The Pleasures of the Damned

  laughing, Fuch, his lovely young wife and Raymond

  in that sprawling mansion overlooking the shining sea.

  ha ha ha ha ha, ha ha

  monkey feet

  small and blue

  walking toward you

  as the back of a building falls off

  and an airplane chews the white sky,

  doom is like the handle of a pot,

  it’s there,

  know it,

  have ice in your tea,

  marry,

  have children, visit your

  dentist,

  do not scream at night

  even if you feel like screaming,

  count ten

  make love to your wife,

  or if your wife isn’t there

  if there isn’t anybody there

  count 20,

  get up and walk to the kitchen

  if you have a kitchen

  and sit there sweating

  at 3 a.m. in the morning

  monkey feet

  small and blue

  walking toward you.

  thoughts from a stone bench in Venice

  I sit on this bench and look

  at the sea and the freaks and the

  lovers.

  I need new eyes a new mouth new

  pillows, a new woman.

  every old stud with half an eye in

  his head loves to charm and ride

  a new young calf.

  when I think of womenless men mowing their

  Saturday lawns and playing football,

  baseball, basketball with their sons

  I feel like vomiting into the far

  horizon.

  the family stinks of Christ

  and the American Stock Exchange.

  the family stinks of safety and

  numbness and Thanksgiving turkeys.

  the family stinks of airless packed

  automobiles driving through

  redwood forests.

  I need new eyes a new woman new

  ankles a new voice new betrayals.

  I don’t want a long funeral

  pro cession when I die.

  I want to move on without weight

  or obligation.

  I want just the sullen darkness I want

  a tomb like this night now:

  me here undiluted—

  solid, cranky, immaculate.

  I hold fast to me. that’s all there

  is.

  (uncollected)

  scene in a tent outside the cotton fields of Bakersfield:

  we fought for 17 days inside that tent

  thrusting and counter-thrusting

  but finally she got away

  and I walked outside

  and spit

  in the dirty sand.

  Abdullah, I said, why don’t you

  wash your shorts? you’ve been

  wearing the same

  shorts

  for 17 years.

  Effendi, he said, it’s the sun,

  the sun cleans everything. what

  went with the girl?

  I don’t know if I couldn’t

  please her

  or if I couldn’t

  catch her. she was

  pretty young.

  what did she cost, Effendi?

  17 camel.

  he whistled through his broken

  teeth. aren’t you going

  to catch her?

  howinthehell how? can I get

  my camels back?

  you are an American, he said.

  I walked into the tent

  fell upon the ground

  and held my head

  within

  my hands.

  suddenly she burst within

  the tent

  laughing madly,

  Americano,

  Americano!

  please

  go away

  I said quietly.

  men are, she said sitting down and rolling down

  her stockings, some parts titty and some parts

  tiger. you don’t mind

  if I roll down

  my stockings?

  I don’t mind, I said,

  if you roll down the top

  of your dress. whores are

  always rolling down

  their hose. please

  go away. I read where

  the cruiser crew passed the helmet

  for the red cross; I think I’ll

  have them pass it

  to brace your flabby

  butt.

  have ’em pass the helmet twice, dad,

  she said, howcum you don’t love me

  no more?

  I been thinking, I said,

  how can Love have a urinary tract

  and distended bowels?

  pack up, daughter, and flow,

  maneuver out of the mansions

  of my sight!

  you forget, daddy-o, we’re in

  my tent!

  oh, Christ, I said, the trivialities

  of private ownership! where’s my

  hat?

  you were wearing a towel, dad, but

  kiss me, daddy, hold me in your arms!

  I walked over and mauled her breasts.

  I drink too much beer, she said,

  I can’t help it if I

  piss.

  we fucked for 17 days.

  3:16 and one half…

  here I’m supposed to be a great poet

  and I’m sleepy in the afternoon

  here I am aware of death like a giant bull

  charging at me

  and I’m sleepy in the afternoon

  here I’m aware of wars and men fighting in the ring

  and I’m aware of good food and wine and good women

  and I’m sleepy in the afternoon

  I’m aware of a woman’s love

  and I’m sleepy in the afternoon,

  I lean into the sunlight behind a yellow curtain

  I wonder where the summer flies have gone

  I remember the most bloody death of Hemingway

  and I’m sleepy in the afternoon.

  some day I won’t be sleepy in the afternoon

  some day I’ll write a poem that will bring volcanoes

  to the hills out there

  but right now I’m sleepy in the afternoon

  and somebody asks me, “Bukowski, what time is it?”

  and I say, “3:16 and a half.”

  I feel very guilty, I feel obnoxious, useless,

  demented, I feel

  sleepy in the afternoon,

  they are bombing churches, o.k., that’s o.k.,

  the children ride ponies in the park, o.k., that’s o.k.,

  the libraries are filled with thousands of books of knowledge,

  great music sits inside the nearby radio

  and I am sleepy in the afternoon,

  I have this tomb within myself that says,

  ah, let the others do it, let them win,

  let me sleep,

  wisdom is in the dark

  sweeping through the dark like brooms,

  I’m going where the summer flies have gone,

  try to catch me.

  a literary discussion

  Markov claims I am trying

  to stab his soul

  but I’d prefer his wife.

  I put my feet on the coffee table

  and he says,

  I don’t mind you putting

  your feet on the coffee table

  except that the legs are wobbly

  and the thing

  will fall apart

  any minute.

  I leave my feet on the table

  but I’d prefer his wife.

