You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense - Charles Bukowski [30]
or the girls
either,
and it hadn’t been a simple
bust
it had been a
shoot-out:
there were bullet holes
in the door
above the
stairway.
I went into the Hoagie shop
for a sandwich and a
beer
and the proprietor told
me,
“things are better
now.”
after that
I had to leave town
for a couple of
days
and when I got back
and walked down
to the Hoagie shop
I saw that the plate glass
window
had been busted
out
and was covered with
boards.
inside the walls
and the counter had been
blackened by
fire.
about that same
time
my girlfriend went crazy
and started screwing one man
after
another.
almost everything good was
gone.
I gave my landlord a month’s
notice and moved in
3 weeks.
you get so alone at times that it just makes sense
when I was a starving writer I used to read the major writers in the
major magazines (in the library, of course) and it made me feel
very bad because—being a student of the word and the way, I realized
that they were faking it: I could sense each false emotion, each
utter pretense, it made me feel that the editors had their
heads up their asses—or were being politicized into publishing
in-groups of power
but
I just kept writing and not eating very much—went down from 197 pounds
to 137—but—got very much practice typing and reading printed rejection
slips.
it was when I reached 137 pounds that I said, to hell with it, quit
typing and concentrated on drinking and the streets and the ladies of
the streets—at least those people didn’t read Harper’s, The Atlantic or
Poetry, a magazine of verse.
and frankly, it was a fair and refreshing ten year lay-off
then I came back and tried it again to find that the editors still had
their heads up their asses and/or etc.
but I was up to 225 pounds
rested
and full of background music—
ready to give it another shot in the
dark.
a good gang, after all
I keep hearing from the old dogs,
men who have been writing for
decades,
poets all,
they’re still at their
typers
writing better than
ever
past wives and wars and
jobs
and all the things that
happen.
many I disliked for personal
and artistic
reasons…
but what I overlooked was
their endurance and
their ability to
improve.
these old dogs
living in smoky rooms
pouring the
bottle…
they lash against the
typer ribbons: they came
to
fight.
this
being drunk at the typer beats being with any woman
I’ve ever seen or known or heard about
like
Joan of Arc, Cleopatra, Garbo, Harlow, M.M. or
any of the thousands that come and go on that
celluloid screen
or the temporary girls I’ve seen so lovely
on park benches, on buses, at dances and parties, at
beauty contests, cafes, circuses, parades, department
stores, skeet shoots, balloon flys, auto races, rodeos,
bull fights, mud wrestling, roller derbies, pie bakes,
churches, volleyball games, boat races, county fairs,
rock concerts, jails, laundromats or wherever
being drunk at this typer beats being with any woman
I’ve ever seen or
known.
hot
there’s fire in the fingers and there’s fire in the shoes and there’s
fire in walking across a room
there’s fire in the cat’s eyes and there’s fire in the cat’s
balls
and the wrist watch crawls like a snake across the back of the
dresser
and the refrigerator contains 9,000 frozen red hot dreams
and as I listen to the symphonies of dead composers
I am consumed with a glad sadness
there’s fire in the walls
and the snails in the garden only want love
and there’s fire in the crabgrass
we are burning burning burning
there’s fire in a glass of water
the tombs of India smile like smitten motherfuckers
the meter maids cry alone at one a.m. on rainy nights
there’s fire in the cracks of the sidewalks
and
all during the night as I have been drinking and typing these
eleven or twelve poems
the lights have gone off and on
there is a wild wind outside
and in between times
I have sat in the dark here
electric (haha) typer off lights out radio off
drinking in the dark
lighting cigarettes in the dark
there