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Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski

lost in San Pedro

no way back to Barcelona.
the green soldiers have invaded the tombs.
madmen rule Spain
and during a heat wave in 1952 I buried my last concubine.
 
no way back to the Rock of Gibraltar.
the bones of the hands of my mother are so still.
 
stay still now, mother
stay still.
 
the horse tossed the jock
the horse fell
then got up
on only 3 legs—
the 4th bent nearly in two
and all the people anguished for the jock
but my heart ached for the horse
the horse
the horse
was terrible
was truly terrible.
 
sometimes think about one or the other of my women.
wonder what we were hoping for when we lived together
our minds shattered like the 4th leg of that horse.
 
remember when women wore dresses and high heels?
remember whenever a car door opened all the men turned to look?
was a beautiful time and I’m glad I was there to see it.
 
no way back to Barcelona.
 
the world is less than a fishbone.
 
this place roars with the need for mercy.
 
there is this fat gold watch sitting here on my desk
sent to me by a German cop.
wrote him a nice letter thanking him for it
but the police have killed more of my life than the crooks.
 
nothing to do but wait for the pulling of the shade.
pull the shade.
 
my 3 male cats have had their balls clipped.
now they sit and look at me with eyes emptied
of all but killing.

#1993 #AmericanWriters #ThePleasuresOfTheDamned

Other works by Charles Bukowski...
the trash men

here they come these guys grey truck radio playing they are in a hurry
 1
Luck

once we were young at this machine. . . drinking
The Secret of my Endurance

I still get letters in the mail, m… men in tiny rooms with factory job… living with whores or no woman at… booze and madness. Most of their letters are on lined…
 2
Women: 74

I had to fly to Illinois to give a reading at the University. I hated readings, but they helped with the rent and maybe they helped sell books. They got me out of east Hollywood, they g...
the 2nd novel

they’d come around and they’d ask “you finished your 2nd novel yet?” “no.”
Ham on Rye: 40

R.O.T.C. (Reserve Officer Training Corps) was for the misfits. Like I said, it was either that or gym. I would have taken gym but I didn’t want people to sec the boils on my back. There...
my telephone

the telephone has not been kind of… of late there have been more and m… from people who want to come over… from people who are depressed from people who are lonely
Friends Within the Darkness

I can remember starving in a small room in a strange city shades pulled down, listening to classical music I was young I was so young it hur…
 3
Post Office. Chapter IV: 2

The track had moved down the coast a hundred miles or so. I kept paying the rent on my apartment in town, got in my car and drove down. Once or twice a week I would drive back to the ap...
the proud thin dying

I see old people on pensions in th… supermarkets and they are thin and… proud and they are dying they are starving on their feet an… nothing. long ago, among other lie…
 2
For Jane

225 days under grass and you know more than I. they have long taken your blood, you are a dry stick in a basket. is this how it works?
 2
the genius

this man sometimes forgets who he is. sometimes he thinks he’s the Pope. other times he thinks he’s a
Rhyming Poem

the goldfish sing all night with g… and the whores go down with the st… the whores go down with the stars I’m sorry, sir, we close at 4:30, besides yr mother’s neck is dirty,
one for the old boy

he was just a cat cross-eyed, dirty white with pale blue eyes
weather report

I suppose it’s raining in some Sp… while I’m feeling bad like this; I’d like to think so now.



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