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Charles BukowskiShoeswhen you're younga pair of femalehigh-heeled shoesjust sittingalonein the closetcan fire yourbones;when you're oldit's justa pair of shoeswithoutanybodyin themand just as well. 

Love and Fame and Death

it sits outside my window nowlike and old woman going to market;it sits and watches me,it sweats nervouslythrough wire and fog and dog-barkuntil suddenlyI slam the screen with a newspaperlike slapping at a flyand you could hear the screamover this plain city,and then it left.

the way to end a poemlike thisis to become suddenlyquiet.

The Laughing Heartyour life is your lifedon’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.be on the watch.there are ways out.there is a light somewhere.it may not be much light butit beats the darkness.be on the watch.the gods will offer you chances.know them.take them.you can’t beat death butyou can beat death in life, sometimes.and the more often you learn to do it,the more light there will be.your life is your life.know it while you have it.you are marvelousthe gods wait to delightin you.

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Eat Your Heart OutI've come by, she says, to tell youthat this is it. I'm not kidding, it'sover. this is it.I sit on the couch watching her arrangeher long red hair before my bedroommirror.she pulls her hair up andpiles it on top of her head-she lets her eyes look atmy eyes-then she drops her hair andlets it fall down in front of her face.we go to bed and I hold herspeechlessly from the backmy arm around her neckI touch her wrists and handsfeel up toher elbowsno further.she gets up.this is it, she says,this will do. well,I'm going.I get up and walk herto the doorjust as she leavesshe says,I want you to buy mesome high-heeled shoeswith tall thin spikes,black high-heeled shoes.no, I want themred.I watch her walk down the cement walkunder the treesshe walks all right andas the poinsettias drip in the sunI close the door.

As the SparrowTo give life you must take life,and as our grief falls flat and hollowupon the billion-blooded seaI pass upon serious inward-breaking shoals rimmedwith white-legged, white-bellied rotting creatureslengthily dead and rioting against surrounding scenes.Dear child, I only did to you what the sparrowdid to you; I am old when it is fashionable to beyoung; I cry when it is fashionable to laugh.I hated you when it would have taken less courageto love.

A Smile to Rememberwe had goldfish and they circled around and aroundin the bowl on the table near the heavy drapescovering the picture window andmy mother, always smiling, wanting us allto be happy, told me, 'be happy Henry!'and she was right: it's better to be happy if youcanbut my father continued to beat her and me several times a week whileraging inside his 6-foot-two frame because he couldn'tunderstand what was attacking him from within.

my mother, poor fish,wanting to be happy, beaten two or three times aweek, telling me to be happy: 'Henry, smile!why don't you ever smile?'

and then she would smile, to show me how, and it was thesaddest smile I ever saw

one day the goldfish died, all five of them,they floated on the water, on their sides, theireyes still open,and when my father got home he threw them to the catthere on the kitchen floor and we watched as my mothersmiled

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I’m in Loveshe's young, she said,but look at me,I have pretty ankles,and look at my wrists, I have prettywristso my god,I thought it was all working,and now it's her again,every time she phones you go crazy,you told me it was overyou told me it was finished,listen, I've lived long enough to become a good woman,why do you need a bad woman?you need to be tortured, don't you?you think life is rotten if somebody treats yourotten it all fits,doesn't it?tell me, is that it? do you want to be treated like a piece of shit?and my son, my son was going to meet you.I told my sonand I dropped all my lovers.I stood up in a cafe and screamedI'M IN LOVE,and now you've made a fool of me. . .I'm sorry, I said, I'm really sorry.hold me, she said, will you please hold me?I've never been in one of these things before, I said,these triangles. . .she got up and lit a cigarette, she was trembling all over.she paced up and down,wild and crazy.she hada small body.her arms were thin,very thin and whenshe screamed and started beating me I held herwrists and then I got it through the eyes:hatred,centuries deep and true.I was wrong and graceless andsick.all the things I had learned had been wasted.there was no creature living as foul as I and all my poems werefalse.

Raw with Lovelittle dark girl with kind eyes when it comes time to use the knife I won't flinch and I won't blame you, as I drive along the shore alone as the palms wave, the ugly heavy palms, as the living does not arrive as the dead do not leave, I won't blame you, instead I will remember the kisses our lips raw with love and how you gave me everything you had and how I offered you what was left of me, and I will remember your small room the feel of you the light in the window your records your books our morning coffee our noons our nights our bodies spilled together sleeping the tiny flowing currents immediate and forever your leg my leg your arm my arm your smile and the warmth of you who made me laugh again. little dark girl with kind eyes you have no knife. the knife is mine and I won't use it yet.

