The Pleasures of the Damned - Charles Bukowski [44]
said the skeleton
shoving his chalky foot
upon my desk,
and that was it,
bang bang,
he looked at me,
and it was my bone body
and I was what remained,
and there was a newspaper
on my desk
and somebody folded the newspaper
and I folded,
I was the newspaper
under somebody’s arm
and the sheet of me
had eyes
and I saw the skeleton
watching
and just before the door closed
I saw a man who looked
partly like Napoleon,
partly like Hitler,
fighting with my skeleton,
then the door closed
and we went down the steps
and outside
and I was under
the arm
of a fat little man
who knew nothing
and I hated him
for his indifference
to fact, how I hated him
as he unfolded me
in the subway
and I fell against the back
of an old woman.
the pleasures of the damned
the pleasures of the damned
are limited to brief moments
of happiness:
like the eyes in the look of a dog,
like a square of wax,
like a fire taking the city hall,
the county,
the continent,
like fire taking the hair
of maidens and monsters;
and hawks buzzing in peach trees,
the sea running between their claws,
Time
drunk and damp,
everything burning,
everything wet,
everything fine.
one more good one
to be writing poetry at the age of 50
like a schoolboy,
surely, I must be crazy;
racetracks and booze and arguments
with the landlord;
watercolor paintings under the bed
with dirty socks;
a bathtub full of trash
and a garbage can lined with
underground newspapers;
a record player that doesn’t work,
a radio that doesn’t work,
and I don’t work—
I sit between 2 lamps,
bottle on the floor
begging a 20-year-old typewriter
to say something, in a way and
well enough
so they won’t confuse me
with the more comfortable
practitioners;
this is certainly not a game for
flyweights or Ping-Pong players—
all arguments to the contrary.
—but once you get the taste, it’s good to get your
teeth into
words. I forgive those who
can’t quit.
I forgive myself.
this is where the action is,
this is the hot horse that
comes in.
there’s no grander fort
no better flag
no better woman
no better way; yet there’s much else to say—
there seems as much hell in it as
magic; death gets as close as any lover has,
closer,
you know it like your right hand
like a mark on the wall
like your daughter’s name,
you know it like the face on the corner
newsboy,
and you sit there with flowers and houses
with dogs and death and a boil on the neck,
you sit down and do it again and again
the machinegun chattering by the window
as the people walk by
as you sit in your undershirt,
50, on an indelicate March evening,
as their faces look in and help you write the next 5
lines,
as they walk by and say,
“the old man in the window, what’s the deal with
him?”
—fucked by the muse, friends,
thank you—
and I roll a cigarette with one hand
like the old bum
I am, and then thank and curse the gods
alike,
lean forward
drag on the cigarette
think of the good fighters
like poor Hem, poor Beau Jack, poor Sugar Ray,
poor Kid Gavilan, poor Villon, poor Babe, poor
Hart Crane, poor
me, hahaha.
I lean forward,
redhot ash
falling on my wrists,
teeth into the word.
crazy at the age of 50,
I send it
home.
the little girls hissed
since my last name was Fuch, he said to Raymond, you can
believe the school yard was tough: they put itching
powder down my neck, threw gravel at me, stung me
with rubber bands in class, and outside they called
me names, well, one name mainly, over and over,
and on top of all that my parents were poor, I wore
cardboard in my shoes to fill in the holes in the
soles, my pants were patched, my shirts threadbare;
and even my teachers ganged up
on me, they slammed my
palm with rulers and sent me to the principal’s office as
if I was really guilty of something;
and, of course, the abuse kept coming from my classmates;
I was stoned, beaten, pissed on;
the little girls hissed and stuck their tongues out
at me…
Fuch’s wife smiled sadly at Raymond: