чарльз буковски

the skaters

I am sitting at a table in the mall drinking coffee while
Linda shops.
I sit above the ice rink where the children skate
in the afternoon,
mostly young girls dressed in blues, reds, whites, greens,
purples, yellows, orange
they are all very good, swift, they spin and glide,
there are no collisions. even the tiniest child
very good, all—
tiny, larger and largest—
whirl through the open spaces as if they were one.
I like it, very much, but then I think
as they get older they will stop skating, they will
stop singing, painting, dancing,
their interests will shift to
survival,
the grace and the gamble will disappear.
but let’s not feel too bad:
this happens to animals too:
they play so long
then
stop…
then I see Linda, it appears that she has
found something that
pleases her, she rushes toward my table, she
waves,
laughing.
I stand up, wave, smile,
things seem very happy
as down below us they whirl and
glide.
some moments are nice, some are
nicer, some are even worth
writing
about.

******

green

I’ve been drunk in front of cracked bathroom mirrors
in Southern towns of nowhere
holding a paring knife near the jugular vein and
grinning.
that’s when I first learned that stage play is
a great substitute for
reality:
the only separation between doing and
pretending to do
being that infinite hairline of
choice: a
choice between nothing and
nothing.
to awaken in the morning, to
find a place of
employment
where the workers accepted everything
but the dream of
escape.
there were so many places like
that.
there was a job in this town
in Louisiana
which I left each evening
tired and dulled
to that night again
pouring glassfuls and
looking out the
window and
thinking about a girl at
work
in an ill-fitting green dress
who cursed continually about
almost everything.
I only wanted to fuck her
once and
get out of
town.
I only got out of town,
which means I made a choice between
staying nowhere and going
nowhere,
and I imagine if she’s alive she’s
still cursing about
something
but I no longer hold the paring knife
near the jugular vein—
the end is getting
close enough
all by
itself.

******

the souls of dead animals

after the slaughterhouse
there was a bar around the corner
and I sat in there
and watched the sun go down
through the window,
a window that overlooked a lot
full of tall dry weeds.
I never showered with the boys at the
plant
after work
so I smelled of sweat and
blood.
the smell of sweat lessens after a
while
but the blood-smell begins to fulminate
and gain power.
I smoked cigarettes and drank beer
until I felt good enough to
board the bus
with the souls of all those dead
animals riding with
me;
heads would turn slightly
women would rise and move away from
me.
when I got off the bus
I only had a block to walk
and one stairway up to my
room
where I’d turn on my radio and
light a cigarette
and nobody minded me
at all.

******

the knifer

you knifed me, he said, you told Pink Eagle
not to publish me.
oh hell, Manny, I said, get off it.
these poets are very sensitive
they have more sensitivity than talent,
I don’t know what to do with them.
just tonight the phone rang and
it was Bagatelli and Bagatelli said
Clarsten phoned and Clarsten was pissed
because we hadn’t mailed him the
anthology, and Clarsten blamed me
for not mailing the anthology
and furthermore Clarsten
claimed I was trying to do him
in, and he was very
angry. so said
Bagatelli.
you know, I’m really beginning to feel like
a literary power
I just lean back in my chair and roll cigarettes
and stare at the walls
and I am given credit for the life and death of
poetic careers.
at least I’m given credit for the
death part.
actually these boys are dying off without my
help. The sun has gone behind the cloud.
I have nothing to do with the workings.
I smoke Prince Albert, drink Schlitz
and copulate whenever possible. believe in my
innocence and I might consider
yours.

******

the night I was going to die

the night I was going to die
I was sweating on the bed
and I could hear the crickets
and there was a cat fight outside
and I could feel my soul dropping down through the
mattress
and just before it hit the floor I jumped up
I was almost too weak to walk
but I walked around and turned on all the lights
then made it back to the bed
and again my soul dropped down through the mattress
and I leaped up
just before it hit the floor
I walked around and I turned on all the lights
and then I went back to bed
and down it dropped again and
I was up
turning on all the lights
I had a 7 year old daughter
and I felt sure she didn’t want me dead
otherwise it wouldn’t have
mattered
but all that night
nobody phoned
nobody came by with a beer
my girlfriend didn’t phone
all I could hear were the crickets and it was
hot
and I kept working at it
getting up and down
until the first of the sun came through the window
through the bushes
and then I got on the bed
and the soul stayed
inside at last and
I slept.
now people come by
beating on the doors and windows
the phone rings
the phone rings again and again
I get great letters in the mail
hate letters and love letters.
everything is the same again.

