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Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski

a killer gets ready

he was a good one
say 18, 19,
marine
and every time
woman came down the train aisle
he seemed to stand up
so I couldn’t see
her
and the woman smiled at him
 
but I didn’t smile
at him
 
he kept looking at himself in the
train window
and standing up and taking off his
coat and then standing up
and putting it back
on
 
he polished his belt buckle with a
delighted vigor
 
and his neck was red and
his face was red and his eyes were a
pretty blue
 
but I didn’t like
him
 
and every time I went to the can
he was either in one of the cans
 
or he was in front of one of the mirrors
combing his hair or
shaving
 
and he was always walking up and down the
aisles
or drinking water
watched his Adam’s apple juggle the water
down
 
he was always in my
eyes
 
but we never spoke
and I remembered all the other trains
all the other buses
all the other wars
 
he got off at Pasadena
vainer than any woman
he got off at Pasadena
proud and
dead
 
the rest of the train ride—
or 10 miles—
was perfect.

#1993 #AmericanWriters #ThePleasuresOfTheDamned

Other works by Charles Bukowski...
Death Wants More Death

death wants more death, and its we… I remember my father’s garage, how… I would brush the corpses of flies from the windows they thought were… their sticky, ugly, vibrant bodies
 2
Show Biz

I can’t have it and you can’t have it and we won’t get it so don’t bet on it
 1
Mama

here I am in the ground my mouth open and
starve, go mad, or kill yourself I’m

I’m not going to die easy; I’ve sat on your suicide beds in some of the worst holes in America,
the orderly

am sitting on a tin chair outside… death, on stinking wings, wafts th… halls forevermore. remember the hospital stenches fro… was a boy and when I was a man and…
Verdi

and so we suck on a cigar and a beer attempting to mend the love
so now?

the words have come and gone, I sit ill. the phone rings, the cats sleep. Linda vacuums. I am waiting to live,
 7
Post Office. Chapter IV: 8

I had Fridays and Saturdays off, which made Sunday the roughest day. Plus the fact that on Sunday they made me report at 3:30 p.m. instead of my usual 6:18 p.m. This Sunday I went in an...
I have shit stains in my underwear too

I hear them outside: “does he always type this late?” “no, it’s very unusual.” “he shouldn’t type this
the harder you try

the waste of words continues with a stunning persistence as the waiter runs by carrying the… tray
I’m in love

she’s young, she said, but look at me, I have pretty ankl… and look at my wrists, I have pret… wrists my god,
Post Office. Chapter III: 7

While working Dorsey station I heard some of the old timers needling Big Daddy Greystone about how he’d had to buy a tape recorder in order to learn his schemes. Big Daddy had read the ...
millionaires

you no faces no faces at all laughing at nothing—
one for old snaggle-tooth

I know a woman who keeps buying puzzles Chinese puzzles blocks
who in the hell is Tom Jones?

I was shacked with a 24 year old girl from New York City for two weeks—about the time of the garbage



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