The Last Night of the Earth Poems by Charles Bukowski Read Free Book Online Page B

shorts
    and
    sat down.
 
    luckily
    the boy had a
    pencil.
 
    he found a clean
    space
    among all the
    smeared and demented
    scrawlings and
    drawings
 
    and very
    carefully
    and
    heavily
    he printed:
 
    HEARTBREAK HOTEL
 
    then he dropped the
    first
    one.

my buddy in valet parking at the racetrack:
     
     
    after 9 long races among greedy faces
    on a hot Sunday that hardly rhymes with
    reason
    I have murdered another day,
    come out with shoelaces flopping (while
    secretly craving to be in a moss-lined
    cave, say,
    watching black and white cartoons
    while wanton simplicity soothes the
    muddled brain)
    as my buddy the valet races the
    machine up, revving the 8-year-old
    engine, he leaps
    out:
    “how ya doin’, baby?”
    “things have me by the jugular, Frank,
    I’m ready to run up the white
    flag.”
    “not you , baby, you’re my
    leader! ”
    “you can do better than that,
    Frank…”
 
    I get in, hook the seat belt, put on
    the driving glasses, put it in first…
 
    “hey, man,” he sticks his head into the
    window, “let’s go out and get drunk and
    kick some ass and find some
    pussy!”
 
    I tell him, “I’ll consider that.”
 
    as I pull out I can see him in the rearview mirror: he’s giving me the
    finger.
 
    I smile for the first time in 7 or
    8 hours.

see here, you
     
     
    blazing bastard fools
    poets
    with your
    idiot scrolls
    you are so
    pompous
    in your
    knowledge
    so
    assured
    that you are
    on a hot roll
    to
    nirvana
 
    you
    soft lumps of
    humanity
 
    you
    imitators of
    other
    pretenders
 
    you are still
    in
    the shadow of
    the
    Mother
 
    you
    have never
    bargained with
    the
    Beast
    you have never
    tasted
    the full flavor of
    Hell
 
    you have never
    seen
    the Edge of
    yourself
    you have never
    been alone
    with the
    razor-sharp
    walls
 
    you
    blazing bastard fools
    with your
    idiot scrolls
 
    there is nothing
    to
    know
 
    no place
    to
    travel
 
    your
    lives
    your
    deaths
    your
    idiot
    scrolls
 
    useless
 
    disgusting
    and
 
    not as real
    as
 
    the
    wart
    on the ass
    of
    a
    hog.
 
    you
    are rejected by
    circumstance.
 
    good
    bye.

spark
     
     
    I always resented all the years, the hours, the
    minutes I gave them as a working stiff, it
    actually hurt my head, my insides, it made me
    dizzy and a bit crazy—I couldn’t understand the
    murdering of my years
    yet my fellow workers gave no signs of
    agony, many of them even seemed satisfied, and
    seeing them that way drove me almost as crazy as
    the dull and senseless work.
 
    the workers submitted.
    the work pounded them to nothingness, they were
    scooped-out and thrown away.
 
    I resented each minute, every minute as it was
    mutilated
    and nothing relieved the monotony.
 
    I considered suicide.
    I drank away my few leisure hours.
 
    I worked for decades.
 
    I lived with the worst kind of women, they killed what
    the job failed to kill.
 
    I knew that I was dying.
    something in me said, go ahead, die, sleep, become as
    them, accept.
 
    then something else in me said, no, save the tiniest
    bit.
    it needn’t be much, just a spark.
    a spark can set a whole forest on
    fire.
    just a spark.
    save it.
    I think I did.
    I’m glad I did.
    what a lucky god damned
    thing.

the science of physiognomy
     
     
    long gone along the way, faces
    grey and white and black and brown, and
    eyes, all color of eyes.
    eyes are odd, I have lived with a woman,
    at least one, where the sex was fair, the
    conversation passable and sometimes there was
    even a seeming love
    but then I suddenly noticed the eyes, saw there
    the dark smeared walls of a stinking
    hell.
 
    (of course, I am pleased that I do not often have to
    see my own eyes, lips, hair, ears, so
    forth—
    I avoid the mirror with a studied
    regularity.)
 
    long gone along the way, he had a face like a
    mole pie, fat and unshivering and he walked up to
    me in the railroad yards, I was beastly sick
    and that flesh plate shook my innards, my psycho-kid
    insides as he said, “I’m