******

face of a political candidate on a street billboard

there he is:
not too many hangovers
not too many fights with women
not too many flat tires
never a thought of suicide
not more than three toothaches
never missed a meal
never in jail
never in love
7 pairs of shoes
a son in college
a car one year old
insurance policies
a very green lawn
garbage cans with tight lids
he’ll be elected

******

the proud thin dying

I see old people on pensions in the
supermarkets and they are thin and they are
proud and they are dying
they are starving on their feet and saying
nothing. long ago, among other lies,
they were taught that silence was
bravery. now, having worked a lifetime,
inflation has trapped them. they look around
steal a grape
chew on it. finally they make a tiny
purchase, a day’s worth.
another lie they were taught:
thou shalt not steal.
they’d rather starve than steal
(one grape won’t save them)
and in tiny rooms
while reading the market ads
they’ll starve
they’ll die without a sound
pulled out of roominghouses
by young blond boys with long hair
who’ll slide them in
and pull away from the curb, these
boys
handsome of eye
thinking of Vegas and pussy and
victory.
it’s the order of things: each one
gets a taste of honey
then the knife.

******

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.
I can’t eat.
I have been robbed of
my filth.

******

trashcan lives
the wind blows hard tonight
and it’s a cold wind
and I think about
the boys on the row.
I hope some of them have a bottle
of red.
it’s when you’re on the row
that you notice that
everything
is owned
and that there are locks on
everything
this is the way a democracy
works:
you get what you can,
try to keep that
and add to it
if possible.
this is the way a dictatorship
works too
only they either enslave or
destroy their
derelicts.
we just forget
ours.
in either case
it’s a hard
cold
wind

******

no help for that
there is a place in the heart that
will never be filled
a space
and even during the
best moments
and
the greatest
times
we will know it
we will know it
more than
ever
there is a place in the heart that
will never be filled
and
we will wait
and
wait
in that
space.

******

well, that’s just the way it is…
sometimes when everything seems at
its worst
when all conspires
and gnaws
and the hours, days, weeks
years
seem wasted—
stretched there upon my bed
in the dark
looking upward at the ceiling
I get what many will consider an
obnoxious thought:
it’s still nice to be
Bukowski.

******

the freeway life
some fool kept blocking me and I finally got around him, and in the
elation of freedom I ran it up to 85 (naturally, first checking the rear
view for our blue suited protectors); then I felt and heard the SMASH of a hard
object upon the bottom of my car, but wanting to make the track I willed
myself to ignore it (as if that would
make it vanish) even though I began
to smell gasoline.
I checked the gas gauge and it seemed to be holding…
it had been a terrible week already
but, you know, defeat can strengthen just as victory can weaken, and if
you have the proper luck and the holy endurance the gods just might deliver
the proper admixture…
then
traffic backed up and stopped, and then I really smelled gas and I saw my
gas gauge dipping rapidly, then my radio told me that a man
3 miles up
on the Vernon overpass had one leg over the side and was threatening
suicide,
and there I was threatened with being blown to hell
as people yelled at me that my tank was broken and pouring gasoline;
yes, I nodded back, I know, I know…
meanwhile, waving cars off and working my way over to the outer lane
thinking, they are more terrorized than I am:
if I go, those nearby might go also.
there was no motion in the traffic—the suicide was still trying to make
up his mind and my gas gauge dipped into the red
and then the necessity of being a proper citizen and waiting for opportunity
vanished and I made my move
up and over a cement abutment
bending my right front wheel
I made it to the freeway exit which was totally
clear
then worked on down to a gas station on Imperial Highway
parked it
still dripping gas, got out, made it to the phone, got in a call
for the tow truck, not a long wait at all, nice drive back in with a black
fellow who told me strange stories about stranded motorists…
(like one woman, her hands were frozen to the wheel, took 15 minutes of
talking and prying to make her let go.)
had the car back in a couple of days, was driving back from the track,
hit the brake and it wouldn’t go down, luckily I wasn’t on the freeway
yet, cut the ignition, glided to the curb, noted that the steering
column cover had ripped loose and blocked the brake, ripped that away, then
ripped some more to make sure, then a
whole mass of wires spilled out,
s h i t…
I turned the key, hit the gas but the car STARTED
and I drove off with the dangling wires against my leg
thinking
do these things happen to other
people or am
I just the chosen one?
I decided it was the latter and got onto the freeway where
some guy in a volks swung over and blocked my
lane
whereupon I swung around the son-of-a-bitch and hit
75, 80, 85…
thinking, the courage it took to get out of bed each
morning
to face the same things
over and over
was
enormous.

