The Roominghouse Madrigals (18 page)

 

look at him

a withered man

 

 

sure

he’s been thru a

bit

 

 

he was under the covers and the house shook with the

bombardment

 

 

he smiled out at

us

 

 

I hope I never get that

old

 

 

a slice of wall shook free and fell across his

bed

 

 

they say he was a tough boy

they say he was worth millions

 

 

sunlight poked thru a hole in the

wall

sunlight and smoke and a

treebranch

 

 

I had almost finished ripping out the plumbing

looking for something valuable

but there was nothing

left

 

 

somebody had been there

earlier

“let’s go”

 

 

when we got to the top of the hill

a shell landed right in the middle of where we’d

left

 

 

it was boards flying and him down in there

and then a fire came—

fast

red

perfect

 

 

we went into the woods and Harry threw a rock at a

squirrel and

missed.

 

 

how can we endure?

how can we talk about roses

or Verlaine?

this is a hungry band

that likes to work and count

and knows the special laws,

that likes to sit in parks

thinking of nothing valuable.

 

 

this is where the stricken bagpipes blow

upon the chalky cliffs

where faces go mad as sunburned violets

where brooms and ropes and torches fail,

squeezing shadows…

where walls come down en masse.

 

 

tomorrow the bankers set the time

to close the gates against our flood

and prevaricate the waters;

bang, bang the time,

remember now

        the flowers are opening in the wind

        and it doesn’t matter finally

        except as a twitch in the back of the head

when back in our broad land

dead again

we walk among the dead.

 

 

The time comes to go deeper

into self and the time comes

when it is more innocent

or easier to die

like bombers over

Santa Monica,

and I remember

laying there in the sand,

myself 20 years old,

reading Faulkner

because the name sounded good

and being vaguely excited

by something

that was not myself

and closing the book

and getting

sick of the sea

and the sky

blue blue blue

spots of white,

all dizzy in the trap,

wanting out

but knowing

I was nailed

like the sand-fleas

I slapped at,

and Mr. Faulkner

laying on his side

immortal and burning

with my toes

and everything tilting

and not quite

true.

 

 

well

it’s interesting what does go on,

and what doesn’t go on

that should,

and the world’s quite a sight

spun through spiders and webs

that catch us half asleep

and do us in

before we’re even old enough

to know we’re through

 

 

if it isn’t a whore it’s a wife,

and if it isn’t a wife

it’s a jam over taxes

or bread or liquor,

or somebody’s slipping it into her

while you’re down at the shop

sweating your nuggets to keep her in silk.

 

 

or you’re on horses or pot

or crossword puzzles,

or you’re on vitamins or Beethoven.

 

 

but you oughta see

what goes on on a 75 foot yacht:

it would make you give up

liberty and little magazines

and Tolstoy

to see what beautiful young ladies can do

to somebody else.

 

 

and he doesn’t even care,

and he’ll tell you

pouring a short shot,

that bitch’d outscrew a rabbit,

and unless you’ve got money

by the time you got it figured out

you’re either so old you’re senseless

or you’re so old you’re dead.

 

 

and there she stands by the rail

looking good

golden sun and real gold,

the fish going by in the largest swimming pool

in the world, and she even smiles at you

as you go below to get more bottles and boots

and to scrape the barnacles from the master;

but, ah, you pig!—he told me all you did,

as men will do—which is another way of saying

you and I ain’t living well,

or enough.

 

 

whenever the landlord and landlady get

beer-drunk

she comes down here and knocks on my door

and I go down and drink beer with them.

they sing old-time songs and

he keeps drinking until

he falls over backwards in his chair.

then I get up

tilt the chair up

and then he’s back at the table again

grabbing at a

beercan.

 

 

the conversation always gets around to

Buffalo Bill. they think Buffalo Bill is

very funny. so I always ask,

what’s new with Buffalo Bill?

 

 

oh, he’s in again. they locked him

up. they came and got him.

 

 

why?

 

 

same thing. only this time it was a

woman from the Jehovah’s Witness. she

rang his bell and was standing there

talking to him and he showed her his

thing
, you know.

