The Roominghouse Madrigals by Charles Bukowski Read Free Book Online

had turned into a happy wine-bottle,
    and a bird even flew by cheep cheep ,
    right there on Eastside downtown, no kidding,
    and the Chinaman came in for a quickie
    claiming somebody had stolen a spoon and a coffee cup
    and I leaned over and bit Marylou on the ear
    and the whole joint rocked with music and freedom
    and I decided that Russia was too far away
    and Hollywood Park just close enough.
     

The Literary Life
     
     
    There is this long still knife somehow like a
    cossack’s sword…
     
 
    and C. writes that Ferlinghetti has written
    a poem about Castro. well, all the boys
    are doing poems on Castro now, only
    Castro’s not that good
    or that bad—just a small horse
    in a big race.
     
 
    I see this knife on the stove and I move it to
    the breadboard…
     
 
    after a while it is time to look around and
    listen to the engines and wonder if it’s
    raining; after a while writing won’t help
    anymore, and drinking won’t help anymore, or
    even a good piece of ass won’t.
     
 
    I see this knife on the breadboard and I move it
    to the sink…
     
 
    this wallpaper here: how many years was it here
    before I arrived?…this cigarette in my hand
    it is like a thing itself, like a donkey walking
    uphill…somebody took my candle and candle-
    holder: a lady with red hair and a white face
    standing near the closet, saying, “Can I have
    this? can I really have this?”
     
 
    The edge of the knife is not as sharp as it should
    be…but the point, the point fascinates, the way
    they grind it down like that—symmetry, real Art,
    and I pick up this breadknife and walk into the
    dining room…
            Larsen says we mustn’t take ourselves so
            seriously. Hell, I’ve been telling him that
            for 8 years!
     
 
    There is this full length mirror in the hall. I
    can see myself in it and I look, at last.
    It hasn’t rained in 175 days and it
    is as quiet as a sleeping peacock. a
    friend of mine shoots pool in a hall across from
    the university where he teaches English, and when
    he gets tired of that, he drags out a .357 magnum
    and splits the rocks in half BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
    while figuring just where the word will fit real
    good. In front of the mirror I cut swift circles in the
    air, dividing sides of light. I am hypnotized,
    unsettled, embarrassed. my nose is pink, my
    cheeks are pink, my throat is white, the phone
    rings like a wall sliding down and I answer
    “Nothing, no, I’m not doing anything…”
     
 
    it is a dull conversation but it is soon over. I
    walk to the window and open it. the cars go by
    and a bird turns on the wire and looks at me. I
    think 3 centuries ahead, of myself dead that long
    and life seems very odd…like a crack of
    light in a buried tomb.
     
 
    the bird flies away and I walk to the machine and
    sit down:
     
     
          Dear Willie:
     
     
                I got your letter, everything fine
                      here…
     

Countryside
     
     
    I drive my car
    through a valley
    where
    (very oddly)
    young girls sit on fencerails
    showing impartial leg and
    haunch
    in butterglory sun,
    young girls painting
    cows and
    trees in heat
    painting
    old farms that sit like
    pools of impossibility
    on unplanted ground,
    ground as still and insane
    as the weathervanes
    stuck northwest
    in the degenerate air;
    I drive on
    with the girls and their brushes and
    their taffy bodies stuck inside my
    head like
    toothache,
    and I get out
    much farther down the road
    walk into a peeling white cafe
    and am handed water in a glass as
    thick as a
    lip, and
    4 people sit
    eating,
    eyes obsessed with molecules of no
    urgency;
    I order a veal cutlet and the
    waitress walks away
    trussed in white flat linen
    and I sit and watch and wait
    so disattached I wish I could
    cry or curse or break the water glass;
    instead I pour cream into the
    coffee
    I think of the girls and the cows,
    stir the cream with a damaged and
    apologetic
    tinkle
    then decide
    not to think