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Death Wants More Deathdeath wants more death, and its webs are full:I remember my father's garage, how child-likeI would brush the corpses of fliesfrom the windows they thought were escape-their sticky, ugly, vibrant bodiesshouting like dumb crazy dogs against the glassonly to spin and flitin that second larger than hell or heavenonto the edge of the ledge,and then the spider from his dank holenervous and exposedthe puff of body swellinghanging therenot really quite knowing,and then knowing-something sending it down its string,the wet web,toward the weak shield of buzzing,the pulsing;a last desperate moving hair-legthere against the glassthere alive in the sun,spun in white;and almost like love:the closing over,the first hushed spider-sucking:filling its sack upon this thing that lived;crouching there upon its backdrawing its certain bloodas the world goes by outsideand my temples screamand I hurl the broom against them:the spider dull with spider-angerstill thinking of its preyand waving an amazed broken leg;the fly very still,a dirty speck stranded to straw;I shake the killer looseand he walks lame and peevedtowards some dark cornerbut I intercept his dawdlinghis crawling like some broken hero,and the straws smash his legsnow wavingabove his headand lookinglooking for the enemy and somewhat valiant,dying without apparent painsimply crawling backwardpiece by piece

leaving nothing thereuntil at last the red gut sacksplashesits secrets,and I run child-likewith God's anger a step behind,back to simple sunlight,wonderingas the world goes bywith curled smileif anyone elsesaw or sensed my crime

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Bluebirdthere's a bluebird in my heart thatwants to get outbut I'm too tough for him,I say, stay in there, I'm not goingto let anybody seeyou.there's a bluebird in my heart thatwants to get outbut I pour whiskey on him and inhalecigarette smokeand the whores and the bartendersand the grocery clerksnever know thathe'sin there.

there's a bluebird in my heart thatwants to get outbut I'm too tough for him,I say,stay down, do you want to messme up?you want to screw up theworks?you want to blow my book sales inEurope?there's a bluebird in my heart thatwants to get outbut I'm too clever, I only let him outat night sometimeswhen everybody's asleep.I say, I know that you're there,so don't besad.then I put him back,but he's singing a littlein there, I haven't quite let himdieand we sleep together likethatwith oursecret pactand it's nice enough tomake a manweep, but I don'tweep, doyou?

Curtainthe final curtain on one of the longest runningmusicals ever, some people claim to haveseen it over one hundred times.I saw it on the tv news, that final curtain:flowers, cheers, tears, a thunderousaccolade.I have not seen this particular musicalbut I know if I had that I wouldn't havebeen able to bear it, it would havesickened me.trust me on this, the world and itspeoples and its artful entertainment hasdone very little for me, only to me.still, let them enjoy one another, it willkeep them from my doorand for this, my own thunderousaccolade.

The Tragedy of the LeavesI awakened to dryness and the ferns were dead,the potted plants yellow as corn;my woman was goneand the empty bottles like bled corpsessurrounded me with their uselessness;the sun was still good, though,and my landlady’s note cracked in fine andundemanding yellowness; what was needed nowwas a good comedian, ancient style, a jesterwith jokes upon absurd pain; pain is absurdbecause it exists, nothing more;I shaved carefully with an old razorthe man who had once been young andsaid to have genius; butthat’s the tragedy of the leaves,the dead ferns, the dead plants;and I walked into a dark hallwhere the landlady stoodexecrating and final,sending me to hell,waving her fat, sweaty armsand screamingscreaming for rentbecause the world has failed usboth

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The Genius of the Crowdthere is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the averagehuman being to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at murder are those who preach against itand the best at hate are those who preach loveand the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need godthose who preach peace do not have peacethose who preach peace do not have love

beware the preachersbeware the knowersbeware those who are always reading booksbeware those who either detest povertyor are proud of itbeware those quick to praisefor they need praise in returnbeware those who are quick to censorthey are afraid of what they do not knowbeware those who seek constant crowds forthey are nothing alonebeware the average man the average womanbeware their love, their love is averageseeks average

but there is genius in their hatredthere is enough genius in their hatred to kill youto kill anybodynot wanting solitudenot understanding solitudethey will attempt to destroy anythingthat differs from their ownnot being able to create artthey will not understand artthey will consider their failure as creatorsonly as a failure of the worldnot being able to love fullythey will believe your love incompleteand then they will hate youand their hatred will be perfect

like a shining diamondlike a knifelike a mountainlike a tigerlike hemlocktheir finest art

Be Kindwe are always askedto understand the other person'sviewpointno matter howout-datedfoolish orobnoxious.

one is askedto viewtheir total errortheir life-wastewithkindliness,especially if they areaged.

but age is the total ofour doing.they have agedbadlybecause they havelivedout of focus,they have refused tosee.

not their fault?

whose fault?mine?

