Toca el piano borracho como un instrumento de percusión hasta que los dedos te empiecen a sangrar un poco by Charles Bukowski Read Free Book Online Page B

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    Gershwin is on the radio
    banging and praying to get out;
    I have read the newspapers,
    carefully noting the suicides,
    I have also carefully noted
    the green of some tree
    like a nature poet on his last cup,
    and
    bang bang
    there they go outside;
    new children, some of them getting ready
    to sit here, and do as I am doing—
    warm beer, dead Gershwin,
    getting fat around the middle,
    disbelieving the starving years,
    Atlanta frozen like God’s head
    holding an apple in the window,
    but we are all finally tricked and
    slapped to death
    like lovers’ vows, bargained
    out of any gain,
    and the radio is finished
    and the phone rings and a female says,
    “I am free tonight;” well, she is not much
    but I am not much either;
    in adolescent fire I once thought I could ride
    a horse through the streets of anywhere,
    but they quickly shot this horse from under,
    “Ya got cigarettes?” she asks. “Yes,” I say,
    “I got cigarettes.” “Matches?” she asks.
    “Enough matches to burn Rome.” “Whiskey?”
    “Enough whiskey for a Mississippi River
    of pain.” “You drunk?” “Not yet.”
    She’ll be over: perfect: a fig
    leaf and a small club, and
    I look at the poem I am trying to work with:
    I say that
    the backalleys will arrive upon
    the bloodyapes
    as noon arrives upon the Salinas
    fieldhands…
    bullshit. I rip the page once, twice,
    three times, then check for matches and
    icecubes, hot and cold,
    with some men their conversation is better than
    their creation
    and with other men
    it’s a woman
    almost any woman
    that is their Rodin among park benches;
    bird down in road awaiting rats and wheels
    I know that I have deserted you,
    the icecubes pile like fool’s gold
    in the pitcher
    and now they are playing
    Alex Scriabin
    which is a little better
    but not much
    for me.

fire station
    (For Jane, with love)
    we came out of the bar
    because we were out of money
    but we had a couple of wine bottles
    in the room.
    it was about 4 in the afternoon
    and we passed a fire station
    and she started to go
    crazy:
    “a FIRE STATION! oh, I just love
    FIRE engines, they’re so red and
    all! let’s go in !”
    I followed her on
    in. “FIRE ENGINES!” she screamed
    wobbling her big
    ass.
    she was already trying to climb into
    one, pulling her skirt up to her
    waist, trying to jacknife up into the
    seat.
    “here, here, lemme help ya!” a fireman ran up.
    another fireman walked up to
    me: “our citizens are always welcome,”
    he told
    me.
    the other guy was up in the seat with
    her. “you got one of those big THINGS?”
    she asked him. “oh, hahaha!, I mean one of
    those big HELMETS!”
    “I’ve got a big helmet too,” he told her.
    “oh, hahaha!”
    “you play cards?” I asked my
    fireman. I had 43 cents and nothing but time.
    “come on in back,” he
    said. “of course, we don’t gamble.
    it’s against the
    rules.”
    “I understand,” I told
    him.
    I had run my 43 cents up to a
    dollar ninety
    when I saw her going upstairs with
    her fireman.
    “he’s gonna show me their sleeping
    quarters,” she told
    me.
    “I understand,” I told
    her.
    when her fireman slid down the pole
    ten minutes later
    I nodded him
    over.
    “that’ll be 5
    dollars.”
    “5 dollars for
    that?”
    “we wouldn’t want a scandal, would
    we? we both might lose our
    jobs. of course, I’m not
    working.”
    he gave me the
    5.
    “sit down, you might get it
    back.”
    “whatcha playing?”
    “blackjack.”
    “gambling’s against the law.”
    “anything interesting is. besides,
    you see any money on the
    table?”
    he sat down.
    that made 5 of
    us.
    “how was it Harry?” somebody asked him.
    “not bad, not
    bad.”
    the other guy went on
    upstairs.
    they were bad players really.
    they didn’t bother to memorize the
    deck. they didn’t know whether the
    high numbers or low numbers were left. and basically they hit too
    high,
    didn’t hold low
    enough.
    when the other guy came down
    he gave me