The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966 Read online

raising them; engage not in small arguments

  of hand or voice

  unless your foe seeks the life of your body

  or the life of your soul; then,

  kill, if necessary; and

  when it comes time to die

  do not be selfish:

  consider it inexpensive

  and where you are going:

  neither a mark of shame or failure

  or a call upon sorrow

  as the wind breaks in from the sea

  and time goes on

  flushing your bones with soft peace.

  I Wait in the White Rain

  I wait in the white rain for knives like your tongue

  I see the spiral clowns fountain up with myths untrue,

  I wrestle spasms in the dark on dark stairways

  while dollar crazy landladies

  are threaded with the hot needles of sperm,

  come these morning drunks

  brushing away sunlight from the eyes like a web,

  come darling, come gloria patri, come luck,

  come anything,

  this is the hot way—

  points sticking in like armadillos

  in the rear of a Benedictine mind,

  and snow snow snow snow snow

  shovel all the snow upon me I can hold,

  gingerbread mouth, duck-like dick,

  raisins for buttons, thread for heart-strings,

  damned waves of blood caught in them

  like a minnow in the Tide of Everywhere

  I wait in the white rain for knives like your tongue,

  and the trucks go by

  with bankrupt faces

  the steam of their essence like foul sweat

  stale stink death in my socks

  all the drums of hell

  cannot awaken a rhythm within me

  I am gone

  like an old pale goldfish

  dead and stiff as aunt Helen

  looking flat-eyed into the center of my brain

  and flushed away like any other waste of man,

  the man-turd, the breath of life,

  and why we don’t go mad as roaches, why not more

  suicides I’ll never know

  as I wait in the white rain for knives like your tongue,

  I am done, quite; like any ford that cuts off a river

  I am done forever and only,

  this christ-awful waiting on the end of a stale movie,

  everyone screaming for beauty and victory

  like children for candy,

  my hands open

  unamazed hand

  unamazed mind

  unamazed doorsill

  send your flowers to Shakey Joe

  or Butternut Carlyle

  who might trade them to useful purpose

  before everything, everyone,

  is dead

  Breakout

  The landlord walks up and down the hall

  coughing

  letting me know he is there,

  and I’ve got to sneak

  in the bottles,

  I can’t walk to the crapper

  the lights don’t work,

  there are holes in the walls from

  broken water pipes

  and the toilet won’t flush,

  and the little jackoff

  walks up and down

  out there

  coughing, coughing,

  up and down his faded rug

  he goes,

  and I can’t stand it anymore,

  I break out,

  I GET him

  just as he walks by,

  “What the hell’s wrong?”

  he screams,

  but it’s too late,

  my fist is working against the bone;

  it’s over fast and he falls,

  withered and wet;

  I get my suitcase and then

  I am going down the steps,

  and there’s his wife in the doorway,

  she’s ALWAYS IN THE DOORWAY,

  they don’t have anything to do but

  stand in doorways and walk up and down the halls,

  “Good morning, Mr. Bukowski,” her face is a mole’s face

  praying for my death, “what—”

  and I shove her aside,

  she falls down the porch steps and

  into a hedge,

  I hear the branches breaking

  and I see her half-stuck in there

  like a blind cow,

  and then I am going down the street

  with my suitcase,

  the sun is fine,

  and I begin to think about

  the next place where I’m

  going to set up, and I hope

  I can find some decent humans,

  somebody who can treat me

  better.

  I Cannot Stand Tears

  there were several hundred fools

  around the goose who broke her leg

  trying to decide

  what to do

  when the guard walked up

  and pulled out his cannon

  and the issue was finished

  except for a woman

  who ran out of a hut

  claiming he’d killed her pet

  but the guard rubbed his straps

  and told her

  kiss my ass,

  take it to the president;

  the woman was crying

  and I cannot stand tears.

  I folded my canvas

  and went further down the road:

  the bastards had ruined

  my landscape.

