Mockingbird Wish Me Luck Read online

  delicious.

  war is perfect,

  the solid way drips and leaks,

  Schopenhauer laughed for 72 years,

  and I was told by a very small man in a New York City

  pawnshop

  one afternoon:

  “Christ got more attention than I did

  but I went further on less…”

  well, the distance between 5 points is the same as the

  distance between 3 points is the same as the distance

  between one point:

  it is all as cordial as a bonbon:

  all this that we are wrapped

  in:

  eunuchs are more exact than sleep

  the postage stamp is mad, Indiana is ridiculous

  the chameleon is the last walking flower.

  funhouse

  I drive to the beach at night

  in the winter

  and sit and look at the burned-down amusement pier

  wonder why they just let it sit there

  in the water.

  I want it out of there,

  blown-up,

  vanished,

  erased;

  that pier should no longer sit there

  with madmen sleeping inside

  the burned-out guts of the funhouse…

  it’s awful, I say, blow the damn thing up,

  get it out of my eyes,

  that tombstone in the sea.

  the madmen can find other holes

  to crawl into.

  I used to walk that pier when I was 8

  years old.

  another academy

  how can they go on, you see them

  sitting in old doorways

  with dirty stained caps and thick clothes and

  no place to go;

  heads bent down, arms on

  knees they wait.

  or they stand in front of the Mission

  700 of them

  quiet as oxen

  waiting to be let into the chapel

  where they will sleep upright on the hard benches

  leaning against each other

  snoring and

  dreaming;

  men

  without.

  in New York City

  where it gets colder

  and they are hunted by their own

  kind, these men often crawl under car radiators,

  drink the anti-freeze,

  get warm and grateful for some minutes, then

  die.

  but that is an older

  culture and a wiser

  one;

  here they scratch and

  wait,

  while on Sunset Boulevard the

  hippies and yippies

  hitchhike in

  $50

  boots.

  out in front of the Mission I heard one guy say to

  another:

  “John Wayne won it.”

  “Won what?” said the other guy

  tossing the last of his rolled cigarette into the

  street.

  I thought that was

  rather good.

  a day at the oak tree meet

  Filet’s Rule, the 12 horse around 12 to one,

  that was the first race, they had a different

  janitor in the men’s room, and I didn’t have the

  2nd race either, Bold Courage, around 19 to one,

  my Kentucky Lark got a dead ride from the boy

  who stood up in the saddle all the way, which is

  hardly a way to ride a 2 to one shot, and I

  got a roast beef sandwich for $1.10, if you’re going

  to go broke you might as well eat well, and in the

  3rd Grandby had to pull up to avoid Factional who

  came over on him, the stewards argued for 15

  minutes before allowing it to stand, and there I was

  52 dollars down and the mountains were dry,

  life was hardly worthwhile, and in the 4th, Aberion

  Bob I think was the play but I went to Misty Repose

  who got locked in the one hole at 6 furlongs and had

  nothing left when he swung out. A. Bob won handily and

  I was 67 dollars down, the coffee was a quarter and

  the coffee girl looked like an x-prostitute, which

  she probably wasn’t, and then in the 5th, Christie’s

  Star took it at thirteen to one and I was 3rd, I think

  with Bold Street, I can’t beat those maiden races, and

  I was 77 dollars down and bought a hot dog which cost

  50 cents and was gone in 2 bites, and then I had to

  go 20 win on Nearbrook, which won by 6 or 7 lengths

  but at 4 to 5, so I am still 65 dollars down and the

  mountains are still dry, but nobody is talking to me

  or bothering me, there’s a chance. I put 15 win on

  Moving Express and 5 win on Choctaw Charlie and C.C.

