You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense Read online

  way

  leaving

  empty spaces

  where people should

  be.

  our progenitors, our

  educational systems, the

  land, the media, the

  way

  have

  deluded and misled the

  masses: they have been

  defeated

  by the aridity of

  the actual

  dream.

  they were

  unaware that

  achievement or victory or

  luck or

  whatever the hell you

  want to call

  it

  must have

  its defeats.

  it’s only the re-gathering and

  going on

  which lends substance

  to whatever magic

  might possibly

  evolve.

  and now

  as we ready to self-destruct

  there is very little left to

  kill

  which makes the tragedy

  less and more

  much much

  more.

  termites of the page

  the problem that I’ve found with

  most poets that I have known is that

  they’ve never had an 8 hour job

  and there is nothing

  that will put a person

  more in touch

  with the realities

  than

  an 8 hour job.

  most of these poets

  that I have known

  have

  seemingly existed on

  air alone

  but

  it hasn’t been truly

  so:

  behind them has been

  a family member

  usually a wife or mother

  supporting these

  souls

  and

  so it’s no wonder

  they have written so

  poorly:

  they have been protected

  against the actualities

  from the

  beginning

  and they

  understand nothing

  but the ends of their

  fingernails

  and

  their delicate

  hairlines

  and

  their lymph

  nodes.

  their words are

  unlived, unfurnished, un-

  true, and worse—so

  fashionably

  dull.

  soft and safe

  they gather together to

  plot, hate,

  gossip, most of these

  American poets

  pushing and hustling their

  talents

  playing at

  greatness.

  poet (?):

  that word needs re-

  defining.

  when I hear that

  word

  I get a rising in the

  gut

  as if I were about to

  puke.

  let them have the

  stage

  so long

  as I need not be

  in the

  audience.

  a good time

  now look, she said, stretched out on the bed, I don’t want anything

  personal, let’s just do it, I don’t want to get involved, got

  it?

  she kicked off her high-heeled shoes…

  sure, he said, standing there, let’s just pretend that we’ve

  already done it, there’s nothing less involved than that, is

  there?

  what the hell do you mean? she asked.

  I mean, he said, I’d rather drink

  anyhow.

  and he poured himself one.

  it was a lousy night in Vegas and he walked to the window and

  looked out at the dumb lights.

  you a fag? she asked, you a god damned

  fag?

  no, he said.

  you don’t have to get shitty, she said, just because you lost at

  the tables—we drove all the way here to have a good time and

  now look at you: sucking at that booze, you coulda done that in

  L.A.!

  right, he said, one thing I do like to get involved with is the

  fucking bottle.

  I want you to take me home, she said.

  my pleasure, he said, let’s

  go.

  it was one of those times where nothing was lost because nothing

  had ever been found and as she got dressed it was sad for

  him

  not because of him and the lady but because of all the millions

  like him and the lady

  as the lights blinked out there, everything so effortlessly

  false.

  she was ready, fast: let’s get the hell out of here, she

  said.

  right, he said, and they walked out the door together.

  the still trapeze

  Saroyan told his wife, “I’ve got to

  gamble in order to

  write.” she told him to

  go ahead.

  he lost $350,000.00

  mostly at the racetrack

  but still couldn’t write or

  pay his taxes.

  he ran from the govt. and exiled himself

  in Paris.

  he later came back, sweated it

  out

  in hock up to his

  ass—

  royalties dropping

  off.

  he still couldn’t write or

  what he wrote didn’t

  work

  because that tremendous

  brave optimism

  that buoyed everybody up

  so well

  during the depression

  just turned to

  sugar water

  during

  good times.

  he died

  a dwindling legend

  with a huge handlebar

  mustache

  just like his father

  used to have

  in the old Fresno

  Armenian way

  in a world that

  could no longer

  use

  William.

  January

  here

  you see this

  hand

  here you see this

  sky

  this

  bridge

  hear this

  sound

  the agony of the

  elephant

  the nightmare of the

  midget

  while

  caged parrots

  sit in a

  flourish of

  color

  while pieces of

  people

  fall over the

  edge

  like pebbles

  like

  rocks

  madhouses screaming in

  pain

  as the royalty of the

  world is

  photographed

  say

  on horseback

  or

  say

  watching a procession

  in their

  honor

  as

  the junkies junk

  as the alkies drink

  as the whores whore

  as the killers kill

  the albatross blinks its

  eyes

  the weather stays

  mostly

  the same.

  sunny side down

  NOTHING. sitting in a cafe having breakfast. NOTHING. the waitress,

  and the people eating. the traffic runs by. doesn’t matter what

  Napoleon did, what Plato said. Turgenev could have been a fly. we are worn-

  down, hope stamped out. we reach for coffee cu
ps like the robots about

  to replace us. courage at Salerno, bloodbaths on the Eastern front didn’t

  matter. we know that we are beaten. NOTHING. now it’s just a matter of

  continuing

  anyhow—

  chew the food and read the paper. we

  read about ourselves. the news is

  bad. something about

  NOTHING.

