Love is a Dog from Hell (7 page)

 

all I’ve ever known are whores, ex-prostitutes,

madwomen. I see men with quiet,

gentle women—I see them in the supermarkets,

I see them walking down the streets together,

I see them in their apartments: people at

peace, living together. I know that their

peace is only partial, but there is

peace, often hours and days of peace.

 

all I’ve ever known are pill freaks, alcoholics,

whores, ex—prostitutes, madwomen.

 

when one leaves

another arrives

worse than her predecessor.

 

I see so many men with quiet clean girls in

gingham dresses

girls with faces that are not wolverine or

predatory.

 

“don’t ever bring a whore around,” I tell my

few friends, “I’ll fall in love with her.”

 

“you couldn’t stand a good woman, Bukowski.”

 

I need a good woman. I need a good woman

more than I need this typewriter, more than

I need my automobile, more than I need

Mozart; I need a good woman so badly that I

can taste her in the air, I can feel her

at my fingertips, I can see sidewalks built

for her feet to walk upon,

I can see pillows for her head,

I can feel my waiting laughter,

I can see her petting a cat,

I can see her sleeping,

I can see her slippers on the floor.

 

I know that she exists

but where is she upon this earth

as the whores keep finding me?

 

I know that some night

in some bedroom

soon

my fingers will

rift

through

soft clean

hair

 

songs such as no radio

plays

 

all sadness, grinning

into flow.

 

this poet he’d been drinking 2 or 3 days and he walked out on the stage and looked at that audience and he just knew he was going to do it. there was a grand piano on stage and he walked over and lifted the lid and vomited inside the piano. then he closed the lid and gave his reading.

 

they had to remove the strings from the piano and wash out the insides and restring it.

 

I can unders
tand why they never invited him back. but to pass the word on to other universities that he was a poet who liked to vomit into grand pianos was unfair.

 

they never considered the quality of his reading. I know this poet: he’s just like the rest of us: he’ll vomit anywhere for money.

 

big sloppy wounded dog

hit by a car and walking

toward the curbing

making enormous

sounds

your body curled

red blowing out of

ass and mouth.

 

I stare at him and

drive on

for how would it look

for me to be holding

a dying dog on a

curbing in Arcadia,

blood seeping into my

shirt and pants and

shorts and socks and

shoes? it would just

look dumb.

besides, I figure the 2

horse in the first race

and I wanted to hook

him with the 9

in the second. I

figured the daily to

pay around $140

so I had to let that

dog die alone there

just across from the

shopping center

with the ladies looking

for bargains

as the first bit of

snow fell upon the

Sierra Madre.

 

Vallejo writing about

loneliness while starving to

death;

Van Gogh’s ear rejected by a

whore;

Rimbaud running off to Africa

to look for gold and finding

an incurable case of syphilis;

Beethoven gone deaf;

Pound dragged through the streets

in a cage;

Chatterton taking rat poison;

Hemingway’s brains dropping into

the orange juice;

Pascal cutting his wrists

in the bathtub;

Artaud locked up with the mad;

Dostoevsky stood up against a wall;

Crane jumping into a boat propeller;

Lorca shot in the road by Spanish

troops;

Berryman jumping off a bridge;

Burroughs shooting his wife;

Mailer knifing his.

—that’s what they want:

a God damned show

a lit billboard

in the middle of hell.

that’s what they want,

that bunch of

dull

inarticulate

safe

dreary

admirers of

carnivals.

 

we talk about this film:

Cagney fed this broad

grapefruit

faster than she could

eat it and

then she

loved him.

 

“that won’t always

work,” I told Iron

Mike.

 

he grinned and said,

“yeh.”

 

then he reached down

and touched his belt.

32 female scalps

dangled there.

 

“me and my big Jewish

cock,” he said.

 

then he raised his hands

to indicate the

size.

 

“o, yeh, well,”

I said.

 

“they come around,” he

said, “I fuck ’em, they

hang around, I tell ’em,

‘it’s time to leave.’”

“you’ve got guts,

Mike.”

 

“this one wouldn’t leave

so I just got up and

slapped her…she

left.”

 

“I don’t have your nerve,

Mike. they hang around

washing dishes, rubbing

the shit-stains out of the

crapper, throwing out the

old Racing Forms…”

 

“they’ll never get me,”

he said,

“I’m invincible.”

 

look, Mike, no man is

invincible.

some day

you’ll be sent mad by

eyes like a child’s crayon

drawing. you won’t be

able to drink a glass of

water or walk across a

room. there will be the

walls and the sound of

the streets outside, and

you’ll hear machineguns

and mortar shells. that’ll

be when you want it and

can’t have it.

 

the teeth

are never finally the

teeth of love.

 

big black beard

tells me

that I don’t feel

terror

 

I look at him

my gut rattles

gravel

 

I see his eyes

look upward

 

he’s strong

 

has dirty fingernails

 

and upon the walls:

scabbards.

 

he knows things:

 

books

the odds

the best road

home

 

I like him

but I think he

lies

 

(I’m not sure

he lies)

 

his wife sits

in a dark

corner

 

when I first met

her she was the

most beautiful

woman

I had ever

seen

 

now she has

become

his twin

 

perhaps not his

fault:

 

perhaps the thing

does us all

like that

 

yet after I leave

their house

I feel terror

 

the moon looks

diseased

 

my hands slip

on the

steering wheel

 

I get my car

out

and down the

hill

 

almost crash it

into a

blue-green

parked car

clod me forever,

Beatrice

 

wavering poet, ha

haha

 

dinky dog of

terror.

 

sitting with the professors

we talk about Allen Tate

and John Crow Ransom

the rugs are clean and

the coffeetables shine

and there is talk of

budgets and works in

progress

and there is a

fireplace.

the kitchen floor is

well-waxed

and I have just eaten

dinner

after drinking until

3 a.m.

after reading

the night before

 

now I’m to read again

at a nearby college.

I’m in Arkansas in

January

somebody even mentions

Faulkner

I go to the bathroom

and vomit up the

dinner

when I come out

they are all in their

coats and overcoats

waiting in the

kitchen.

I ’m to read in

15 minutes.

there’ll be a

good crowd

they tell me.

 

don’t worry about rejections, pard,

I’ve been rejected

before.

 

sometimes you make a mistake, taking

the wrong poem

more often I make the mistake, writing

it.

 

but I like a mount in every race

even though the man

who puts up the morning line

 

tabs it 30 to one.

 

I get to thinking about death more and

more

 

senility

 

crutches

 

armchairs

 

writing purple poetry with a

dripping pen

 

when the young girls with mouths

like barracudas

bodies like lemon trees

bodies like clouds

bodies like flashes of lightning

stop knocking on my door.

 

don’t worry about rejections, pard.

I have smoked 25 cigarettes tonight

and you know about the beer.

 

the phone has only rung once:

wrong number.