and his vegetables and produce were
very cheap and
he also sold flowers. people came
from all over Pasadena to go to his
store
but he wanted to buy the custom drapery shop
and the girls kept saying, no.
one night somebody was seen running
out the back door of the drapery shop
and there was a fire
and almost everything was destroyed—
they’d had a tremendous inventory,
they tried to save what was left
had a fire sale
but it didn’t work
they had to sell, finally,
and then the German owned the drapery shop
but it just sits there, vacant,
the German’s wife tried to make a go of it
she tried to sell little baskets and things
but it didn’t work.
we finished the plums.
“that was a sad story,” I told her.
then she bent down and began sucking me off.
the windows were open and you could hear me
hollering all over the neighborhood
at 5:30 in the evening.
girls coming home
the girls are coming home in their cars
and I sit by the window and
watch.
there’s a girl in a red dress
driving a white car
there’s a girl in a blue dress
driving a blue car.
there’s a girl in a pink dress
driving a red car.
as the girl in the red dress
gets out of the white car
I look at her legs
as the girl in the blue dress
gets out of the blue car
I look at her legs
as the girl in the pink dress
gets out of the red car
I look at her legs.
the girl in the red dress
who got out of the white car
had the best legs
the girl in the pink dress
who got out of the red car
had average legs
but I keep remembering the girl in the blue dress
who got out of the blue car
I saw her panties
you don’t know how exciting life can get
around here
at 5:35 p.m.
some picnic
which reminds me
I shacked with Jane for 7 years
she was a drunk
I loved her
my parents hated her
I hated my parents
we made a nice
foursome
one day we went on a picnic
together
up in the hills
and we played cards and drank beer and
ate potato salad
they treated her as if she were a living person
at last
everybody laughed
I didn’t laugh.
later at my place
over the whiskey
I said to her,
I don’t like them
but it’s good they treated you
nice.
you damn fool, she said,
don’t you see?
see what?
they kept looking at my beer-belly,
they think I’m pregnant.
oh, I said, well here’s to our beautiful
child.
here’s to our beautiful child,
she said.
we drank them down.
bedpans
in the hospitals I’ve been in
you see the crosses on the walls
with the thin palm leaves behind them
yellowed and browned
it is the signal to accept the inevitable
but what really hurts
are the bedpans
hard under your ass
you’re dying
and you’re supposed to sit up on this
impossible thing
and urinate and
defecate
while in the bed
next to yours
a family of 5 brings good cheer
to an incurable
heart-case
cancer-case
or a case of general rot.
the bedpan is a merciless rock
a horrible mockery
because nobody wants to drag your failing body
to the crapper and back.
you’d drag it
but they’ve got the bars up:
you’re in your crib
your tiny death-crib
and when the nurse comes back
an hour and a half later
and there’s nothing in the bedpan
she gives you a most
intemperate look
as if when nearing death
one should be able to do
the common common things
again and again.
but if you think that’s bad
just relax
and let it go
all of it
into the sheets
then you’ll hear it
not only from the nurse
but from
all the other patients…
the hardest part of dying
is that they expect you
to go out
like a rocket shot into the
night sky.
sometimes that can be done
but when you need the bullet and the gun
you’ll look up
and find
that the wires above your head
connected to the button
years ago
have been cut
snipped
eliminated
been
made
useless as
the bedpan.
the good loser
red face
Texas
and age
he’s at an L.A.
racetrack
been talking to
a group of folks.
it’s the 4th race
and he’s ready to
leave:
“well, goodbye,
folks and God bless,
see you around
tomorrow…”
“nice fellow.”
“yeh.”
he’s going to the
parking lot to
get into a 12 year
old car
from there he’ll
drive to a roominghouse
his room will neither
have a toilet nor a
bath
his room will have
one window with a
torn paper shade
and outside will be
a crumbling cement wall
spray-can graffiti courtesy
of a Chicano youth gang
he’ll take off his
shoes and
get on the bed
it will be dark
but he won’t turn
on the light
he’s got nothing
to do.
an art
all the way from Mexico
straight from the fields
to 14 wins
13 by k.o.
he was ranked #3
and in a tune-up fight
he was k.o’d by an unranked
black fighter who hadn’t fought
in 2 years.
all the way from Mexico
straight from the fields
the drink and the women had gotten
to him.
in the rematch he was k.o’d again
and suspended for 6 months.
all that way
for the bottle and 2 cases of
v.d.
he came back in a year
swearing he was clean, he’d
/>
learned.
and he earned a draw with the
9th ranked in his division.
he came back for the rematch
and the fight was stopped in
the 3rd round because he
couldn’t protect
himself.
and he went all the way back
to Mexico
straight to the fields.
it takes a damned good poet
like me
to handle drink and women
evade v.d.
write about failures
like him
and hold my ranking in the
top 10:
all the way from Germany
straight from the factories
among beerbottles
and the ringing of the
phone.
the girls at the green hotel
are more beautiful than
movie stars
and they lounge on the
lawn
sunbathing
and one sits in a short
dress and high
heels, legs crossed
exposing miraculous
thighs.
she has a bandanna
on her head
and smokes a
long cigarette.
traffic slows
almost stops.
the girls ignore
the traffic.
they are half
asleep in the afternoon
they are whores
they are whores without
souls
and they are magic
because they lie
about nothing.
