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gun and bomb the elephants,

you could hear their screams over all the other sounds;

but you flew high to bomb the people,

you never saw it,

just a little flash from way up

but with the elephants

you could watch it happen

and hear how they screamed;

I’d tell my buddies, listen, you guys

stop that,

but they just laughed

as the elephants scattered

throwing up their trunks (if they weren’t blown off )

opening their mouths

wide and

kicking their dumb clumsy legs

as blood ran out of big holes in their bellies.

then we’d fly back,

mission completed.

we’d get everything:

convoys, dumps, bridges, people, elephants and

all the rest.

he told me later, I

felt bad about the

elephants.

dark night poem

they say that

nothing is wasted:

either that

or

it all is.

(uncollected)

the last days of the suicide kid

I can see myself now

after all these suicide days and nights,

being wheeled out of one of those sterile rest homes

(of course, this is only if I get famous and lucky)

by a subnormal and bored nurse…

there I am sitting upright in my wheelchair…

almost blind, eyes rolling backward into the dark part of my skull looking

for the mercy of death…

“Isn’t it a lovely day, Mr. Bukowski?”

“O, yeah, yeah…”

the children walk past and I don’t even exist

and lovely women walk by

with big hot hips

and warm buttocks and tight hot everything

praying to be loved

and I don’t even

exist…

“It’s the first sunlight we’ve had in 3 days,

Mr. Bukowski.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah.”

there I am sitting upright in my wheelchair,

myself whiter than this sheet of paper,

bloodless,

brain gone, gamble gone, me, Bukowski,

gone…

“Isn’t it a lovely day, Mr. Bukowski?”

“O, yeah, yeah…” pissing in my pajamas, slop drooling out of

my mouth.

2 young schoolboys run by—

“Hey, did you see that old guy?”

“Christ, yes, he made me sick!”

after all the threats to do so

somebody else has committed suicide for me

at last.

the nurse stops the wheelchair, breaks a rose from a nearby bush, puts it in my hand.

I don’t even know

what it is. it might as well be my pecker

for all the good

it does.

tabby cat

he has on blue jeans and tennis shoes

and walks with two young girls

about his age.

every now and then he leaps

into the air and

clicks his heels together.

he’s like a young colt

but somehow he also reminds me

more of a tabby cat.

his ass is soft and

he has no more on his mind

than a gnat.

he jumps along behind his girls

clicking his heels together.

then he pulls the hair of one

runs over to the other and

squeezes her neck.

he has fucked both of them and

is pleased with himself.

it has all happened

so easily for him.

and I think, ah,

my little tabby cat

what nights and days

wait for you.

your soft ass

will be your doom.

your agony

will be endless

and the girls

who are yours now

will soon belong to other men

who didn’t get their cookies

and cream so easily and

so early.

the girls are practicing on you

the girls are practicing for other men

for someone out of the jungle

for someone out of the lion cage.

I smile as

I watch you walking along

clicking your heels together.

my god, boy, I fear for you

on that night

when you first find out.

it’s a sunny day now.

jump

while you

can.

metamorphosis

a girlfriend came in

built me a bed

scrubbed and waxed the kitchen floor

scrubbed the walls

vacuumed

cleaned the toilet

the bathtub

scrubbed the bathroom floor

and cut my toenails and

my hair.

then

all on the same day

the plumber came and fixed the kitchen faucet

and the toilet

and the gas man fixed the heater

and the phone man fixed the phone.

now I sit here in all this perfection.

it is quiet.

I have broken off with all 3 of my girlfriends.

I felt better when everything was in

disorder.

it will take me some months to get back to

normal:

I can’t even find a roach to commune with.

I have lost my rhythm.

I can’t sleep.