Love Is a Dog From Hell Read online

  what the hell’s the matter with

  you?

  listen, I said, I’ve got to leave.

  you stay here. I’ll be right back.

  I’m going, she said. I love you but you’re

  crazy, you’re doomed.

  she got her purse and slammed the door.

  it’s probably some deeply-rooted childhood fuckup

  that makes me vulnerable, I thought.

  then I left my place and got into my volks.

  I drove north up Western with the radio on.

  there were whores walking up and down

  both sides of the street and Madge looked

  more vicious than any of them.

  225 pounds

  we were in bed and

  she started to fight:

  “you son of a bitch! you just wait a minute,

  I’ll get you!”

  I began laughing:

  “what’s the matter? what’s the matter?”

  “you son of a bitch!” she screamed.

  I held her hands as she squirmed.

  she was a couple of decades younger than I

  a health food freak.

  she was very strong.

  “you son of a bitch! I’ll get you!”

  she screamed.

  I rolled on top of her with my 225 pounds and

  just layed it there on her.

  “uugg, oooo, my God, that’s not fair, oooo, my

  God!”

  I rolled off and walked into the other room and

  sat on the couch.

  “I’ll get you, bastard,” she said, “you just

  wait!”

  “just don’t bite it off,” I said, “or you’ll make

  a half dozen women very unhappy.”

  she climbed up on the headboard of my bed

  (it did have a flat though narrow surface)

  and sat perched there watching the news on

  tv.

  the tv faced the bedroom and it illuminated

  her as she sat up there on the

  headboard.

  “I thought you were sane,” I said, “but you’re

  just as crazy as the rest of them.”

  “be quiet,” she said, “I want to watch the

  news!”

  “look,” I said, “I’ll…”

  “SHUSH!” she said.

  and there she was up on the headboard of my bed

  really watching the news. I accepted her that

  way.

  turnabout

  she drives into the parking lot while

  I am leaning up against the fender of my car.

  she’s drunk and her eyes are wet with tears:

  “you son of a bitch, you fucked me when you

  didn’t want to. you told me to keep phoning

  you, you told me to move closer into town,

  then you told me to leave you alone.”

  it’s all quite dramatic and I enjoy it.

  “sure, well, what do you want?”

  “I want to talk to you, I want to go to your

  place and talk to you…”

  “I’m with somebody now. she’s in getting a

  sandwich.”

  “I want to talk to you…it takes a while

  to get over things. I need more time.”

  “sure. wait until she comes out. we’re not

  inhuman. we’ll all have a drink together.”

  “shit,” she says, “oh shit!”

  she jumps into her car and drives off.

  the other one comes out: “who was that?”

  “an ex-friend.”

  now she’s gone and I’m sitting here drunk

  and my eyes seem wet with tears.

  it’s very quiet and I feel like I have a spear

  rammed into the center of my gut.

  I walk to the bathroom and puke.

  mercy, I think, doesn’t the human race know anything

  about mercy?

  one for old snaggle-tooth

  I know a woman

  who keeps buying puzzles

  Chinese

  puzzles

  blocks

  wires

  pieces that finally fit

  into some order.

  she works it out

  mathematically

  she solves all her

  puzzles

  lives down by the sea

  puts sugar out for the ants

  and believes

  ultimately

  in a better world.

  her hair is white

  she seldom combs it

  her teeth are snaggled

  and she wears loose shapeless

  coveralls over a body most

  women would wish they had.

  for many years she irritated me

  with what I considered her

  eccentricities—

  like soaking eggshells in water

  (to feed the plants so that

  they’d get calcium).

  but finally when I think of her

  life

  and compare it to other lives

  more dazzling, original

  and beautiful

  I realize that she has hurt fewer

  people than anybody I know

  (and by hurt I simply mean hurt).

  she has had some terrible times,

  times when maybe I should have

  helped her more

  for she is the mother of my only

  child

  and we were once great lovers,

  but she has come through

  like I said

  she has hurt fewer people than

  anybody I know,

  and if you look at it like that,

  well,

  she has created a better world.

  she has won.

  Frances, this poem is for

  you.

  communion

  horses running

  with her miles away

  laughing with a

  fool

  Bach and the hydrogen bomb

  and her miles away

  laughing with a

  fool

  the banking system

  bumper jacks

  gondolas in Venice

  and her miles away

  laughing with a

  fool

  you’ve never quite

  seen a stairway before

  (each step looking at you

  separately)

  and outside

  the newsboy looking

  immortal

  as the cars go by

  under a sun

  like an enemy

  and you wonder

  why it’s so hard

  to go crazy—

  if you’re not already

  crazy

  until now

  you’ve never seen a

  stairway that looked like

  a stairway

  a doorknob that looked like

  a doorknob

  and sounds like these sounds

  and when the spider comes out

  and looks at you

  finally

  you don’t hate it

  finally

  with her miles away

  laughing with a

  fool.

  trying to get even:

  we’d had any number of joints and some

  beer and I was on the bed stretched out

  and she said, “look, I’ve had 3 abortions

  in a row, real fast, and I’m sick of

  abortions, I don’t want you to stick that

  thing in me!”

  it was sticking up there and we were both

  looking at it.

  “ah, come on,” I said, “my girlfriend fucked

  2 different guys this week and I’m trying to

  get even.”

  “don’t get me involved in your domestic

  horseshit! now what I want you to
do is

  to BEAT that thing OFF while I WATCH!

  I want to WATCH while you beat that thing

  OFF! I want to see it shoot JUICE!”