******

the crazy truth
the nut in the red outfit
came walking down the street
talking to himself
when a hotshot in a sports car
cut into an alley
in front of the nut
who hollered, “HEY, DOG DRIP!
SWINE SHIT! YOU GOT PEANUTS FOR
BRAINS?”
the hotshot braked his sports
car, backed toward the nut,
stopped,
said: “WHAT’S THAT YOU SAID,
BUDDY?”
“I said, YOU BETTER
DRIVE OFF WHILE YOU CAN,
ASSHOLE!”
the hotshot had his girl in the
car with him and started to
open the door.
“YOU BETTER NOT GET OUT OF THAT
CAR, PEANUT BRAIN!”
the door closed and the sports car
roared
off.
the nut in the red outfit then
continued to walk down the
street.
“THERE AIN’T NOTHIN’ NOWHERE,”
he said, “AND IT’S GETTING TO BE
LESS THAN NOTHING ALL THE
TIME!”
it was a great day
there on 7th Street just off
Weymouth
Drive.

******

drive through hell
the people are weary, unhappy and frustrated, the people are
bitter and vengeful, the people are de
luded and fearful, the
people are angry and uninventive
and I drive among them on the freeway and they project
what is left of themselves in their manner of driving—
some more hateful, more thwarted than others—
some don’t like to be passed, some attempt to keep others
from passing
—some attempt to block lane changes
—some hate cars of a newer, more expensive model
—others in these cars hate the older cars.
the freeway is a circus of cheap and petty emotions, it’s
humanity on the move, most of them coming from some place they
hated and going to another they hate just as much or
more.
the freeways are a lesson in what we have become and
most of the crashes and deaths are the collision
of incomplete beings, of pitiful and demented
lives.
when I drive the freeways I see the soul of humanity of
my city and it’s ugly, ugly, ugly: the living have choked the
heart
away.
for the concerned:
if you get married they think you’re
finished
and if you are without a woman they think you’re
incomplete.
a large portion of my readers want me to
keep writing about bedding down with madwomen and
streetwalkers—
also, about being in jails and hospitals, or
starving or
puking my guts
out.
I agree that complacency hardly engenders an
immortal literature
but neither does
repetition.
of humanity of
my city and it’s ugly, ugly, ugly: the living have choked the
heart
away.

******

friends within the darkness
I can remember starving in a
small room in a strange city
shades pulled down, listening to
classical music
I was young I was so young it hurt like a knife
inside
because there was no alternative except to hide as long
as possible—
not in self-pity but with dismay at my limited chance:
trying to connect.
the old composers—Mozart, Bach, Beethoven,
Brahms were the only ones who spoke to me and
they were dead.
finally, starved and beaten, I had to go into
the streets to be interviewed for low-paying and
monotonous
jobs
by strange men behind desks
men without eyes men without faces
who would take my hours
break them
piss on them.
now I work for the editors the readers the
critics
but still hang around and drink with
Mozart, Bach, Brahms and the
Bee
some buddies
some men
sometimes all we need to be able to continue alone
are the dead
rattling the walls
that close us in.

******

death sat on my knee and cracked with laughter
I was writing three short stories a week
and sending them to the Atlantic Monthly
they would all come back.
my money went for stamps and envelopes
and paper and wine
and I got so thin I used to
suck my cheeks
together
and they’d meet over the top of my
tongue (that’s when I thought about
Hamsun’s Hunger—where he ate his own
flesh; I once took a bite of my wrist
but it was very salty).
anyhow, one night in Miami Beach (I
have no idea what I was doing in that
city) I had not eaten in 60 hours
and I took the last of my starving
pennies
went down to the corner grocery and
bought a loaf of bread.
I planned to chew each slice slowly—
as if each were a slice of turkey
or a luscious
steak
and I got back to my room and
opened the wrapper and the
slices of bread were green
and mouldy.
my party was not to be.
I just dumped the bread upon the
floor
and I sat on that bed wondering about
the green mould, the
decay.
my rent money was used up and
I listened to all the sounds
of all the people in that
roominghouse
and down on the floor were
the dozens of stories with the
dozens of Atlantic Monthly
rejection slips.
it was early evening and I
turned out the light and
went to bed and
it wasn’t long before I
heard the mice coming out,
I heard them creeping over my
immortal stories and
eating the
green mouldy bread.
and in the morning
when I awakened
I saw that
all that was left of the
bread
was the green
mould.
they had eaten right to the
edge of the mould
leaving chunks of
it
among the stories and
rejection slips
as I heard the sound of
my landlady’s vacuum
cleaner
bumping down the
hall
slowly approaching my
door.

******

oh yes
I’ve been so
down in the mouth
lately
that sometimes when I
bend over to
lace my shoes
there are
three
tongues.