I am asked to hidemy viewpointfrom themfor fear of theirfear.

age is no crime

but the shameof a deliberatelywastedlife

among so manydeliberatelywastedlives

is.

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Metamorphosisa girlfriend came inbuilt me a bedscrubbed and waxed the kitchen floorscrubbed the wallsvacuumedcleaned the toiletthe bathtubscrubbed the bathroom floorand cut my toenails and my hair.thenall on the same daythe plumber came and fixed the kitchen faucetand the toiletand the gas man fixed the heaterand the phone man fixed the phone.now I sit in all this perfection.it is quiet.I have broken off with all 3 of my girlfriends.I felt better when everything was in disorder.it will take me some months to get back to normal:I can't even find a roach to commune with.I have lost my rhythm.I can't sleep.I can't eat.I have been robbed ofmy filth.

What a Writerwhat i liked about e.e. cummings was that he cut away from the holiness of the word and with charm and gamble gave us lines that sliced through the dung.

how it was needed! how we were withering away in the old tired manner.

of course, then came all the e.e. cummings copyists. they copied him then as the others had copied Keats, Shelly, Swinburne, Byron, et al.

but there was only one e.e. cummings. of course.

one sun.

one moon.

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What’s the Use of a Title?They don't make it the beautiful die in flame- suicide pills, rat poison, rope what- ever... they rip their arms off, throw themselves out of windows, they pull their eyes out of the sockets, reject love reject hate reject, reject.

they don't make it the beautiful can't endure, they are butterflies they are doves they are sparrows, they don't make it.

one tall shot of flame while the old men play checkers in the park one flame, one good flame while the old men play checkers in the park in the sun.

the beautiful are found in the edge of a room crumpled into spiders and needles and silence and we can never understand why they left, they were so beautiful.

they don't make it, the beautiful die young and leave the ugly to their ugly lives.

lovely and brilliant: life and suicide and death as the old men play checkers in the sunin the park.

The Trash Menhere they come these guys grey truck radio playing

they are in a hurry

it’s quite exciting: shirt open bellies hanging out

they run out the trash bins

roll them out to the fork lift and then the truck grinds it upward with far too much sound . . .

they had to fill out application forms to get these jobs they are paying for homes and drive late model cars

they get drunk on Saturday night

now in the Los Angeles sunshine they run back and forth with their trash bins

all that trash goes somewhere

and they shout to each other

then they are all up in the truck driving west toward the sea

none of them know that I am alive

The Aliensyou may not believe itbut there are peoplewho go through life withvery littlefriction ordistress.they dress well, eatwell, sleep well.they are contented withtheir familylife.they have moments ofgriefbut all in allthey are undisturbed and often feelvery good.and when they dieit is an easydeath, usually in theirsleep.

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Cause and Effectthe best often die by their own handjust to get away,and those left behindcan never quite understandwhy anybodywould ever want toget awayfromthem

Gwendolyn BrooksWe Real CoolWe real cool. WeLeft school. We

Lurk late. WeStrike straight. We

Sing sin. WeThin gin. We

Jazz June. WeDie soon.

The Crazy WomanI shall not sing a May song. A May song should be gay. I'll wait until November And sing a song of gray.

I'll wait until November That is the time for me. I'll go out in the frosty dark And sing most terribly.

And all the little people Will stare at me and say, "That is the Crazy Woman Who would not sing in May."

The Good ManThe good man.He is still enhancer, renouncer.In the time of detachment,in the time of the vivid heather and affectionate evil,in the time of oralgrave grave legalities of hate - all real

walks our prime registered reproach and seal.Our successful moral.The good man.

Watches our bogus roses, our rank wreath, ourlove's unreliable cement, the grayjubilees of our demondom.CoherentCounsel! Good man.Require of us our terribly excluded blue.Constrain, repair a ripped, revolted land.Put hand in hand land over.Reprovethe abler droughts and manias of the dayand a felicity entreat.Love.Completeyour pledges, reinforce your aides, renewstance, testament.

