You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense - Charles Bukowski [27]
a roar
anyhow.
we wash our
claws…
flick off the
light
move toward the
bedroom where the
wife
awakens enough
to say: “don’t step
on the cat!”
which brings us back
to
matters
real
as we find the bed
slip in
face to ceiling: a
grounded
drunken
fat
old
man.
magic machine
I liked the old records that
scratched
as the needle slid across
grooves well
worn
you heard the voice
coming through
the speaker
as if there were a person
inside that
mahogany
box
but you only listened while
your parents were
not there.
and if you didn’t wind
the victrola
it gradually slowed and
stopped.
it was best in late
afternoons
and the records spoke
of
love.
love, love, love.
some of the records had
beautiful purple
labels,
others were orange, green,
yellow, red, blue.
the victrola had belonged to
my grandfather
and he had listened to those
same
records.
and now I was a boy
and
I heard them.
and nothing I could think of
in my life then
seemed better than listening
to that
victrola
when my parents weren’t
there.
those girls we followed home
in Jr. High the two prettiest girls were
Irene and Louise,
they were sisters;
Irene was a year older, a little taller
but it was difficult to choose between
them;
they were not only pretty but they were
astonishingly beautiful
so beautiful
that the boys stayed away from them;
they were terrified of Irene and
Louise
who weren’t aloof at all,
even friendlier than most
but
who seemed to dress a bit
differently than the other
girls:
they always wore high heels,
silk stockings,
blouses,
skirts,
new outfits
each day;
and,
one afternoon
my buddy, Baldy, and I followed them
home from school;
you see, we were kind of
the bad guys on the grounds
so it was
more or less
expected,
and
it was something:
walking along ten or twelve feet behind them;
we didn’t say anything
we just followed
watching
their voluptuous swaying,
the balancing of the
haunches.
we liked it so much that we
followed them home from school
every
day.
when they’d go into their house
we’d stand outside on the sidewalk
smoking cigarettes and talking.
“someday,” I told Baldy,
“they are going to invite us inside their
house and they are going to
fuck us.”
“you really think so?”
“sure.”
now
50 years later
I can tell you
they never did
—never mind all the stories we
told the guys;
yes, it’s the dream that
keeps you going
then and
now.
fractional note
the flowers are burning
the rocks are melting
the door is stuck inside my head
it’s one hundred and two degrees in Hollywood
and the messenger stumbles
dropping the last message into a
hole in the earth
400 miles deep.
the movies are worse than ever
and the dead books of dead men read dead.
the white rats run the treadmill.
the bars stink in swampland darkness
as the lonely unfulfill the lonely.
there’s no clarity.
there was never meant to be clarity.
the sun is diminishing, they say.
wait and see.
gravy barks like a dog.
if I had a grandmother
my grandmother could whip your
grandmother.
free fall.
free dirt.
shit costs money.
check the ads for sales…
now everybody is singing at once
terrible voices
coming from torn throats.
hours of practice.
it’s almost entirely waste.
regret is mostly caused by not having
done anything.
the mind barks like a dog.
pass the gravy.
it is so arranged all the way to
oblivion.
next meter reading date:
JUN 20.
and I feel good.
a following
the phone rang at 1:30 a.m.
and it was a man from Denver:
“Chinaski, you got a following in
Denver…”
“yeah?”
“yeah, I got a magazine and I want some
poems from you…”
“FUCK YOU, CHINASKI!” I heard a voice
in the background…
“I see you have a friend,”
I said.
“yeah,” he answered, “now, I want
six poems…”
“CHINASKI SUCKS! CHINASKI’S A PRICK!”
I heard the other
voice.
“you fellows been drinking?”
I asked.
“so what?” he answered. “you drink.”
“that’s true…”
“CHINASKI’S AN ASSHOLE!”
then
the editor of the magazine gave me