  “o.k. get your face closer.”

  she got it closer and I spit on my palm

  and began working.

  it got bigger. just before I was ready I

  stopped, I held it at the bottom

  stretching it,

  the head throbbed

  purple and shiny.

  “oooh,” she said.

  she ducked her mouth over it, sucked at

  it and

  pulled away.

  “finish it off,” I said.

  “no!”

  I whacked away and then stopped again

  at the last moment and held it at the

  bottom and waved it all around the

  bedroom.

  she eyed it

  fell upon it again

  sucked

  and pulled away.

  we alternated the process

  back and forth

  again and again.

  finally I just pulled her off

  the chair

  onto the bed

  rolled on top of her

  stuck it in

  worked it

  worked it

  and came.

  when she walked back out of

  the bathroom she said,

  “you son of a bitch, I love you,

  I’ve loved you for a long time.

  when I get back to Santa Barbara

  I’m going to write you. I’m

  living with this guy but I hate

  him, I don’t even know what I’m

  doing with him.”

  “o.k.,” I said, “but you’re up

  now. can you get me a glass of

  water? I’m dry.”

  she walked into the kitchen and

  I heard her remark that

  all my drinking glasses were

  dirty.

  I told her to use a

  coffee cup. I

  heard the water running and I

  thought, one more fuck

  I’ll be even

  and I can be in love with my girlfriend again—

  that is

  if she hasn’t slipped in an

  extra

  and she probably

  has.

  Chicago

  “I’ve made it,” she said, “I’ve come

  through.” she had on new boots, pants

  and a white sweater. “I know what I

  want now.” she was from Chicago and

  had settled in L.A.’s Fairfax district.

  “you promised me champagne,”

  she said.

  “I was drunk when I phoned. how about

  a beer?”

  “no, pass me your joint.”

  she inhaled, let it out:

  “this isn’t very good stuff.”

  she handed it back.

  “there’s a difference,” I said, “between

  making it and simply becoming hard.”

  “you like my boots?”

  “yes, very nice.”

  “listen, I’ve got to go. can I use

  your bathroom?”

  “sure.”

  when she came out she had on a

  large lipstick mouth. I hadn’t seen

  one of those since I was a boy.

  I kissed her in the doorway

  feeling the lipstick rub off on my

  lips.

  “goodbye,” she said.

  “goodbye,” I said.

  she went up the walk toward her car.

  I closed the door.

  she knew what she wanted and it wasn’t

  me.

  I know more women like that than any

  other kind.

  quiet clean girls in gingham dresses…

  all I’ve ever known are whores, ex-prostitutes,

  madwomen. I see men with quiet,

  gentle women—I see them in the supermarkets,

  I see them walking down the streets together,

  I see them in their apartments: people at

  peace, living together. I know that their

  peace is only partial, but there is

  peace, often hours and days of peace.

  all I’ve ever known are pill freaks, alcoholics,

  whores, ex—prostitutes, madwomen.

  when one leaves

  another arrives

  worse than her predecessor.

  I see so many men with quiet clean girls in

  gingham dresses

  girls with faces that are not wolverine or

  predatory.

  “don’t ever bring a whore around,” I tell my

  few friends, “I’ll fall in love with her.”

  “you couldn’t stand a good woman, Bukowski.”

  I need a good woman. I need a good woman

  more than I need this typewriter, more than

  I need my automobile, more than I need

  Mozart; I need a good woman so badly that I

  can taste her in the air, I can feel her

  at my fingertips, I can see sidewalks built

  for her feet to walk upon,

  I can see pillows for her head,

  I can feel my waiting laughter,

  I can see her petting a cat,

  I can see her sleeping,

  I can see her slippers on the floor.

  I know that she exists

  but where is she upon this earth

  as the whores keep finding me?

  we will taste the islands and the sea

  I know that some night

  in some bedroom

  soon

  my fingers will

  rift

  through

  soft clean

  hair

  songs such as no radio

  plays

  all sadness, grinning

  into flow.

  me, and

  that old woman:

  sorrow

  this

  poet

  this poet he’d been drinking 2 or 3 days and he walked out on the stage and looked at that audience and he just knew he was going to do it. there was a grand piano on stage and he walked over and lifted the lid and vomited inside the piano. then he closed the lid and gave his reading.

  they had to remove the strings from the piano and wash out the insides and restring it.

  I can understand why they never invited him back. but to pass the word on to other universities that he was a poet who liked to vomit into grand pianos was unfair.

  they never considered the quality of his reading. I know this poet: he’s just like the rest of us: he’ll vomit anywhere for money.

  winter

  big sloppy wounded dog

  hit by a car and walking

  toward the curbing

  making enormous

  sounds

  your body curled

  red blowing out of

  ass and mouth.

  I stare at him and

  drive on

  for how would it look

  for me to be holding

  a dying dog on a

  curbing in Arcadia,

  blood seeping into my

  shirt and pants and

  shorts and socks and

  shoes? it would just

  look dumb.

  besides, I figure the 2

  horse in the first race

  and I wanted to hook

  him with the 9

  in the second. I

  figured the daily to

  pay around $140

  so I had to let that

  dog die alone there

  just across from the

  shopping center

  with the ladies looking

  for bargains

  as the first bit of

  snow fell upon the

  Sierra Madre.


  what they want

  Vallejo writing about

  loneliness while starving to

  death;

  Van Gogh’s ear rejected by a

  whore;

  Rimbaud running off to Africa

  to look for gold and finding

  an incurable case of syphilis;

  Beethoven gone deaf;

  Pound dragged through the streets

  in a cage;

  Chatterton taking rat poison;