Read Online Burning in Water, Drowing in Flame by Charles Bukowski - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Charles Bukowski
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the legs to an aunt in St. Louis
the head to a scoutmaster in Brooklyn
the belly to a cross-eyed butcher in Des Moines,
the female organs were sent to a young priest in Los Angeles;
the arms he threw to his dog
and he kept the hands to use as nut-crackers, and all the
leftover and assorted parts
like breasts and buttocks he boiled into a soup
which strangely
tasted better than she ever had.
he spent the money in her purse
he bought good French wine, frijoles, a pound of grass
and two parakeets; he bought the collected works of
Keats, a 5 foot square red bandana, a scissors with
ivory handles, and a box of candy for his
landlady.
then he drank and ate and slept for three days and nights
and when the police came
he seemed very friendly and calm
and all the way to the station house
he talked of the weather, the color of the mountains,
various things like that, he didn’t seem like that kind of killer
at all.
it was very strange.
children in the sky
the boys come up
the boys climb up the
brown pole
as the waterheater gurgles
in Spanish
the boys climb the
brown pole—
Charlemagne fought for this
Il Duce was tilted from his car
skinned like a bear
and hung
upsidedown
for this—
the boys climb up
the brown pole
3 or 4 of
them;
we have just moved in
this building,
the paintings still
unpacked, the letters from
England and Chicago and
Cheyenne and
New Orleans,
but the beer’s on
and there are 5 oranges
and 4 pears on the table
so life’s not
bad
except somebody wanted
$15 to
turn on the gas;
the boys climb the phonepole
to leap onto the
bluegreen
garage roofs
and I stand naked
behind a curtain,
smoking a cigar,
and impressed
impressed as I can be
as if
the Virgin Mary
was dancing
outside;
and through the window
to the North
I can see 2 men
feeding
45 pigeons
and the pigeons
walk in separate circles
of 8 or 10
as if tied together
by a revolving string,
and it is 3 o’clock
in the afternoon and
a good cigar.
Cicero fought for this,
Jake LaMotta and
Waslaw Nijinsky,
but somebody stole
our guitar
and I haven’t taken my
vitamins
for weeks.
the boys run on the
greenblue roofs
as to the North the
pigeons rise;
it is desperately
holy
and I blow out
grey and quiet
smoke.
then a woman in a red coat,
evidently an official,
some matron of
learning
decides that
the sky needs
cleaning:
Hey!!! you boys get
DOWN
from there!
it is beautiful as
deer
running from the
hunter.
Agrippina fought for this,
even Mithridates,
even William Hazlitt.
there is nothing to do
now
but unpack.
the weather is hot on the back of my watch
the weather is hot on the back of my watch
which is down at Finkelstein’s
who is gifted with 3 balls
but no heart, but you’ve got to understand
when the bull goes down
or the whore, the heart is laid aside for something else,
and let’s not over-rate obvious decency
for in a crap game you may be cutting down
some wobbly king of 6 kids
and a hemorrhoid butt on his last unemployment check,
and who is to say the rose is greater than the thorn?
not I, Henry,
and when your love gets flabby knees and prefers flat shoes,
maybe you should have stuck it into something else
like an oil well
or a herd of cows.
I’m too old to argue,
I’ve gone with the poem
and been k.o.’d with the old sucker-punch
round after round,
but sometimes I like to think of the Kaiser
or any other fool full of medals and nothing else,
or the first time we read Dos
or Eliot with his trousers rolled;
the weather is hot on the back of my watch
which is down at Finkelstein’s,
but you know what they say: things are tough all over,
and I remember once on the bum in Texas
I watched a crow-blast, one hundred farmers with one hundred shotguns
jerking off the sky with
the head to a scoutmaster in Brooklyn
the belly to a cross-eyed butcher in Des Moines,
the female organs were sent to a young priest in Los Angeles;
the arms he threw to his dog
and he kept the hands to use as nut-crackers, and all the
leftover and assorted parts
like breasts and buttocks he boiled into a soup
which strangely
tasted better than she ever had.
he spent the money in her purse
he bought good French wine, frijoles, a pound of grass
and two parakeets; he bought the collected works of
Keats, a 5 foot square red bandana, a scissors with
ivory handles, and a box of candy for his
landlady.
then he drank and ate and slept for three days and nights
and when the police came
he seemed very friendly and calm
and all the way to the station house
he talked of the weather, the color of the mountains,
various things like that, he didn’t seem like that kind of killer
at all.
it was very strange.
children in the sky
the boys come up
the boys climb up the
brown pole
as the waterheater gurgles
in Spanish
the boys climb the
brown pole—
Charlemagne fought for this
Il Duce was tilted from his car
skinned like a bear
and hung
upsidedown
for this—
the boys climb up
the brown pole
3 or 4 of
them;
we have just moved in
this building,
the paintings still
unpacked, the letters from
England and Chicago and
Cheyenne and
New Orleans,
but the beer’s on
and there are 5 oranges
and 4 pears on the table
so life’s not
bad
except somebody wanted
$15 to
turn on the gas;
the boys climb the phonepole
to leap onto the
bluegreen
garage roofs
and I stand naked
behind a curtain,
smoking a cigar,
and impressed
impressed as I can be
as if
the Virgin Mary
was dancing
outside;
and through the window
to the North
I can see 2 men
feeding
45 pigeons
and the pigeons
walk in separate circles
of 8 or 10
as if tied together
by a revolving string,
and it is 3 o’clock
in the afternoon and
a good cigar.
Cicero fought for this,
Jake LaMotta and
Waslaw Nijinsky,
but somebody stole
our guitar
and I haven’t taken my
vitamins
for weeks.
the boys run on the
greenblue roofs
as to the North the
pigeons rise;
it is desperately
holy
and I blow out
grey and quiet
smoke.
then a woman in a red coat,
evidently an official,
some matron of
learning
decides that
the sky needs
cleaning:
Hey!!! you boys get
DOWN
from there!
it is beautiful as
deer
running from the
hunter.
Agrippina fought for this,
even Mithridates,
even William Hazlitt.
there is nothing to do
now
but unpack.
the weather is hot on the back of my watch
the weather is hot on the back of my watch
which is down at Finkelstein’s
who is gifted with 3 balls
but no heart, but you’ve got to understand
when the bull goes down
or the whore, the heart is laid aside for something else,
and let’s not over-rate obvious decency
for in a crap game you may be cutting down
some wobbly king of 6 kids
and a hemorrhoid butt on his last unemployment check,
and who is to say the rose is greater than the thorn?
not I, Henry,
and when your love gets flabby knees and prefers flat shoes,
maybe you should have stuck it into something else
like an oil well
or a herd of cows.
I’m too old to argue,
I’ve gone with the poem
and been k.o.’d with the old sucker-punch
round after round,
but sometimes I like to think of the Kaiser
or any other fool full of medals and nothing else,
or the first time we read Dos
or Eliot with his trousers rolled;
the weather is hot on the back of my watch
which is down at Finkelstein’s,
but you know what they say: things are tough all over,
and I remember once on the bum in Texas
I watched a crow-blast, one hundred farmers with one hundred shotguns
jerking off the sky with
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