  comes in at eight to one, and then I am only 37 dollars

  down, and we have the 8th race, Manta at 3 to 5

  was a rather obvious bet, I looked for something to beat

  her and came up with Hollywood Gossip. Manta went

  on by, but I had been afraid of that and had only gone

  5 win, I was 42 dollars down with one race to go, and

  I put 20 win on Vesperal and ten win on Cedar Cross,

  and Cedar Cross ran dead and Vesperal went wire to

  wire, so that was 72 down before the race, and

  you take the 84 dollar pay off and you’ve got 12 dollars

  profit. There you go: behind for 8 races, winner in

  the 9th. Nothing big, but bankroll intact. This comes,

  my friends, out of years of training. There are thorough-

  bred horses and thoroughbred bettors. What you do is

  stay with your plays and let them come to you. Loving

  a woman is the same way, or loving life. You’ve

  got to work a bit for it. In a day or 2 I’ll go again

  and get off better. You’ll see me that night having a

  quiet drink at the track bar as the losers run for the

  parking lot. Don’t talk to me or bother me and I won’t

  bother you. All right?

  rain

  a symphony orchestra.

  there is a thunderstorm,

  they are playing a Wagner overture

  and the people leave their seats under the trees

  and run inside to the pavilion

  the women giggling, the men pretending calm,

  wet cigarettes being thrown away,

  Wagner plays on, and then they are all under the

  pavilion. the birds even come in from the trees

  and enter the pavilion and then it is the Hungarian

  Rhapsody #2 by Lizst, and it still rains, but look,

  one man sits alone in the rain

  listening. the audience notices him. they turn

  and look. the orchestra goes about its

  business. the man sits in the night in the rain,

  listening. there is something wrong with him,

  isn’t there?

  he came to hear the

  music.

  the colored birds

  it is a highrise apt. next door

  and he beats her at night and she screams and nobody stops it

  and I see her the next day

  standing in the driveway with curlers in her hair

  and she has her huge buttocks jammed into black

  slacks and she says, standing in the sun,

  “god damn it, 24 hours a day in this place, I never go anywhere!”

  then he comes out, proud, the little matador,

  a pail of shit, his belly hanging over his bathing trunks—

  he might have been a handsome man once, might have,

  now they both stand there and he says,

  “I think I’m
goin’ for a swim.”

  she doesn’t answer and he goes to the pool and

  jumps into the fishless, sandless water, the peroxide-codein water,

  and I stand by the kitchen window drinking coffee

  trying to unboil the fuzzy, stinking picture—

  after all, you can’t live elbow to elbow to people without wanting to

  draw a number on them.

  every time my toilet flushes they can hear it. every time they

  go to bed I can hear them.

  soon she goes inside and then comes out with 2 colored birds

  in a cage. I don’t know what they are. they don’t talk. they

  just move a little, seeming to twitch their tail-feathers and

  shit. that’s all they do.

  she stands there looking at them.

  he comes out: the little tuna, the little matador, out of the pool,

  a dripping unbeautiful white, the cloth of his wet suit gripping.

  “get those birds in the house!”

  “but the birds need sun!”

  “I said, get those birds in the house!”

  “the birds are gonna die!”

  “you listen to me, I said, GET THOSE BIRDS IN THE HOUSE!”

  she bends and lifts them, her huge buttocks in the black slacks

  looking so sad.

  he slams the door behind them. then I hear it.

  BAM!

  she screams

  BAM! BAM!

  she screams

  then: BAM!

  and she screams.

  I pour another coffee and decide that that’s a new

  one: he usually only beats her at

  night. it takes a man to beat his wife night and

  day. although he doesn’t look like much

  he’s one of the few real men around

  here.

  another lousy 10 percenter

  I have read your stuff with

  sharp inter…

  he said,

  falling forward

  and knocking over his wine.

  get that bum

  OUTA here! screamed my old

  lady.

  but ma, I said, he’s my

  agent! got a joint in

  Plaza Square!

  well, kiss my bubs, she said.

  (she poured wine

  all around,

  the bat.)

  I’ve represented, he said,

  raisen his head, somerset mawn, ben heck

  and tomas carylillie.

  an’ as you might ’ave surmised, ’e said,

  mah cut, daddy-o, is ten percent!

  ’is haid fell

  forshafts.

  Ma? I asked. who’s

  forshafts?

