Love Is a Dog From Hell_ Poems, 1974-1977 - Charles Bukowski [20]
we are afraid.
our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big-ass winners.
it hasn’t told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.
or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone
untouched
unspoken to
watering a plant.
people are not good to each other.
people are not good to each other.
people are not good to each other.
I suppose they never will be.
I don’t ask them to be.
but sometimes I think about
it.
the beads will swing
the clouds will cloud
and the killer will behead the child
like taking a bite out of an ice cream cone.
too much
too little
too fat
too thin
or nobody
more haters than lovers.
people are not good to each other.
perhaps if they were
our deaths would not be so sad.
meanwhile I look at young girls
stems
flowers of chance.
there must be a way.
surely there must be a way we have not yet
thought of.
who put this brain inside of me?
it cries
it demands
it says that there is a chance.
it will not say
“no.”
a horse with greenblue eyes
what you see is what you see:
madhouses are rarely
on display.
that we still walk about and
scratch ourselves and light
cigarettes
is more the miracle
than bathing beauties
than roses and the moth.
to sit in a small room
and drink a can of beer
and roll a cigarette
while listening to Brahms
on a small red radio
is to have come back
from a dozen wars
alive
listening to the sound
of the refrigerator
as bathing beauties rot
and the oranges and apples
roll away.
3
Scarlet
Scarlet
I’m glad when they arrive
and I’m glad when they leave
I’m glad when I hear their heels
approaching my door
and I’m glad when those heels
walk away
I’m glad to fuck
I’m glad to care
and I’m glad when it’s over
and
since it’s always either
starting or finishing
I’m glad
most of the time
and the cats walk up and down
and the earth spins around the sun
and the phone rings:
“this is Scarlet.”
“who?”
“Scarlet.”
“o.k., get it on over.”
and I hang up thinking
maybe this is it
go in
take a quick shit
shave
bathe
dress
dump the sacks
and cartons of empty
bottles
sit down to the sound of
heels approaching
more an army approaching than
victory
it’s Scarlet
and in my kitchen the faucet
keeps dripping
needs a washer.
I’ll take care of it
later.
red up and down
red hair
real
she whirled it
and she asked
“is my ass still on?”
such comedy.
there is always one woman
to save you from another
and as that woman saves you
she makes ready to
destroy.
“sometimes I hate you,”
she said.
she walked out and sat on
my porch and read my copy
of Catullus, she stayed out
there for an hour.
people walked up and down
past my place
wondering where such an ugly
old man could get
such beauty.
I didn’t know either.
when she walked in I grabbed
her and pulled her to my lap.
I lifted my glass and told
her, “drink this.”
“oh,” she said, “you’ve mixed
wine with Jim Beam, you’re gonna
get nasty.”
“you henna your hair, don’t
you?”
“you don’t look,” she said and
stood up and pulled down her
slacks and panties and
the hair down there was the
same as the hair
up there.
Catullus himself couldn’t have wished
for more historic or
wondrous grace;
then he went
goofy
for tender boys
not mad enough
to become
women.
like a flower in the rain
I cut the middle fingernail of the middle
finger
right hand
real short
and I began rubbing along her cunt
as she sat upright in bed
spreading lotion over her arms
face
and breasts
after bathing.
then she lit a cigarette:
“don’t let this put you off,”
and smoked and continued to rub the
lotion on.
I continued to rub the cunt.
“you want an apple?” I asked.
“sure,” she said, “you got one?”
but I got to her—
she began to twist
then she rolled on her side,
she was getting wet and open
like a flower in the rain.
then she rolled on her stomach
and her most beautiful ass
looked up at me
and I reached under and got the
cunt again.
she reached around and got my
cock, she rolled and twisted,
I mounted