New Poems Book Three by Charles Bukowski Read Free Book Online

about how I was
    going to make it as a writer some day
    and from all of them (as if with one voice) they would complain:
    “shit, are you going to talk about
that
    again?”
    (my voice): “you saw how I punched that guy out
    in the alley the other night?”
    (again, as with one voice): “what has that to do with
    writing?”
    (my voice): “I don’t know …”
    of course, there were many nights with no voices,
    there were many nights alone and those were fine
    too, of course, but the worst nights were the nights
    without a room and that hurt because a writer needed
    an address in order to receive those rejection
    slips.
    but the ladies (bless them!)
    always told me, “you’re crazy but you’re
    nice.”
    being a starving writer is
    treacherous
    great
    fun.

LARK IN THE DARK
    all teeth, big nose
    coming directly at me
    in the middle of the night.
    I am frozen in the bed
    as it comes roaring down at me
    from the ceiling.
    I roll away at the last
    moment
    and it hits the bed
    between me and my white
    cat.
    the cat jumps straight up,
    hits the ceiling,
    bounces back, hits the
    bed, leaps off, jumps through
    the screen and lands two floors
    below in the Jacuzzi.
    I get up, watch it swim to the
    edge, crawl out.
    it sits there licking itself in the
    moonlight.
    “whatcha doin’?” I hear my wife
    say.
    “gotta go to the bathroom,”
    I tell her.
    I walk to the bathroom,
    come back,
    climb under the
    covers.
    “don’t snore,” says my wife.
    I stare at the spot in the ceiling
    from where the apparition first
    appeared.
    for two hours I do this.
    then I am asleep again.
    I am dreaming.
    I am naked and driving one of
    those old-fashioned steam locomotives
    through a shopping
    mall.
    I smile and wave
    to the crowds but
    nobody seems to notice
    me.

LONELY HEARTS
    when you start boring yourself
    you know damn well
    you’re going to start
    boring other people;
    in fact, all the people you come
    into contact with:
    on the telephone, in the post
    office, over a bowl of
    spaghetti.
    oh, all the tiresome people with their
    tiresome stories:
    like how they got screwed by life’s
    Unkind Forces, how they are fucked
    and there isn’t much they can do
    now
    except tell you all about it.
    then they step back and wait for
    you to console them
    but what you really feel like doing
    is
    piss all over them,
    which might stop them from
    inviting themselves over for
    dinner
    and then telling you more about
    their tragic
    lives.
    there are more and more of
    them,
    they line up outside in the gloom
    waiting for you.
    nobody else will listen to
    them.
    they’ve alienated
    hundreds of former
    friends, lovers and acquaintances
    but they still need to whine and
    complain.
    I’m sending them all over to
    see you
    starting today.
    get your compassion and
    understanding
    ready.
    I might be there at the end of that
    line
    myself.

B AS IN BULLSHIT
    B kind
    B a good listener
    B able to engage in physical combat
    B a lover of classical music
    B a tolerator of children
    B a good horseplayer
    B an agnostic
    B generous on the freeways of the world
    B a good sleeper
    B not fearful of death
    B unable to beg
    B able to love
    B able to feel superior
    B able to understand that too much education is a fart in the dark
    B able to dislike poets and poetry
    B able to understand that the rich can be poor in spirit
    B able to understand that the poor live better than the rich
    B able to understand that shit is necessary
    B aware that in every life a little bit of shit must fall B aware that a hell of a lot more shit falls on some more than on others
    B aware that many dumb bastards crawl the earth
    B aware that the human heart cannot be broken
    B able to stay away from movies
    B able to sit alone in a room and feel good
    B able to watch your cat cross the floor like a miracle
    B able to recognize bullshit even when you hear it from
    B ukowski.

A RIOT IN THE STREETS
    it’s a good day, a good time, anybody can
    blow a hole through you at any minute.
    they are