  Joe Louis long dead as the medfly invades Beverly Hills.

  well, at least we can sit and

  eat. it’s been some rough

  trip. it could be

  worse. it could be worse than

  NOTHING.

  let’s get more coffee from the

  waitress.

  that bitch! she knows we are trying to get her

  attention.

  she just stands there doing

  NOTHING.

  it doesn’t matter if Prince Charles falls off his horse

  or that the hummingbird is so seldom

  seen

  or that we are too senseless to go

  insane.

  coffee. give us more of that NOTHING

  coffee.

  the man in the brown suit

  fuck, he was small

  maybe 5-3,

  135 pounds,

  I didn’t like

  him,

  he sat there at his desk

  at the

  bank

  and as I waited in line

  he seemed to have a way

  of glancing at

  me

  and I stared

  back,

  I don’t know what

  it was

  that caused the

  animosity.

  he had this little mustache

  that drooped

  at the ends,

  he was in his mid-forties

  and like most people who worked

  in banks

  he had a non-committal

  yet self-important

  personality.

  one day I almost went

  over the railing

  to ask him

  what the hell

  was he looking

  at?

  today I went in

  and stood in line

  and saw him leave his

  desk.

  one of the lady tellers was

  having a problem

  with a man

  at her

  window

  and the man

  in the brown suit

  began to hold

  counsel with both of

  them.

  suddenly

  the man in the brown suit

  vaulted the

  railing

  got behind the other

  man

  wrapped his arms

  about him

  then dragged him along

  to a latch

  entrance

  along the railing

  reached over

  unhooked the latch

  while still managing to

  hold the

  man.

  then he dragged him

  in there

  latched the

  gate

  and while holding the

  man

  he told one of the

  girls,

  “Phone the

  police.”

  the man he was holding was

  about 20, black, a good 6-2,

  maybe 190 pounds,

  and I thought, hey,

  break loose, man, jail is a

  long time.

  but he just stood

  there

  being

  held.

  I left before the

  police

  arrived.

  the next time

  I went to the bank

  the man in the brown suit

  was behind his

  desk.

  and when he glanced at

  me

  I smiled just a

  little.

  a magician, gone…

  they go one by one and as they do it gets closer

  to me and

  I don’t mind that so much, it’s

  just that I can’t be practical about the

  mathematics that take others

  to the vanishing point.

  last Saturday

  one of racing’s greatest harness drivers

  died—little Joe O’Brien.

  I had seen him win many a

  race. he

  had a peculiar rocking motion

  he flicked the reins

  and rocked his body back and

  forth. he

  applied this motion

  during the stretch run and

  it was quite dramatic and

  effective…

  he was so small that he couldn’t

  lay the whip on as hard as the

  others

  so

  he rocked and rocked

  in the sulky

  and the horse felt the lightning

  of his excitement

  that rhythmic crazy rocking was

  transferred from man to

  beast…

  the whole thing had the feel of a

  crapshooter calling to the

  gods, and the gods

  so often answered…

  I saw Joe O’Brien win

  endless photo finishes

  many by a

  nose.

  he’d take a horse

  another driver couldn’t get a

  run out of

  and Joe would put his touch

  to it

  and the animal would

  most often respond with

  a flurry of wild energy.

  Joe O’Brien was the finest harness driver

  I had ever seen

  and I’d seen many over the

  decades.

  nobody could nurse and cajole

  a trotter or a pacer

  like little Joe

  nobody could make the magic work

  like Joe.

  they go one by one

  presidents

  garbage men

  killers

  actors

  pickpockets

  boxers

  hit men

  ballet dancers

  fishermen

  doctors

  fry cooks

  like

  that

  but Joe O’Brien

  it’s going to be hard

  hard

  to find a replacement for

  little Joe

  and

  at the ceremony

  held for him

  at the track tonight

  (Los Alamitos 10-1-84)

  as the drivers gathered in a

  circle

  in their silks

  at the finish line

  I had to turn my back

  to the crowd

  and climb the upper grandstand

  steps

  to the wall

  so the people wouldn’t

  see me

  cry.

  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 chemistry of things

  I always thought Mary Lou was skinny and

  not much to look at

  while almost all the other guys

  thought she was a

  hot number.

  maybe that’s why she hung around me />
  in Jr. High.

  my indifference must have attracted

  her.

  I was cool and mean in those days

  and when the guys asked me,

  “you banged Mary Lou yet?”

  I answered them with the

  truth: “she

  bores me.”

  there was this guy

  he taught chemistry.

  Mr. Humm. Humm wore a little bow

  tie and a black coat, a

  cheap wrinkled job, he was

  supposed to have

  brains

  and one day Mary Lou came to

  me

  and said Humm kept her

  after class

  and had taken her into the

  closet and

  kissed her and

  fondled her

  panties.

  she was crying, “what will I

  do?”

  “forget it,” I told her,

  “those chemicals have scrambled

  his brain. we have an English teacher

  who hikes her skirt up around her

  hips every day and wants to go to bed with

  every guy in class. we enjoy her but

  ignore her.”

  “why don’t you beat Mr. Humm up?”

  she asked me.

  “I could but they’d transfer me to

  Stuart Hall.”

  in Stuart Hall they beat the shit

  out of you

  and they ignored math, English,

  music, they just stuck you into auto

  shop

  where you fixed up old cars

  which they resold at big

  profits.

  “I thought you cared for me,” said Mary

  Lou, “don’t you realize he

  kissed me, stuck his tongue down my

  throat and had his hand up my

  behind?”

  “well,” I said, “we saw Mrs. Lattimore’s

  pussy the other day, in English.”

  Mary Lou walked off

  crying…

  well, she told her

  mother and Humm got his, he

  had to

  resign, poor son of a

  bitch.

  after that the guys asked me,

  “hey, what do you think of Humm

  sticking his hand up your girl’s