I am
hung by a nail
the sun melts my heart
I am
cousin to the snake
and am afraid of waterfalls
I am
afraid of women and green walls
the police stop me and
tell me
while the trees whirl in the wind
(I am hungover) that my muffler is shot and
my windshield wiper doesn’t work
and the lens on my back-up light is broken.
I don’t have a back-up light,
sign the citation and am thankful,
inside,
that they don’t take me in for what I’m
thinking
sadness drips like water beads
in a half-poisoned well,
I know that my chances have narrowed down to
almost nothing—
I’m like a bug in the bathroom when you flick on the
lightswitch at 3 a.m.
love, finally, with a washrag stuffed down its
throat, pictures of joy
turned to paperclips, you
know you know you know.
once you understand this process (what you
must understand
is
that most things
just won’t work,
so you don’t try to save
them, and by the time you learn this
you’ve run out of
years)—once you understand this process
you need only get burned 2 or 3 more times
before they stuff you away, and
it’s good to know that—
stop being so fucking quick with your
rejoinders and relax—
you’re about finished, too, just
like I am. no shame
there. I can walk into any bar and
order a scotch and water,
pay,
and put my hand around the glass,
they don’t know, they won’t know,
either about you or about me,
they’ll talk about football and the
weather and the energy crisis,
and our hands will reach up
the mirror watching the hands
and we’ll drink it down—
Jane, Barbara, Frances, Linda, Liza, Stella,
father’s brown leather slipper
upsidedown in the bathroom,
nameless dead dogs,
tomorrow’s newspaper,
water boiling out of the radiator on a
Thursday afternoon, burning your arm
halfway to the elbow, and not even
being angry at the pain,
grinning for the winners
grinning for the guy who fucked your girl
while you were drunk or away
and grinning for the girl who let him.
the roses howl
in the dim wind,
we have
said the necessary things, and
getting out is next, only I’d like
to say
no matter what they’ve said,
I’ve never been mad
at anything.
Other works by Charles Bukowski...