  Horse on Fire

  Bring bring

  straight things

  like a horse on fire

  Ezra said,

  write it

  soaz a man on th’ West Coast’a

  Africka culd

  understand ut;

  and he proceeded to write the Cantos

  full of dead languages

  newspaper clippings

  and love scenes from St. Liz;

  bring bring

  straight things: in bird-light,

  the terror of a mouse,

  grass-arms great stone heads;

  and reading Canto 90

  he put the paper down

  Ez did (both their eyes were wet)

  and he told her…

  “among the greatest love poems

  ever written.”

  Ezra, there are many kinds of traitors

  of which

  the political are the least,

  but self-appraisal of

  poetry and love

  has proved more fools than

  rebels.

  Mother and Son

  a lady in pink sits on her porch

  in tight capris

  and her ass is a marvelous thing

  pink and crouched in the sun

  her ass is a marvelous thing,

  and now she rises and claps her hands

  toward the sea

  and shouts:

  TIM, TIM, COME BACK, COME BACK

  HERE! it is a child in a walker

  running across the cement

  looking for butterflies

  and a way out,

  and she chases him:

  TIM, TIM, COME BACK HERE!

  I watch her butt

  her pink tight magic butt

  and it rises in my mind

  like a Beethoven symphony

  but she is not mine.

  I have been quietly reading about

  the 18th century glass harmonica

  and somebody else will take the pink wobble

  to direct hand;

  but

  really

  I’ve seduced her on this Sunday afternoon

  and I have seen each movement and crawl

  of pink flesh beneath pink capris,

  and she catches her boy in the sun

  and he laughs back at her
>
  already a man on the dare

  exploring the new front yards of his mind,

  and he might resent that I have made love

  to his mother this way

  as he might resent other things

  later

  pink red dawn blood bombs

  the squealing of sheep

  the taxis that ride us out,

  or he might put on a necktie

  choke out the mind

  and become like the rest

  therefore

  making my pink love

  upon these black keys

  wasted.

  The Day I Kicked Away a Bankroll

  and, I said, you can take your rich aunts and uncles

  and grandfathers and fathers

  and all their lousy oil

  and their seven lakes

  and their wild turkey

  and buffalo

  and the whole state of Texas,

  meaning, your crow-blasts

  and your Saturday night boardwalks,

  and your 2-bit library

  and your crooked councilmen

  and your pansy artists—

  you can take all these

  and your weekly newspaper

  and your famous tornadoes,

  and your filthy floods

  and all your yowling cats

  and your subscription to Time,

  and shove them, baby,

  shove them.

  I can handle a pick and ax again (I think)

  and I can pick up

  25 bucks for a 4-rounder (maybe);

  sure, I’m 38

  but a little dye can pinch the gray

  out of my hair;

  and I can still write a poem (sometimes),

  don’t forget that, and even if

  they don’t pay off,

  it’s better than waiting for death and oil,

  and shooting wild turkey,

  and waiting for the world

  to begin.

  all right, bum, she said,

  get out.

  what? I said.

  get out. you’ve thrown your

  last tantrum.

  I’m tired of your damned tantrums:

  you’re always acting like a

  character in an O’Neill play.

  but I’m different, baby,

  I can’t help

  it.

  you’re different, all right!

  God, how different!

  don’t slam

  the door

  when you leave.

  but, baby, I love your

  money!

  you never once said

  you loved me!

  what do you want

  a liar or a

  lover?

  you’re neither! out, bum,

  out!

  …but baby!

  go back to O’Neill!

  I went to the door,

  softly closed it and walked away,

  thinking: all they want

  is a wooden Indian

  to say yes and no

  and stand over the fire and

  not raise too much hell;

  but you’re getting to be

  an old man, kiddo;

  next time play it closer

  to the

  vest.

