don’t have much left you get

strong, and I called the waiter over and I said,

I think I am going to turn this table over, I’m

bored, I’m insane, I need

action, call in your goon, I’ll piss on his

collarbone.

I got

thrown out swiftly. it was

raining. I picked myself up in the rain and

walked down the empty street

cotton candy sweet

dumb shit for sale, all the little stores locked

with 67¢ Woolworth locks.

I reached the end of the street in time

to see her get into the yellow cab with

another guy.

I fell down by a garbage can, stood up

and pissed against it, feeling sad and not

sad, knowing there was only so much they could do to

you, piss sliding down the corrugated

tin, the philosophers must have had something to

say about this. women. their luck against your

destiny. winner take Barcelona. next

bar.

how come you’re not unlisted?

the men phone and ask me that.

are you really Charles Bukowski

the writer? they ask.

I’m a sometimes writer, I say,

most often I don’t do anything.

listen, they ask, I like your

stuff—do you mind if I come

over and bring a couple of 6

packs?

you can bring them, I say

if you don’t come in…

when the women phone, I say,

o yes, I write, I’m a writer

only I’m not writing right now.

I feel foolish phoning you,

they say, and I was surprised

to find you listed in the phone book.

I have reasons, I say,

by the way why don’t you come over

for a beer?

you wouldn’t mind?

and they arrive

handsome women

good of mind and body and eye.

often there isn’t sex

but I’m used to that

yet it’s good

very good just to look at them—

and some rare times

I have unexpected good luck

otherwise.

for a man of 55 who didn’t get laid

until he was 23

and not very often until he was 50

I think that I should stay listed

via Pacific Telephone

until I get as much as

the average man has had.

of course, I’ll have to keep

writing immortal poems

but the inspiration is there.

weather report

I suppose it’s raining in some Spanish town

now

while I’m feeling bad

like this;

I’d like to think so

now.

let’s go to a Mexican hamlet—

that sounds nice:

a Mexican hamlet

while I’m feeling bad

like this

the walls yellow with age—

that rain

out there,

a pig moving in his pen at night

disturbed by the rain,

little eyes like cigarette-ends,

and his damned tail:

see it?

I can’t imagine the people.

it’s hard for me to imagine the people.

maybe they are feeling bad like this,

almost as bad as this.

I wonder what they do when they feel

bad?

they probably don’t mention it.

they say,

“look, it’s raining.”

that’s the best way.

clean old man

here I’ll be

55 in a

week.

what will I

write about

when it no

longer stands

up in the morning?

my critics

will love it

when my playground

narrows down to

tortoises

and shellstars.

they might even

say

nice things about

me

as if I had

finally

come to my

senses.

something

I’m out of matches.

the springs in my couch

are broken.

they stole