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then just like that he joined the Marine Corps.

“I want to prove something to myself” was what he told

me.

he did: right after boot camp the war came and in 3 months

he was dead.

and I promised myself that some day I would write a novel and that

I would dedicate it to him.

I have now written 5 novels, all dedicated to others.

you know, you were right, Robert Baun, when you once told

me, “Bukowski, about half of what you say is

bullshit.”

Verdi

and

so

we suck on a cigar

and a beer

attempting to mend the love

wounds of the soul.

a beer.

a cigar.

I listen to Verdi

scratch my hindquarters

and

stare out of

a cloud of

blue

smoke.

have you ever been to

Venice?

Madrid?

the stress of continually facing the

lowered

horn

is wearing.

then too

I sometimes think of a

less stressful kind of

love—

it can and should be so

easy

like falling asleep

in a chair or

like a church full of

windows.

sad enough,

I wish only for that careless love

which is sweet

gentle

and which is

now

(like

this light

over my head)

there only to serve me

while I

smoke smoke smoke

out of a certain center dressed

in an old brown shirt.

but I am caught under a pile of

bricks;

poetry is shot in the head

and walks down the alley

pissing on its legs.

friends, stop writing of

breathing

in this sky of fire.

small children,

walk well behind us.

but now Verdi

abides with the

wallpaper

with beerlove,

with the taste of wet gold as

my fingers dabble in ashes

as strange young ladies walk outside

my window

dreaming of broomsticks,

palaces

and

blueberry pie.

(uncollected)

the young lady who lives in Canoga Park

she only fucks the ones she doesn’t want

to marry.

to the others she says

you’ve got to marry me.

or maybe she just fucks the ones she wants

to fuck?

she talks about it freely

and lives in the apartment at the end

with a 9-year-old red-haired boy

and a 7-month-old baby.

she gets child support

and when she works

she works in the factories or as a

cocktail waitress.

she has a boyfriend 60 years old

who drinks a jug of wine a day

has a bad leg

and lives at the YMCA.

she smokes dope, mostly grass,

takes pills

wears large dark glasses

and talks talks talks

while not looking at you and

twisting a long beaded necklace with her thin

nervous fingers.

she has a neck like a swan,

could be a movie star,

twice in the mad house,

a mother in the mad house,

and a sister in prison.

you never know when she is going to

go mad again and

throw tiny fits

and 3 a.m. phone calls at you.

the kids trundle about the apartment

and she fucks and doesn’t fuck,

has an exercise chart on her wall

bends this way and that

touches her toes

leaps

stretches and so

forth. she goes from dope to religion

and from religion back to dope and

from black guys to white guys and from white to

black again.

when she takes off those dark glasses

her eyes are blue

and she tries to smile

as she twists that necklace

around and around.

there are 3 keys on the end of it:

her car key

her apartment key

and one that I’ve never

asked her about.

she’s not given up,

she’s not dead yet,

she’s hardly even old,

her air conditioner doesn’t

work and that’s really all I know

about her because I’m one of those

she wants to

marry.

(uncollected)

life of the king

I awaken at 11:30 a.m.

get into my chinos and a clean green shirt

open a Miller’s,

and nothing in the mailbox but the

Berkeley Tribe

which I don’t subscribe to,

and on KUSC there is organ music

something by Bach

and I leave the door open

stand on the porch

walk out front

hot damn

that air is good

and the sun like golden butter on my

body. no racetrack today, nothing but this

beastly and magic

leisure, rolled cigarette dangling

I scratch my belly in the sun

as Paul Hindemith

rides by on a bicycle,

and down the street a lady in a

very red dress

bends down into a laundry basket

rises

hangs a sheet