******

O tempora! O mores!
I get these girly magazines in the mail because
I’m writing short stories for them again
and here in these pages are these ladies
exposing their jewel boxes—
it looks more like a gynecologist’s
journal—
everything boldly and clinically
exposed
beneath bland and bored physiognomies.
it’s a turn-off of gigantic
proportions:
the secret is in the
imagination—
take that away and you have dead
meat.
a century back
a man could be driven mad
by a well-turned
ankle, and
why not?
one could imagine
that the rest
would be
magical
indeed!
now they shove it at us like a
McDonald’s hamburger
on a platter.
there is hardly anything as beautiful as
a woman in a long dress
not even the sunrise
not even the geese flying south
in the long V formation
in the bright freshness
of early morning.

******

true
one of Lorca’s best lines
is,
“agony, always
agony…”
think of this when you
kill a
cockroach or
pick up a razor to
shave
or awaken in the morning
to
face the
sun.

******

it’s funny, isn’t it? #2
when we were kids
laying around the lawn
on our
bellies
we often talked
about
how
we’d like to
die
and
we all
agreed on the
same
thing:
we’d all
like to die
fucking
(although
none of us
had
done any
fucking)
and now
that
we are hardly
kids
any longer
we think more
about
how
not to
die
and
although
we’re
ready
most of
us
would
prefer to
do it
alone
under the
sheets
now
that
most of
us
have fucked
our lives
away.

******

about the PEN conference
take a writer away from his typewriter
and all you have left
is
the sickness
which started him
typing
in the
beginning.

******

everybody talks too much
when
the cop pulled me
over
I
handed him my
license.
he
went back
to radio in
the make
and model
of my car
and
get clearance on
my plates.
he wrote
the ticket
walked
up
handed it
to me
to
sign.
I did
he gave
me
back the
license.
“how come
you
don’t
say
anything?”
he asked.
I shrugged
my
shoulders.
“well, sir,”
he
said, “have
a
good day
and
drive
carefully.”
I
noticed
some sweat
on his
brow
and the
hand
that held
the
ticket
seemed to
be
trembling
or
perhaps
I
was only
imagining it?
anyhow
I
watched him
move
toward
his
bike
then I
pulled
away…
when confronted
with
dutiful
policemen
or
women
in rancor
I
have nothing
to
say
to them
for
if I
truly
began
it would
end
in
somebody’s
death:
theirs or
mine
so
I
let them
have
their
little
victories
which
they need
far
more
than
I
do.

******

love poem to a stripper
50 years ago I watched the girls
shake it and strip
at The Burbank and The Follies
and it was very sad
and very dramatic
as the light turned from green to
purple to pink
and the music was loud and
vibrant,
now I sit here tonight
smoking and
listening to classical
music
but I still remember some of
their names: Darlene, Candy, Jeanette
and Rosalie.
Rosalie was the
best, she knew how,
and we twisted in our seats and
made sounds
as Rosalie brought magic
to the lonely
so long ago.
now Rosalie
either so very old or
so quiet under the
earth,
this is the pimple-faced
kid
who lied about his
age
just to watch
you.
you were good, Rosalie
in 1935,
good enough to remember
now
when the light is
yellow
and the nights are
slow.

******

my buddy
for a 21-year-old boy in New Orleans I wasn’t worth
much: I had a dark small room that smelled of
piss and death
yet I just wanted to stay in there, and there were
two lively girls down at the end of the hall who
kept knocking on my door and yelling, “Get up!
There are good things out here!”
“Go away,” I told them, but that only
goaded
them on, they left notes under my door and
scotch-taped flowers to the
doorknob.
I was on cheap wine and green beer and
dementia…
I got to know the old guy in the next
room, somehow I felt old like
him; his feet and ankles were swollen and he couldn’t
lace his shoes.
each day about one p.m. we went for a walk
together and it was a very slow
walk: each step was painful for
him.
as we came to the curbing I helped him
up and down
gripping him by an elbow
and the back of his
belt, we made it.
I liked him: he never questioned me about
what I was or wasn’t
doing.
he should have been my father, and I liked
best what he said over and
over: “Nothing is worth
it.”
he was a
sage.
those young girls should have
left him the
notes and the
flowers

******

no nonsense
Faulkner loved his whiskey
and along with the
writing
he didn’t have
time
for much
else.
he didn’t open
most of his
mail
just held it up
to the light
and if it didn’t
contain a
check
he trashed
it

******

marching through Georgia
we are burning like a chicken wing left on the grill of an
outdoor barbecue
we are unwanted and burning we are burning and unwanted we are
an unwanted
burning
as we sizzle and fry
to the bone
the coals of Dante’s Inferno spit and sputter beneath
us
and
above the sky is an open hand and
the words of wise men are useless
it’s not a nice world, a nice world it’s
not…
come on, try this nice burnt chicken-wing poem
it’s hot it’s tough not much
meat
but ’tis sadly sensible
and one or two bites ends it
thus

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