I get in my car
wait for traffic to
clear,
drive across the street
to the green hotel
to my favorite:
she is
sun-bathing on the
lawn nearest the
curb.
“hello,” I say.
she turns eyes like
imitation diamonds
up at me.
her face has no
expression.
I drop my latest
book of poems
out the car
window.
it falls
by her side.
I shift into
low,
drive off.
there’ll be some
laughs
tonight.
a good one
I get too many
phone calls.
they seek the
creature out.
they shouldn’t.
I never phoned
Knut Hamsun or
Ernie or
Celine.
I never phoned
Salinger
I never phoned
Neruda.
tonight I got
a call:
“hello. you
Charles Bukowski?”
“yes.”
“well, I got a
house.”
“yes?”
“a bordello.”
“I understand.”
“I’ve read your
books. I’ve got a
houseboat in
Sausalito.”
“all right.”
“I want to give you
my phone number. you
ever come to San Francisco
I’ll buy you a drink.”
“o.k. give me the
number.”
I took it down.
“we run a class joint. we’re
after lawyers and state senators,
upper class citizens, muggers,
pimps, the like.”
“I’ll phone you when I
get up there.”
“lots of the girls
read your books. they
love you.”
“yeah?”
“yeah.”
we said goodbye.
I liked that
phone call.
shit time
half drunk
I left her place
her warm blankets
and I was hungover
didn’t even know what town
it was.
I walked along and
I couldn’t find my car.
but I knew it was somewhere.
and then I was lost
too.
I walked around. it was a
Wednesday morning and I could
see the ocean to the south.
but all that drinking:
the shit was about to pour
out of me.
I walked towards the
sea.
I saw a brown brick
structure at the edge
of the sea.
I walked in. there was an
old guy groaning on one of
the pots.
“hi, buddy,” he said.
“hi,” I said.
“it’s hell out there,
isn’t it?” the old guy
asked.
“it is,” I answered.
“need a drink?”
“never before noon.”
“what time you got?”
“11:58.”
“we got two minutes.”
I wiped, flushed, pulled up my
pants and walked over.
the old man was still on his pot,
groaning.
he pointed to a bottle of wine
at his feet
it was almost done
and I picked it up and took about
half what remained.
I handed him a very old and wrinkled
dollar
then walked outside on the lawn
and puked it up.
I looked at the ocean and the
ocean looked good, full of blues and
greens and sharks.
I walked back out of there
and down the street
determined to find my automobile.
it took me one hour and 15 minutes
and when I found it
I got in and drove off
pretending that I knew just as much
as the next
man.
madness
I don’t beat the walls with my fists
I just sit
but it rushes in
a tide of it.
the woman in the court behind me howls,
weeps every night.
sometimes the county comes
and takes her away for a day or two.
I believed she was suffering the loss
of a great love
until one day she came over and told me about
it—
she had lost 8 apartment houses
to a gigolo who had swindled her out
of them.
she was howling and weeping over loss of property.
she began weeping as she told me
then with a mouth lined with stale lipstick
and smelling of garlic and onions
she kissed me and told me:
“Hank, nobody loves you if you don’t have money.”
she’s old, almost as old as I am.
she left, still weeping…
the other morning at 7:30 a.m. two black
attendants came with their stretcher,
only they knocked on my door.
“come on, man,” said the tallest
one.
“wait,” I said, “there’s a mistake.”
I was terribly hungover
standing in my torn bathrobe
hair hanging down over my eyes.
“this is the address they gave us, man,
this is 5437 and 2/5’s isn’t it?”
“yes.”
“come on, man, don’t give us no shit.”
“the lady you want is in the back there
.”
they both walked around back.
“this door here?”
“no, no, that’s my back door. look go up those steps behind
you there. it’s the door to the east, the one with the mailbox
hanging loose.”
they went up and banged on the door. I watched them take her
away. they didn’t use the stretcher. she walked between them.
and the thought occurred to me that they were taking the wrong
one but I wasn’t sure.