Mockingbird Wish Me Luck Read online

  after all the threats to do so

  somebody else has committed suicide for me

  at last.

  the nurse stops the wheelchair, breaks a rose from a nearby bush,

  puts it in my hand.

  I don’t even know

  what it is. it might as well be my pecker

  for all the good

  it does.

  bang bang

  absolutely sesamoid

  said the skeleton

  shoving his chalky foot

  upon my desk,

  and that was it,

  bang bang,

  he looked at me,

  and it was my bone body

  and I was what remained,

  and there was a newspaper

  on my desk

  and somebody folded the newspaper

  and I folded,

  I was the newspaper

  under somebody’s arm

  and the sheet of me

  had eyes

  and I saw the skeleton

  watching

  and just before the door closed

  I saw a man who looked

  partly like Napoleon,

  partly like Hitler,

  fighting with my skeleton,

  then the door closed

  and we went down the steps

  and outside

  and I was under

  the arm

  of a fat little man

  who knew nothing

  and I hated him

  for his indifference

  to fact, how I hated him

  as he unfolded me

  in the subway

  and I fell against the back

  of an old woman.

  5 men in black passing my window

  5 men in black passing my window

  it’s Sunday

  they’ve been to church.

  5 men in black passing my window;

  they’re between 40 and 60

  each with a little smile on his face

  like a tarantula.

  they’re without women;

  I am too.

  look at them,

  it’s the way they walk by fives—

  no two together,

  not speaking,

  just the little smiles.

  each has done his horrible thing

  during the week—

  fired a stockboy, stolen from a partner;

  cowardly horrible little men

  passing my window.

  5 men in black with little

  smiles.

  I could machinegun them

  without feeling

  banal

  bury them without a tear:

  death of all these things

  Springtime.

  the poet’s muse

  there was one

  made a thousand dollars

  one day

  in a town no larger than

  El Paso

  jumping taxies between

  universities and ladies’

  clubs.

  hell, you can’t blame him;

  I’ve worked for $16 a week,

  quit, and lived a month on

  that.

  his wife is suing for divorce

  and wants $200 a week

  alimony.

  he has to stay famous and

  keep

  talking.

  I see his work

  everywhere.

  somebody

  god I got the sad blue blues,

  this woman sat there and she

  said

  are you really Charles

  Bukowski?

  and I said

  forget that

  I do not feel good

  I’ve got the sad sads

  all I want to do is

  fuck you

  and she laughed

  she thought I was being

  clever

  and O I just looked up her long slim legs of heaven

  I saw her liver and her quivering intestine

  I saw Christ in there

  jumping to a folk-rock

  all the long lines of starvation within me

  rose

  and I walked over

  and grabbed her on the couch

  ripped her dress up around her face

  and I didn’t care

  rape or the end of the earth

  one more time

  to be there

  anywhere

  real

  yes

  her panties were on the

  floor

  and my cock went in

  my cock my god my cock went in

  I was Charles

  Somebody.

  story and poem

  look, he said, that story,

  everybody knew it was me.

  by god, I said, are you still

  hacking at that?

  I thought you were going to write a

  story exposing me?

  what happened to that?

  you didn’t have to write that

  story about me!

  forget it, I said, it’s not

  important.

  he leaped and slammed the door;

  the glass didn’t break

  but the curtain rod and curtain

  fell.

  I tried to finish a one-act play

  gave up

  and went to bed.

  the phone rang.

  listen, he said, when I came over

  I had no idea I’d act like

  that.

  it’s o.k., I said.

  relax.

  I leaned back to sleep and I

  thought,

  now I’ll probably write a poem about

  him.

  there seems to be no way out, I thought,

  everybody is always angry about the truth

  even though they claim to

  believe in it.

  I slept and wrote the poem

  in the morning.

  and the moon and the stars and the world:

  long walks at

  night—

  that’s what’s good

  for the

  soul:

  peeking into windows

  watching tired

  housewives

  trying to fight

  off

  their beer-maddened

  husbands.

  get the nose

  comfrock, you motherfuck

  get up off your crazy knees

  and I’ll belt you down

  again—

  what’s that?

  you say I eat stem pipes?

  I’ll kill you!

  stop crying. god damn.

  all right, we dumped your car into the sea

  and raped your daughter

  but we are only extending the possibilities of a working

  realism, shut up!, I said

  any man must be ready for anything and

  if he isn’t then he isn’t a

  man a goat a note or a plantleaf,

  you shoulda known the entirety of the trap, asshole,

  love means eventual pain

  victory means eventual defeat

  grace means eventual slovenliness,

  there’s no way

  out…you see, you

  understand?

  hey, Mickey, hold his head up

  want to break his nose with this pipe…

  god damn, I almost forgot the

  nose!

  death is every second, punk.

  the calendar is death. the sheets are death. you put on your

  stockings: death. buttons on your shirt are death.

  lace sportshirts are death. don’t you smell it? temperature is

  death. little girls are death. free coupons are death. carrots are

  death. didn’t you

  know?

  o.k., Mack, we got the nose.

  no, not the balls, too much bleeding.

