The Pleasures of the Damned Read online

  The Pleasures of the Damned

  Poems, 1951–1993

  Charles Bukowski

  Edited by John Martin

  Contents

  the mockingbird

  something’s knocking at the door

  his wife, the painter

  on the sidewalk and in the sun

  the elephants of Vietnam

  dark night poem

  the last days of the suicide kid

  tabby cat

  metamorphosis

  a poem is a city

  a smile to remember

  a free 25-page booklet

  they, all of them, know

  a future congressman

  eulogy

  the drowning

  fooling Marie (the poem)

  the young man on the bus stop bench

  for they had things to say

  silly damned thing anyhow

  upon reading an interview with a best-selling novelist in our metropolitan daily newspaper

  harbor freeway south

  schoolyards of forever

  in the lobby

  sex

  a clean, well-lighted place

  something for the touts, the nuns, the grocery clerks and you…

  blue beads and bones

  like a cherry seed in the throat

  turnabout

  mystery leg

  the girl outside the supermarket

  it is not much

  2 Outside, As Bones Break in My Kitchen

  The Japanese Wife

  the harder you try

  the lady in red

  the shower

  i was glad

  the angel who pushed his wheelchair

  a time to remember

  the wrong way

  no wonder

  a threat to my immortality

  my telephone

  Carson McCullers

  Mongolian coasts shining in light

  putrefaction

  where was Jane?

  something about a woman

  Sunday lunch at the Holy Mission

  trashcan lives

  school days

  grass

  crucifix in a deathhand

  the screw-game

  millionaires

  when you wait for the dawn to crawl through the screen like a burglar to take your life away

  the talkers

  art

  advice for some young man in the year 2064 A.D

  ice for the eagles

  girl in a mini skirt reading the Bible outside my window

  hell is a lonely place

  the girls and the birds

  1813–1883

  no leaders, please

  song

  one for Sherwood Anderson

  bow wow love

  the day the epileptic spoke

  when Hugo Wolf went mad—

  in a neighborhood of murder

  the strangest sight you ever did see—

  the 2nd novel

  junk

  Mademoi selle from Armentières

  now

  society should realize…

  the souls of dead animals

  the tragedy of the leaves

  the birds

  the loner

  The Genius of the Crowd

  German bar

  the snow of Italy

  for Jane: with all the love I had, which was not enough

  notice

  for Jane

  eulogy to a hell of a dame

  barfly

  was Li Po wrong?

  the night I saw George Raft in Vegas

  I am eaten by butterflies

  the veryest

  man mowing the lawn across the way from me

  oh, yes

  poop

  Phillipe’s 1950

  downtown

  elephants in the zoo

  girl on the escalator

  the shit shits

  big time loser

  commerce

  come on in!

  the bakers of 1935

  secret laughter

  Democracy

  an empire of coins

  what?

  the American Flag Shirt

  now she’s free

  the simple truth

  gold in your eye

  a great writer

  the smoking car

  the shoelace

  self-inflicted wounds

  Verdi

  the young lady who lives in Canoga Park

  life of the king

  my failure

  a boy and his dog

  liberated woman and liberated man

  small talk

  the crunch

  fun house

  the poetry reading

  somebody

  the colored birds

  poem for personnel managers

  my fate

  my atomic stockpile

  Bruckner (2)

  hello, how are you?

  vacancy

  batting slump

  bang bang

  the pleasures of the damned

  one more good one

  the little girls hissed

  ha ha ha ha ha, ha ha

  thoughts from a stone bench in Venice

  scene in a tent outside the cotton fields of Bakersfield

  3:16 and one half…

  a literary discussion

  butterflies

  the great escape

  my friend William

  safe

  starve, go mad, or kill yourself

  the beautiful lady

  my life as a sitcom

  who needs it?

  riots

  those marvelous lunches

  The Look

  the big one

  the genius

  about the PEN conference

  what a man I was

  Scarlet

  like a flower in the rain

  a killer

  prayer in bad weather

  melancholia

  eat your heart out

  I made a mistake

  she comes from somewhere

  The High-Rise of the New World

  car wash

  Van Gogh

  the railroad yard

  the girls at the green hotel

  in other words

  Destroying Beauty

  peace

  afternoons into night

  we ain’t got no money, honey, but we got rain

  marina

  Trollius and trellises

  beagle

  coffee and babies

  magical mystery tour

  the last generation

  about competition

  a radio with guts

  the egg

  a killer gets ready

  in the center of the action

  poetry

  notes upon the flaxen aspect

  the fisherman

  the 1930s

  the burning of the dream

  sit and endure

  Goldfish

  finish

  dreaming

  my special craving

  A Love Poem

  one writer’s funeral

  the wine of forever

  the pile-up

  my big night on the town

  close encounters of another kind

  drying out

  scene from 1940

  the area of pause

  I know you

  relentless as the tarantula

  the replacements

  to lean back into it

  eating my senior citizen’s dinner at the Sizzler

  it’s strange

  The Beast

  woman on the street


  lost in San Pedro

  Manx

  the history of a tough motherfucker

  bad fix

  one for the old boy

  my cats

  Death Wants More Death

  the lisp

  on being 20

  meanwhile

  the world’s greatest loser

  human nature

  the trash men

  a gold pocket watch

  talking to my mailbox…

  I liked him

  one for the shoeshine man

  the proud thin dying

  shot of red-eye

  about pain

  hot

  who in the hell is Tom Jones?

  the price

  I’m in love

  the girls

  the ladies of summer

  to night

  shoes

  hug the dark

  face of a political candidate on a street billboard

  white dog

  on going out to get the mail

  spring swan

  how is your heart?

  closing time

  racetrack parking lot at the end of the day

  there

  Dinosauria, we

  mind and heart

  TB

  crime does pay

  the orderly

  the nurses

  cancer

  first poem back

  tired in the afterdusk

  again

  so now?

  blue

  a summation

  sun coming down

  twilight musings

  my last winter

  like a dolphin

  the bluebird

  if we take—

  alphabetical index of poem titles

  About the Author

  Other Books by Charles Bukowski

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  the mockingbird

  the mockingbird had been following the cat

  all summer

  mocking mocking mocking

  teasing and cocksure;

  the cat crawled under rockers on porches

  tail flashing

  and said something angry to the mockingbird

  which I didn’t understand.

  yesterday the cat walked calmly up the driveway

  with the mockingbird alive in its mouth,

  wings fanned, beautiful wings fanned and flopping,

  feathers parted like a woman’s legs,

  and the bird was no longer mocking,

  it was asking, it was praying

  but the cat

  striding down through centuries

  would not listen.