  Somerset Maun! she answered,

  yo hashole!

  making it

  ignore all possible concepts and possibilities—

  ignore Beethoven, the spider, the damnation of Faust—

  just make it, babe, make it:

  a house a car a belly full of beans

  pay your taxes

  fuck

  and if you can’t fuck

  copulate.

  make money but don’t work too

  hard—make somebody else pay to

  make it—and

  don’t smoke too much but drink enough to

  relax, and

  stay off the streets

  wipe your ass real good

  use a lot of toilet paper

  it’s bad manners to let people know you shit or

  could smell like it

  if you weren’t

  careful.

  drunk ol’ bukowski drunk

  I hold to the edge of the table

  with my belly dangling over my

  belt

  and I glare at the lampshade

  the smoke clearing

  over

  North Hollywood

  the boys put their muskets down

  lift high their fish-green beer

  as I fall forward off the couch

  kiss rug hairs like cunt

  hairs

  close as I’ve been in a

  long time.

  the poetry reading

  at high noon

  at a small college near the beach

  sober

  the sweat running down my arms

  a spot of sweat on the table

  I flatten it with my finger

  blood money blood money

  my god they must think I love this like the others

  but it’s for bread and beer and rent

  blood money

  I’m tense lousy feel bad

  poor people I’m failing I’m failing

  a woman gets up

  walks out

  slams the door

  a dirty poem

  somebody told me not to read dirty poems

  here

  it’s too late.

  my eyes can’t see some lines

  I read it

  out—

  desperate trembling

  lousy

  they can’t hear my voice

  and I say,

  I quit, that’s it, I’m

  finished.

  and later in my room

  there’s scotch and beer:

  the blood of a coward.

  this then

  will be my destiny:

  scrabbling for pennies in dark tiny halls

  reading poems I have long since become tired

  of.

  and I used to think

  that men who drove busses

  or cleaned out latrines

  or murdered men in alleys were

  fools.

  slim killers

  there are 4 guys at the door

  all 6 feet four

  and checking in at

  around 210 pounds,

  slim killers.

  come in, I say,

  and they walk in with their drinks

  and circle the old man—

  so you’re Bukowski, eh?

  yeh, you fucking killers, what do you

  want?

  well, we don’t have a car

  and Lee needs a ride to this nightspot

  in Hollywood.

  let’s go, I say.

  we get into my car

  all of us drunk, and

  somebody in back says,

  we’ve been reading your poetry a long time,

  Bukowski, and I say,

  I’ve been writing it a long time,

  kid. we dump Lee at the nightspot

  then stop off for enough beer and cigars

  to demolish the

  stratosphere.

  back at my place I sit with the killers and

  we drink and smoke.

  it is somehow enjoyable.

  I find I can outdrink and outsmoke them

  but I realize that in areas such as fights on

  the front lawn

  my day is done.

  the motherfuckers are just getting too young and

  too big.

  after they pass out

  I give each of them a pillow and a blanket

  and make sure all the cigars are

  out.

  in the morning they were just 3 big kids

  untrapped, a couple of them

  heaving in the bathroom.

  an hour later

  they were gone.

  readers of my poems

  I can’t say that

  I disliked them.

  the last days of the suicide kid

  I can see myself now

  after all these suicide days and nights,

  being wheeled out of one of those sterile rest homes

  (of course, this is only if I get famous and lucky)

  by a subnormal and bored nurse…

  there I am sitting upright in my wheelchair…

  almost blind, eyes rolling backward into the dark part of my
skull

  looking

  for the mercy of death…

  “Isn’t it a lovely day, Mr. Bukowski?”

  “O, yeah, yeah…”

  the children walk past and I don’t even exist

  and lovely women walk by

  with big hot hips

  and warm buttocks and tight hot everything

  praying to be loved

  and I don’t even

  exist…

  “It’s the first sunlight we’ve had in 3 days,

  Mr. Bukowski.”

  “Oh, yeah, yeah.”

  there I am sitting upright in my wheelchair,

  myself whiter than this sheet of paper,

  bloodless,

  brain gone, gamble gone, me, Bukowski,

  gone…

  “Isn’t it a lovely day, Mr. Bukowski?”

  “O, yeah, yeah…” pissing in my pajamas, slop drooling out of

  my mouth.

  2 young schoolboys run by—

  “Hey, did you see that old guy?”

  “Christ, yes, he made me sick!”