/>   what was he when? oh, yeah, he used to be a cabby

  we snatched him from his cab

  right off Madison, destroyed his home, his car, raped his

  12 year old daughter, it was beautiful, burned his wife with

  gasoline.

  look at his eyes

  begging mercy…

  my landlady and my landlord

  56, she leans

  forward

  in the kitchen

  2:25 a.

  m.

  same red

  sweater

  holes in

  elbows

  cook him something to

  EAT

  he says

  from the

  same red

  face

  3 years ago

  we broke down a tree

  fighting

  after he caught me

  kissing

  her.

  beer by the

  quarts

  we drink

  bad beer

  by the

  quarts

  she gets up

  and

  begins to

  fry

  something

  all night

  we sings songs

  songs from 1925 a.

  d. to

  1939 a.

  d.

  we talk about

  short skirts

  Cadillacs the

  Republican Administration

  the depression

  taxes

  horses

  Oklahoma

  here

  you son of a bitch,

  she says.

  drunk

  I lean forward and

  eat.

  bad night

  Bartenders are human too

  and when he reached for the baseball bat

  the little Italian hit him in the face

  with a bottle

  and several whores screamed.

  I was just coming out

  of the men’s room

  when I saw the bartender

  get off the floor

  and open the cigar box

  to get the gun,

  and I turned around

  and went out back,

  and the Italian

  must have argued poorly

  because I heard the shot

  just as I got

  the car door open.

  I drove down the alley

  and turned East on 7th st.,

  and I hadn’t gone a block

  before a cop pulled me over.

  You trying to get killed?

  he asked. Turn your lights

  on.

  He was a big fat one and he

  kept pushing his helmet

  further and further

  on the back of his head.

  I took the ticket and then

  drove down to Union. I

  parked outside the Reno Hotel

  and went downstairs

  to Harry’s.

  It was quiet there, only

  a big redhead, bigger

  than the cop.

  She called me Honey

  and I ordered 2.

  hogs in the sky

  the territory of the diamond and the territory of the

  cross and the territory of the spider and the territory of

  the butcher

  divided by the territory of you and me

  subtracted from the territory of mathematical

  reality

  multiplied by those tombstones in the

  moonlight

  just going on

  is a greater gut-miracle than the life-death cycle

  itself, I mean

  going on against uselessness—

  that’s different than living,

  say, the way a fly lives;

  the brain gives us enough light to know

  that living is only an artful sacrifice

  at best. at worst, it’s

  hogs in the sky.

  the territory of the darning needle

  the territory of the mustard jar

  the territory of mad dogs and love gone stale

  the territory of you and me

  each evening bent like the point of a thumb tack

  that will no longer stick

  in

  each kiss a hope of returning to the first kiss

  each fuck the same

  each person nailed against diminishing

  returns

  we are slaves to hopes that have run to

  garbage

  as old age

  arrives on schedule.

  the territory of meeting and leaving

  the territory of you and me

  death arrived on schedule on a

  Sunday afternoon, and,

  as always,

  it was easier than we thought

  it would be.

  the white poets

  the white poets usually knock quite early

  and keep knocking and ringing

  ringing and knocking

  even though all the shades are down;

  finally I arise with my hangover

  figuring such persistency

  must mean good fortune, a prize of some

  sort—female or monetary,

  “aw right! aw right!” I shout

  looking for something to cover my ugly

  naked body. sometimes I must vomit first,

  then gargle; the gargle only makes me vomit again.

  I forget it—go to the door—

  “hello?”

  “you Bukowski?”

  “yeh. come in.”

  we sit and look at each other—

  he very vigorous and young—

  latest blooming clothes—

  all colors and silk—

  face like a weasel—

  “you don’t remember me?” he

  asks.

  “no.”

  “I was here before. you were rather short. you didn’t like my

  poems.”

  “there are plenty of reasons for not liking

  poems.”

  “try these.”

  he put them on me. they were flatter than the paper they were typed

  upon. there wasn’t a tick or a

  flare. not a sound. I’d never read

  less.

  “uh,” I said, “uh-uh.”

  “you mean you don’t LIKE

  them?”

  “there’s nothing there—it’s like a pot of evaporated piss.”

  he took the papers, stood up and walked

  around. “look, Bukowski. I’ll put some broads from Malibu on

  you, broads like you’ve never

  seen.”

  “oh yeah, baby?” I asked.

  “yeah, yeah,” he

  said.

  and ran out the

  door.

  his Malibu broads were like his

  poems: they

  never arrived.

  the black poets

  the black poets

  young

  come to my door—

  “you Bukowski?”

  “yeh. come in.”

  they sit and look around at the

  destroyed room

  and at

  me.

  they hand me their poems.

  I read

  them.

  “no,” I say and hand them

  back.

  “you don’t like

  them?”

  “no.”

  “’roi Jones came down to see us at our

  workshop…”

  “I hate,” I say,

  “workshops.”

  “…Leroi Jones, Ray Bradbury, lots of big

  boys…they said this stuff was

  good…”

  “it’s bad poetry, man. they are powdering your

  ass.”

  “there’s this big film-writer too. he started the
whole

  idea: Watts Writers’ Workshop.”

  “ah, god, don’t you see? they are tickling your