Lilies in my Brain
the lilies storm my brain
by god by god
like nazi storm troopers!
do you think I’m going
tizzy?
your blue sweater
with tits hanging
loose, and
I think vaguely of Christ
on the cross, I don’t know
why, and icecream
cones. this July day
lilies storm my brain,
I’ll remember this
but
if only I had a
camera
or a big dog walking beside
me. big dogs make things
concrete
don’t they?
a big dog to wrinkle his
snot-nose
like this lake gypped of
clear surface
by a quick and clever
wind.
you’re here, yet I’m sad
again. I feel my porkchop ribs
over my lambchop heart ugh
gullible hard-working
intestines, dejected penis
chewing-gum bladder
liver turning to fat
like a penny-arcade trout
ashamed buttocks
practical ears
moth-like hands
spearfish nose
rock-slide mouth and
the rest. the rest:
lilies in my brain
hoping good times
thinking old times:
Capone and the diamonds
Charlie Chaplin
Laurel and Hardy
Clara Bow
the rest.
it never happened
but it seemed like
there were times when rot
stopped
waited like a streetcar
at a signal.
now I
like a movie punk
(lilies up there)
take your hand
and we walk forward
to rent a boat
to drown in. I breathe the wind, flex my muscles
but only my belly
wiggles.
we get in
the motor churns the
slime.
the city buildings
come down like ostrich
mouths
and hollow out
our brains
yet the sun
comes in
zap! zap! zap!
brilliant germs crawl our
chapped flesh. my
I feel as if I were in
church: everything
stinks. I hold the rubber sides
of everywhere
my balls are snowballs
I see stricken bells of malaria
old men getting into
bed, into model-T Fords
as the fish swim below us
full of dirty words and macaroni
and crossword puzzles
and the death of me, you and
the Katzenjammer
kids.
Other works by Charles Bukowski...
