Love Is a Dog From Hell_ Poems, 1974-1977 - Charles Bukowski [30]
sleeping on couches, drinking and making his
spiel.
this one prints his own books on a duplicating
machine.
that one lives in an abandoned shower room
in a Hollywood hotel.
this one seems to know how to get grant after grant,
his life is a filling-out of forms.
this one is simply rich and lives in the best
places while knocking on the best doors.
that one had breakfast with William Carlos
Williams.
and this one teaches.
and that one teaches.
and this one puts out textbooks on how to do it
and speaks in a cruel and dominating voice.
they are everywhere.
everybody is a writer.
and almost every writer is a poet.
poets poets poets poets poets poets
poets poets poets poets poets poets
the next time the phone rings
it will be a poet.
the next person at the door
will be a poet.
this one teaches
and that one lives with his mother
and that one is writing the story of
Ezra Pound.
oh, brothers, we are the sickest and the
lowest of the breed.
soul
oh, how worried they are about my
soul!
I get letters
the phone rings…
“are you going to be all right?”
they ask.
“I’ll be all right,” I tell them.
“I’ve seen so many go down the drain,”
they tell me.
“don’t worry about me,” I say.
yet, they make me nervous.
I go in and take a shower
come out and squeeze a pimple on my
nose.
then I go into the kitchen and make
a salami and ham sandwich.
I used to live on candy bars.
now I have imported German mustard
for my sandwich. I might be in danger
at that.
the phone keeps ringing and the letters keep
arriving.
if you live in a closet with rats and
eat dry bread
they like you.
you’re a genius
then.
or if you’re in the madhouse or
the drunktank
they call you a genius.
or if you’re drunk and shouting
obscenities and
vomiting your life-guts on
the floor
you’re a genius.
but get the rent paid up a month in
advance
put on a new pair of stockings
go to the dentist
make love to a healthy clean girl
instead of a whore
and you’ve lost your
soul.
I’m not interested enough to ask about
their souls.
I suppose I
should.
a change of habit
Shirley came to town with a broken leg
and met the Chicano who smoked
long slim cigars
and they got a place together
on Beacon street
5th floor;
the leg didn’t get in the way
too much and
they watched television together
and Shirley cooked, on her
crutches and all;
there was a cat, Bogey,
and they had some friends
and talked about sports and Richard Nixon
and how the hell to
make it.
it worked for some months,
Shirley even got the cast off,
and the Chicano, Manuel,
got a job at the Biltmore,
Shirley sewed all the buttons back on
Manuel’s shirts, mended and matched his
socks, then
one day Manuel returned to the place, and
she was gone—
no argument, no note, just
gone, all her clothes
all her stuff, and
Manuel sat by the window and looked out
and didn’t make his job
the next day or the
next day or
the day after, he
didn’t phone in, he
lost his job, got a
ticket for parking, smoked
four hundred and sixty cigarettes, got
picked up for common drunk, bailed
out, went
to court and pleaded
guilty.
when the rent was up he
moved from Beacon street, he
left the cat and went to live with
his brother and
they’d get drunk
every night
and talk about how
terrible
life was.
Manuel never again smoked
long slim cigars
because Shirley always said
how
handsome he looked
when he did.
$$$$$$
I’ve always had trouble with
money.
this one place I worked
everybody ate hot dogs
and potato chips
in the company cafeteria for
3 days before each
payday.
I wanted steaks,
I even went to see the manager
of the cafeteria and
demanded that he serve
steaks. he refused.
I’d forget payday.
I had a high rate of absenteeism and
payday would arrive and everybody would
start talking about
it.
“payday?” I’d say, “hell, is this
payday? I forgot to pick up my
last check…”
“stop the bullshit, man…”
“no, no, I mean it…”
I’d jump up and go down to payroll
and sure enough there’d be a
check and