  The Dogs

  certainly sought: one quiet time,

  the horses of war

  shot

  with their broken legs,

  air sprayed with the languor

  of walking through a small neighborhood

  at 6 p.m.

  to smell porkchops frying,

  the arrayed sensibility

  of men living through light and sound,

  and rain

  if there be rain

  or snow

  if there be snow,

  and pain,

  living through wives and children

  and the sensibility of fire

  when it is cold; but

  the dogs want a part of us,

  they want all of us,

  and coming in from the factory

  to a bug-infected room

  in East Kansas City

  is not enough

  (but who the enemy is

  we are

  not quite sure)

  only

  this morning

  combing my hair

  one eye on the clock,

  wondering if another drink

  would do,

  I

  think

  I

  saw them.

  Imbecile Night

  imbecile night,

  corkscrew like a black guitar,

  the day was heaving hell,

  and now you come

  crawling down the drainpipes

  emptying your bladder

  all over the place,

  and I have drunk 9 bottles of beer,

  a pint of vodka,

  smoked 18 cigarettes,

  and still you sit upon me,

  you march the dead out upon

  the balcony of my brain;

  I see shaven eyebrows; lips, slippers;

  my love, in an old robe, curses,

  reaches out for me; the

  Confederate Army runs; Hitler

  turns a handspring…then

  the yowling love of cats

  saves me, brings me

  back again…one more drink,

  one more smoke, and in the drawer

  a picture of a day at the beach

  in 1955…god, I was young then,

  younger anyhow; and at the window,

  one or 2 lights, the city is dead

  except for thieves and janitors,

  and I am almost dead too, so

  much gone, and I raise the bottle

  in the center of the room

  and you are everywhere

  black imbecile night,

  you are under my fingernails,

  in my ears and mouth,

  and here we stand,

  you and I, a giant and a midget

  locked in disorder, and when the

  first sun comes down showing the spiders

  at work, caterpillars crawling on razor threads,

  you will let me go,

  but now you crawl into the tomb of my bottle,

  you wink at me and posture, the wallpaper is

  weak with roses, the spiders dream of

  gold-filled flies, and I walk the room again,

  light another cigarette, feeling I really

  should go mad, but not quite knowing

  how.

  A Kind of Lecture on a Dull Day When There Isn’t Even a Fly Around to Kill

  don’t kid yourself:

  something kills them all—

  finally it becomes a matter of

  dying of one thing or

  the other—

  cancer, a new car, sex, warm

  art, poetry, ballet dancing,

  a hardware store, smoking grass, peeking

  out of windows or

  wiping the ass with

  cheap toilet

  paper

  when Christ began

  he had the cross in mind

  all along.

  if I came down off this one

  here

  it would only be to find a

  better one.

  meanwhile, sitting with a drink in hand

  I know, of course,

  what it’s all

  about, come to the point,

  dismiss it, forget it,

  hand to mouth

  I kid myself a

  little.

  The Gift

  that this is the gift

  and I am ill with it;

  it has sloshed around my bones

  and brings me awake to

  stare at walls.

  musing often leads to madness,

  o dog with an

  old rag doll.


  into and beyond terror.

  seriousness will not do,

  seriousness is gone:

  we must carve from

  fresh marble.

  hell, jack, this is wise-time:

  we must insist on camouflage,

  they taught us that;

  wine come down through

  staring eye,

  god coughed alive

  through the indistinct smoke

  of verse.

  the light yellow mamas are gone

  the garter high on the leg,

  the charm of 18 is 80.

  and the kisses,

  snakes darting liquid silver

  have stopped:

  no man lives the magic

  long.

  until one morning it catches you;

  you light the fire,

  pour a hasty drink

  as the psyche crawls like a mouse

  into an empty pantry.

  if you were El Greco

  or even a watersnake

  something could be done.

  another drink.

  well, rub your hands

  and prove you are alive.

  walk the floor. seriousness

  will not do.

  this is the gift,

  this is the gift…

  certainly the charm of dying

  lies in the fact

  that very little

  is lost.

  Object Lesson

  It is always best, of course,

  to push it in right below

  the heart.

  Don’t try to hit the

  bull’s eye.

  When seeking damage

  aim for a large target

  and strike several times.

  He who pauses is

  one damn fool.

  I remember a discourse

  with a leper

  who suggested using

  hooks and pulleys.

  Not so. Not so.