To Be in LoveTo be in love Is to touch with a lighter hand. In yourself you stretch, you are well. You look at things Through his eyes. A cardinal is red. A sky is blue. Suddenly you know he knows too. He is not there but You know you are tasting together The winter, or a light spring weather. His hand to take your hand is overmuch. Too much to bear. You cannot look in his eyes Because your pulse must not say What must not be said. When he Shuts a door- Is not there_ Your arms are water. And you are free With a ghastly freedom. You are the beautiful half Of a golden hurt. You remember and covet his mouth To touch, to whisper on. Oh when to declare Is certain Death! Oh when to apprize Is to mesmerize, To see fall down, the Column of Gold, Into the commonest ash.

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The Bean EatersThey eat beans mostly, this old yellow pair.Dinner is a casual affair.Plain chipware on a plain and creaking wood, Tin flatware.

Two who are Mostly Good.Two who have lived their day,But keep on putting on their clothesAnd putting things away.

And remembering . . .Remembering, with twinklings and twinges,As they lean over the beans in their rented back room thatis full of beads and receipts and dolls and cloths,tobacco crumbs, vases and fringes.

truthAnd if the sun comesHow shall we greet him?Shall we not dread him,Shall we not fear himAfter so lengthy a Session with shade?

Though we have wept for him,Though we have prayedAll through the night-years—What if we wake one shimmering morning toHear the fierce hammeringOf his firm knucklesHard on the door?

Shall we not shudder?—Shall we not fleeInto the shelter, the dear think shelterOf the familiarPropitious haze?

Sweet is it, sweet is itTo sleep in the coolnessOf snug unawareness.

The dark hangs heavilyOver the eyes.

Speech to the Young: Speech to the Progress-TowardSay to them,say to the down-keepers,the sun-slappers,

the self-soilers,the harmony-hushers,"even if you are not ready for dayit cannot always be night."You will be right.For that is the hard home-run.

Live not for battles won.Live not for the-end-of-the-song.Live in the along.

Sadie and MaudMaud went to college.Sadie stayed home.Sadie scraped lifeWith a fine toothed comb.

She didn't leave a tangle inHer comb found every strand.Sadie was one of the livingest chicksIn all the land.

Sadie bore two babiesUnder her maiden name.Maud and Ma and PapaNearly died of shame.

When Sadie said her last so-longHer girls struck out from home.(Sadie left as heritageHer fine-toothed comb.)

Maud, who went to college,Is a thin brown mouse.She is living all aloneIn this old house.

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The MotherAbortions will not let you forget.You remember the children you got that you did not get,The damp small pulps with a little or with no hair,The singers and workers that never handled the air.You will never neglect or beatThem, or silence or buy with a sweet.You will never wind up the sucking-thumbOr scuttle off ghosts that come.You will never leave them, controlling your luscious sigh,Return for a snack of them, with gobbling mother-eye.

I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed

children.I have contracted. I have easedMy dim dears at the breasts they could never suck.I have said, Sweets, if I sinned, if I seizedYour luckAnd your lives from your unfinished reach,If I stole your births and your names,Your straight baby tears and your games,Your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches,

and your deaths,If I poisoned the beginnings of your breaths,Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate.Though why should I whine,Whine that the crime was other than mine?--Since anyhow you are dead.Or rather, or instead,You were never made.But that too, I am afraid,Is faulty: oh, what shall I say, how is the truth to be said?You were born, you had body, you died.It is just that you never giggled or planned or cried.

Believe me, I loved you all.Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I loved youAll.

A Sunset of the CityAlready I am no longer looked at with lechery or love.My daughters and sons have put me away with marbles and dolls,Are gone from the house.My husband and lovers are pleasant or somewhat politeAnd night is night.

It is a real chill out,The geuine thing.I am not deceived, I do not think it is still summerBecause sun stays and birds continue to sing.

It is summer-gone that I see, it is summer-gone.The sweet flowers indrying and dying down,The grasses forgetting their blaze and consenting to brown.

It is a real chill out. The fall crisp comes.I am aware there is winter to heed.There is no warm houseThat is fitted with my need.I am cold in this cold house this houseWhose washed echoes are tremulous down lost halls.I am a woman, dusty, standing among new affairs.I am a woman who hurries through her prayers.

The intimations of a quiet core to be my Desert and my dear reliefCome: there shall be such islanding from grief,And small communion with the master shore.Twang they. And I incline this ear to tin,Consult a dual dilemma. Whether to dry In humming pallor or to leap and die.