  I would rather, says Markov,

  entertain a ditchdigger

  or a news vendor

  because they are kind enough

  to observe the decencies

&n
bsp; even though

  they don’t know

  Rimbaud from rat poison.

  my empty beercan

  rolls to the floor.

  that I must die

  bothers me less than

  a straw, says Markov,

  my part of the game

  is that I must live

  the best I can.

  I grab his wife as she walks by,

  and then her can is against my belly,

  and she has fine knees and breasts

  and I kiss her.

  it is not so bad, being old, he says,

  a calmness sets in, but here’s the catch:

  to keep calmness and deadness

  separate; never to look upon youth

  as inferior because you are old,

  never to look upon age as wisdom

  because you have experience. a

  man can be old and a fool—

  many are, a man can be young

  and wise—few are. a—

  for Christ’s all sake, I wailed,

  shut up!

  he walked over and got his cane and

  walked out.

  you’ve hurt his feelings, she said,

  he thinks you are a great poet.

  he’s too slick for me, I said,

  he’s too wise.

  I had one of her breasts out.

  it was a monstrous

  beautiful

  thing.

  butterflies

  I believe in earning one’s own way

  but I also believe in the unexpected

  gift

  and it is a wondrous thing

  when a woman who has read your works

  (or parts of them, anyhow)

  offers her self to you

  out of the blue

  a total

  stranger.

  such an offer

  such a communion

  must be taken as

  holy.

  the hands

  the fingers

  the hair

  the smell

  the light.

  one would like to be strong enough

  to turn them away

  those butterflies.

  I believe in earning one’s own way

  but I also believe in the unexpected gift.

  I have no shame.

  we deserve one

  another

  those butterflies

  who flutter to my tiny

  flame

  and

  me.

  the great escape

  listen, he said, you ever seen a bunch of crabs in a

  bucket?

  no, I told him.

  well, what happens is that now and then one crab

  will climb up on top of the others

  and begin to climb toward the top of the bucket,

  then, just as he’s about to escape

  another crab grabs him and pulls him back

  down.

  really? I asked.

  really, he said, and this job is just like that, none

  of the others want anybody to get out of

  here. that’s just the way it is

  in the postal ser vice!

  I believe you, I said.

  just then the supervisor walked up and said,

  you fellows were talking.

  there is no talking allowed on this

  job.

  I had been there eleven and one-half

  years.

  I got up off my stool and climbed right up the

  supervisor

  and then I reached up and pulled myself right

  out of there.

  it was so easy it was unbelievable.

  but none of the others followed me.

  and after that, whenever I had crab legs

  I thought about that place.

  I must have thought about that place

  maybe 5 or 6 times

  before I switched to lobster.

  my friend William

  my friend William is a fortunate man:

  he lacks the imagination to suffer

  he kept his first job

  his first wife

  can drive a car 50,000 miles

  without a brake job

  he dances like a swan

  and has the prettiest blankest eyes

  this side of El Paso

  his garden is a paradise

  the heels of his shoes are always level

  and his handshake is firm

  people love him

  when my friend William dies

  it will hardly be from madness or cancer

  he’ll walk right past the de vil

  and into heaven

  you’ll see him at the party to night

  grinning

  over his martini

  blissful and delightful

  as some guy

  fucks his wife in the

  bathroom.

  safe

  the house next door makes me

  sad.

  both man and wife rise early and

  go to work.

  they arrive home in early evening.

  they have a young boy and a girl.

  by 9 p.m. all the lights in the house

  are out.

  the next morning both man and

  wife rise early again and go to

  work.

  they return in early evening.

  by 9 p.m. all the lights are

  out.

  the house next door makes me

  sad.

  the people are nice people, I

  like them.

  but I feel them drowning.

  and I can’t save them.

  they are surviving.

  they are not

  homeless.

  but the price is

  terrible.

  sometimes during the day

  I will look at the house

  and the house will look at

  me

  and the house will

  weep, yes, it does, I

  feel it.

  the house is sad for the people living

  there

  and I am too

  and we look at each other

  and cars go up and down the

  street,

  boats cross the harbor

  and the tall palms poke

  at the sky

  and to night at 9 p.m.

  the lights will go out,

  and not only in that

  house

  and not only in this

  city.

  safe lives hiding,

  almost

  stopped,

  the breathing of

  bodies and little

  else.

  starve, go mad, or kill yourself

  I’m not going to die

  easy;

  I’ve sat on your suicide beds

  in some of the worst

  holes in America,

  penniless and mad I’ve been,

  I mean, insane, you know;

  big tears, each one the size of your bastard hearts,

  flowing down,

  roaches crawling into my shoes,

  one dirty 40-watt lightbulb overhead

  and a room that smelled like piss;

  while your rich

  your falsely famous

  laughed in safe stale places

  far away,

  you gave me a suicide bed and two choices,

  no three:

  starve, go mad, or kill yourself.

  for now enjoy your trips to Paris where

  you consort with great painters and dupes,

  but I am getting ready for your eyes and your brain and

  your dirty dishwater souls;

  you men who have created a pigpen for millions

  to choke soundlessly in—

  from India to Los Angeles

  from Paris to the tits of the Nile—

  you’re fucked
up

  you rich you warty you insecure you pricky

  damned imbecile pasty white

  idiots with your starched shirts and your starched wives and, yes yes,

  your starched lives,

  get away get away

  get away

  go to Paris

  while you can

  while I let you.

  the jolly damned man with the hoe (see Markham)

  didn’t answer the call,

  but your children will be raped and your pigs will be eaten