 

 

she came down and told me about it

and I asked her, “why did you bother that

man? why did you ring his bell? he wasn’t

doing anything to you!” but no, she had to

go and tell the authorities.

he phoned me from the jail, “well, I did it

again!” “why do you keep doing that?” I

asked him. “I dunno,” he said, “I dunno

what makes me do that!” “you shouldn’t do

that,” I told him. “I know I shouldn’t do

that,” he told me.

 

 

how many times has he done

that?

 

 

Oh, god, I dunno, 8 or 10 times. he’s

always doin’ it. he’s got a good lawyer, tho,

he’s got a damn good

lawyer.

 

 

who’d you rent his place to?

 

 

oh, we don’t rent his place, we always keep his

place for him. we like him. did I tell you about

the night he was drunk and out on the lawn

naked and an airplane went overhead and he

pointed to the lights, all you could see

was the taillights and stuff and he pointed to

the lights and yelled, “I AM GOD,

I PUT THOSE LIGHTS IN THE SKY!”

 

 

no, you didn’t tell me about

that.

 

 

have a beer first and I’ll

tell you about it.

 

 

I had a beer

first.

 

 

there is a lady down the hall who paints

butterflies and insects

and there are little statues in the room,

she works with clay

and I went in there

and sat on the couch and had something to drink,

then I noticed

one of the statues had his back turned to us,

he stood there brooding, poor bastard,

and I asked the lady

what’s wrong with him?

and she said, I messed him up,

in the front, sort of.

I see, I said, and finished my drink,

you haven’t had too much experience with men.

she laughed and brought me another drink.

we talked about Klee,

the death of cummings,

Art, survival and so forth.

you ought to know more about men,

I told her.

I know, she said. do you like me?

of course, I told her.

she brought me another drink.

we talked about Ezra Pound.

Van Gogh.

all those things.

she sat down next to me.

I remember she had a small white mustache.

she told me I had a good life-flow

and was manly.

I told her she had nice legs.

we talked about Mahler.

I don’t remember leaving.

I saw her a week later

and she asked me in.

I fixed him, she said.

who? I asked.

my man in the corner, she told me.

 

 

good, I said.

want to see? she asked

sure, I said.

she walked to the corner and turned

him around.

 

 

he was fixed, all right

 

 

my god, it was ME!

 

 

then I began to laugh and she laughed

and the work of Art stood there,

a very beautiful thing.

 

I had just won $115 from the headshakers and

was naked upon my bed

listening to an opera by one of the Italians

and had just gotten rid of a very loose lady

when there was a knock upon the wood,

and since the cops had just raided a month or so ago,

I screamed out rather on edge—

who the hell is it? what you want, man?

I’m your publisher! somebody screamed back,

and I hollered, I don’t have a publisher,

try the place next door, and he screamed back,

you’re Charles Bukowski, aren’t you? and I got up and

peeked through the iron grill to make sure it wasn’t a cop,

and I placed a robe upon my nakedness,

kicked a beercan out of the way and bade them enter,

an editor and a poet.

only one would drink a beer (the editor)

so I drank two for the poet and one for myself

and they sat there sweating and watching me

and I sat there trying to explain

that I wasn’t really a poet in the ordinary sense,

I told them about the stockyards and the slaughterhouse

and the racetracks and the conditions of some of our jails,

and the editor suddenly pulled five magazines out of a portfolio

and tossed them in between the beercans

and we talked about
Flowers of Evil
, Rimbaud, Villon,

and what some of the modern poets looked like:

J. B. May and Wolf the Hedley are very immaculate, clean
fingernails, etc.;

I apologized for the beercans, my beard, and everything on the
floor

and pretty soon everybody was yawning

and the editor suddenly stood up and I said,

are you leaving?

and then the editor and the poet were walking out the door,

and then I thought well hell they might not have liked

what they saw

but I’m not selling beercans and Italian opera and

torn stockings under the bed and dirty fingernails,

I’m selling rhyme and life and line,

and I walked over and cracked a new can of beer

and I looked at the five magazines with my name on the cover

and wondered what it meant,

wondered if we are writing poetry or all huddling in

one big tent

 

clasping assholes.