The rent’s high too
there are beasts in the salt shaker
and airdromes in the coffeepot.
my mother’s hand is in the bag drawer
and from the backs of spoons come
the cries of tiny tortured animals.
in the closet stands a murdered man
wearing a new green necktie
and under the floor,
there’s a suffocating angel with flaring nostrils.
it’s hard to live here.
it’s very hard to live here.
at night the shadows are unborn creatures.
beneath the bed
spiders kill tiny white ideas.
the nights are bad
the nights are very bad
I drink myself to sleep
I have to drink myself to sleep.
in the morning
over breakfast
I see them roll the dead down the street
(I never read about this in the newspapers).
and there are eagles everywhere
sitting on the roof, on the lawn, inside my car.
the eagles are eyeless and smell of sulphur.
it is very discouraging.
people visit me
sit in chairs across from me
and I see them crawling with vermin—
green and gold and yellow bugs
they do not brush away.
I have been living here too long.
soon I must go to Omaha.
they say that everything is jade there
and does not move.
they say you can stitch designs in the water
and sleep high in olive trees.
I wonder if this is
true?
I can’t live here much longer.
Other works by Charles Bukowski...