Somebody muffed it? Somebody wanted to joke.

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One Wants a Teller in a Time Like This One wants a teller in a time like this

One's not a man, one's not a woman grownTo bear enormous business all alone.

One cannot walk this winding street with prideStraight-shouldered, tranquil-eyed,Knowing one knows for sure the way back home.One wonders if one has a home.

One is not certain if or why or how.One wants a Teller now:

Put on your rubbers and you won't catch a coldHere's hell, there's heaven. Go to Sunday SchoolBe patient, time brings all good things-(and coolStrong balm to calm the burning at the brain?)Behold,Love's true, and triumphs; and God's actual.

Of De Witt Williams on his Way to Lincoln CemeteryHe was born in Alabama.He was bred in Illinois.He was nothing but aPlain black boy.

Swing low swing low sweet sweet chariot.Nothing but a plain black boy.

Drive him past the Pool Hall.Drive him past the Show.Blind within his casket,But maybe he will know.

Down through Forty-seventh Street:Underneath the L,And Northwest Corner, Prairie,That he loved so well.

Don’t forget the Dance Halls—Warwick and Savoy,Where he picked his women, whereHe drank his liquid joy.

Born in Alabama.Bred in Illinois.He was nothing but aPlain black boy.

Swing low swing low sweet sweet chariot.Nothing but a plain black boy.

Mayor Harold WashingtonMayor. Worldman. Historyman.Beyond steps that occur and close,your steps are echo-makers.

You can never be forgotten.

We begin our health.We enter the Age of Alliance.This is our senior adventure.

A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi.  Meanwhile, a Mississippi Mother Burns BaconFrom the first it had been like aBallad. It had the beat inevitable. It had the blood.A wildness cut up, and tied in little bunches,Like the four-line stanzas of the ballads she had never quiteunderstood--the ballads they had set her to, in school.

Herself: the milk-white maid, the "maid mild"Of the ballad. PursuedBy the Dark Villain. Rescued by the Fine Prince.The Happiness-Ever-After.That was worth anything.It was good to be a "maid mild."That made the breath go fast.

Her bacon burned. SheHastened to hide it in the step-on can, andDrew more strips from the meat case. The eggs and sour-milk biscuitsDid well. She set out a jarOf her new quince preserve.

. . . But there was something about the matter of the Dark Villain.He should have been older, perhaps.The hacking down of a villain was more fun to think aboutWhen his menace possessed undisputed breath, undisputed height,And best of all, when history was clutteredWith the bones of many eaten knights and princesses.

The fun was disturbed, then all but nullified

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When the Dark Villain was a blackish childOf Fourteen, with eyes still too young to be dirty,And a mouth too young to have lost every reminderOf its infant softness.

That boy must have been surprised! ForThese were grown-ups. Grown-ups were supposed to be wise.And the Fine Prince--and that other--so tall, so broad, soGrown! Perhaps the boy had never guessedThat the trouble with grown-ups was that under the magnificent shell of adulthood, just under,Waited the baby full of tantrums.It occurred to her that there may have been somethingRidiculous to the picture of the Fine PrinceRushing (rich with the breadth and height andMature solidness whose lack, in the Dark Villain, was impressing her,Confronting her more and more as this first day after the trialAnd acquittal (wore on) rushingWith his heavy companion to hack down (unhorsed)That little foe. So much had happened, she could not remember now what that foe had doneAgainst her, or if anything had been done.The breaks were everywhere. That she could thinkOf no thread capable of the necessarySew-work.

She made the babies sit in their places at the table.Then, before calling HIM, she hurriedTo the mirror with her comb and lipstick. It was necessaryTo be more beautiful than ever.The beautiful wife.For sometimes she fancied he looked at her as thoughMeasuring her. As if he considered, Had she been worth it?Had she been worth the blood, the cramped cries, the little stirring bravado, The gradual dulling of those Negro eyes,The sudden, overwhelming little-boyness in that barn?Whatever she might feel or half-feel, the lipstick necessity was something apart. HE must never

concludeThat she had not been worth it.

HE sat down, the Fine Prince, andBegan buttering a biscuit. HE looked at HIS hands.More papers were in from the North, HE mumbled. More maddening headlines.With their pepper-words, "bestiality," and "barbarism," and"Shocking." The half-sneers HE had mastered for the trial worked acrossHIS sweet and pretty face.

