Love Is a Dog From Hell_ Poems, 1974-1977 - Charles Bukowski [8]
“an ex-friend.”
now she’s gone and I’m sitting here drunk
and my eyes seem wet with tears.
it’s very quiet and I feel like I have a spear
rammed into the center of my gut.
I walk to the bathroom and puke.
mercy, I think, doesn’t the human race know anything
about mercy?
one for old snaggle-tooth
I know a woman
who keeps buying puzzles
Chinese
puzzles
blocks
wires
pieces that finally fit
into some order.
she works it out
mathematically
she solves all her
puzzles
lives down by the sea
puts sugar out for the ants
and believes
ultimately
in a better world.
her hair is white
she seldom combs it
her teeth are snaggled
and she wears loose shapeless
coveralls over a body most
women would wish they had.
for many years she irritated me
with what I considered her
eccentricities—
like soaking eggshells in water
(to feed the plants so that
they’d get calcium).
but finally when I think of her
life
and compare it to other lives
more dazzling, original
and beautiful
I realize that she has hurt fewer
people than anybody I know
(and by hurt I simply mean hurt).
she has had some terrible times,
times when maybe I should have
helped her more
for she is the mother of my only
child
and we were once great lovers,
but she has come through
like I said
she has hurt fewer people than
anybody I know,
and if you look at it like that,
well,
she has created a better world.
she has won.
Frances, this poem is for
you.
communion
horses running
with her miles away
laughing with a
fool
Bach and the hydrogen bomb
and her miles away
laughing with a
fool
the banking system
bumper jacks
gondolas in Venice
and her miles away
laughing with a
fool
you’ve never quite
seen a stairway before
(each step looking at you
separately)
and outside
the newsboy looking
immortal
as the cars go by
under a sun
like an enemy
and you wonder
why it’s so hard
to go crazy—
if you’re not already
crazy
until now
you’ve never seen a
stairway that looked like
a stairway
a doorknob that looked like
a doorknob
and sounds like these sounds
and when the spider comes out
and looks at you
finally
you don’t hate it
finally
with her miles away
laughing with a
fool.
trying to get even:
we’d had any number of joints and some
beer and I was on the bed stretched out
and she said, “look, I’ve had 3 abortions
in a row, real fast, and I’m sick of
abortions, I don’t want you to stick that
thing in me!”
it was sticking up there and we were both
looking at it.
“ah, come on,” I said, “my girlfriend fucked
2 different guys this week and I’m trying to
get even.”
“don’t get me involved in your domestic
horseshit! now what I want you to do is
to BEAT that thing OFF while I WATCH!
I want to WATCH while you beat that thing
OFF! I want to see it shoot JUICE!”
“o.k. get your face closer.”
she got it closer and I spit on my palm
and began working.
it got bigger. just before I was ready I
stopped, I held it at the bottom
stretching it,
the head throbbed
purple and shiny.
“oooh,” she said.
she ducked her mouth over it, sucked at
it and
pulled away.
“finish it off,” I said.
“no!”
I whacked away and then stopped again
at the last moment and held it at the
bottom and waved it all around the
bedroom.
she eyed it
fell upon it again
sucked
and pulled away.
we alternated the process
back and forth
again and again.
finally I just pulled her off
the chair
onto the bed
rolled on top of her
stuck it in
worked it
worked it
and came.
when she walked back out of
the bathroom she said,
“you son of a bitch, I love you,
I’ve loved you for a long time.
when I get back to Santa Barbara
I’m going to write you. I’m
living with this guy but I hate
him, I don’t even know what I’m
doing with him.”
“o.k.,” I said, “but you’re up
now. can you get me a glass of
water? I’m dry.”
she walked into the kitchen and
I heard her remark that
all my drinking glasses were
dirty.
I told her to use a
coffee cup. I
heard the water running and I