What HE'd like to do, HE explained, was kill them all.The time lost. The unwanted fame.Still, it had been fun to show those intrudersA thing or two. To show that snappy-eyed mother,That sassy, Northern, brown-black--

Nothing could stop Mississippi.HE knew that. Big fellaKnew that.And, what was so good, Mississippi knew that.They could send in their petitions, and scarTheir newspapers with bleeding headlines. Their governorsCould appeal to Washington . . .

"What I want," the older baby said, "is 'lasses on my jam."Whereupon the younger babyPicked up the molasses pitcher and threwThe molasses in his brother's face. InstantlyThe Fine Prince leaned across the table and slappedThe small and smiling criminal.She did not speak. When the HANDCame down and away, and she could look at her child,At her baby-child,She could think only of blood.Surely her baby's cheekHad disappeared, and in its place, surely,Hung a heaviness, a lengthening red, a red that had no end.She shook her head. It was not true, of course.It was not true at all. TheChild's face was as always, the

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Color of the paste in her paste-jar.

She left the table, to the tune of the children's lamentations, which were shrillerThan ever. SheLooked out of a window. She said not a word. ThatWas one of the new Somethings--The fear,Tying her as with iron.

Suddenly she felt his hands upon her. He had followed herTo the window. The children were whimpering now.Such bits of tots. And she, their mother,Could not protect them. She looked at her shoulders, stillGripped in the claim of his hands. She tried, but could not resist the ideaThat a red ooze was seeping, spreading darkly, thickly, slowly,Over her white shoulders, her own shoulders,And over all of Earth and Mars.

He whispered something to her, did the Fine Prince, something about love and night and intention.She heard no hoof-beat of the horse and saw no flash of the shining steel.

He pulled her face around to meetHis, and there it was, close close,For the first time in all the days and nights.His mouth, wet and red,So very, very, very red,Closed over hers.

Then a sickness heaved within her. The courtroom Coca-Cola,The courtroom beer and hate and sweat and drone,Pushed like a wall against her. She wanted to bear it.But his mouth would not go away and neither would theDecapitated exclamation points in that Other Woman's eyes.

She did not scream.She stood there.But a hatred for him burst into glorious flower,And its perfume enclasped them--big,

Bigger than all magnolias.

The last bleak news of the ballad.The rest of the rugged music.The last quatrain.

Garbageman: The Man with the Orderly MindWhat do you think of us in fuzzy endeavor, you whose directions are

sterling, whose lunge is straight?

Can you make a reason, how can you pardon us who memorize the rules and never score?

Who memorize the rules from your own text but never quite transfer them to the game,

Who never quite receive the whistling ball, who gawk, begin to absorb the crowd's own roar.

Is earnest enough, may earnest attract or lead to light;

Is light enough, if hands in clumsy frenzy, flimsy whimsically, enlist;

Is light enough when this bewilderment crying against the dark shuts down the shades?

Dilute confusion. Find and explode our mist. Of Robert FrostThere is a little lightning in his eyes.Iron at the mouth.His brows ride neither too fare up nor down.

He is splendid. With a place to stand.

Some glowing in the common blood.Some specialness within.

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Kitchenette BuildingWe are things of dry hours and the involuntary plan, Grayed in, and gray. "Dream" mate, a giddy sound, not strong Like "rent", "feeding a wife", "satisfying a man".

But could a dream sent up through onion fumes Its white and violet, fight with fried potatoes And yesterday's garbage ripening in the hall, Flutter, or sing an aria down these rooms,

Even if we were willing to let it in, Had time to warm it, keep it very clean, Anticipate a message, let it begin?

We wonder. But not well! not for a minute! Since Number Five is out of the bathroom now, We think of lukewarm water, hope to get in it.

The Sermon on the WarplandAnd several strengths from drowsiness campaignedbut spoke in Single Sermon on the warpland.

And went about the warpland saying No.“My people, black and black, revile the River.Say that the River turns, and turn the River.

Say that our Something in doublepod containssees for the coming hell and health together.Prepare to meet(sisters, brothers) the brash and terrible weather;the pains;the bruising; the collapse of bestials, idols.But then oh then!—the stuffing of the hulls!the seasoning of the perilously sweet!the health! The heralding of the clear obscure!

Build now your Church, my brothers, sisters. Buildnever with brick or Corten nor with granite.Build with lithe love. With love like lion-eyes.with love like morningrise.with love like black, our black—luminously indiscreet;complete; continuous.”