Come On In!. Charles Bukowski

rejected for

      decades,

      I still never considered

      mailing my work to

      another writer

      hoping that this other

      writer might help me

      get published.

      and although I have

      read some of what you

      have mailed me

      I return the work without

      comment

      except to ask

      how did you get my

      address?

      and the effrontery

      to mail me such

      obvious

      crap?

      if you think me unkind,

      fine.

      and thank you for telling

      me that I am a

      great writer.

      now you will have a

      chance to re-evaluate

      that opinion

      and to choose another

      victim.

       first family

      it’s unholy.

      I appear to be

      lost. I walk from room to room and

      there aren’t many (2 or 3)

      and she is in the dark room

      snoring, I can’t see her but her

      mouth is open and her hair is gray

      poor thing

      and she doesn’t mean me harm

      least of all

      does she mean me

      harm,

      and in the other room are

      pink lips pink ears

      on a head like a cabbage

      and a child’s blocks on the floor like

      leprosy

      and she also doesn’t mean me any harm at

      all,

      but I cannot sleep and I sit in the kitchen

      with a big black fly

      that goes around and around and around

      like a piece of snot grown a

      heart,

      and I am puzzled and not given to

      cruelty (I’d like to think)

      and I sit with the fly

      under this yellow light

      and we smoke a cigar and drink beer

      and share the calendar with a frightened cat:

      “ katzen-unsere hausfrende: 1965.”

      I am a poor father because I want to stay alive as a

      man but perhaps I never was a

      man.

      I suck on the cigar and suddenly the fly is gone

      and there are just

      the 3 of us

      here.

       a real thing, a good woman

      I put the book down and ask:

      why are they always writing about

      the bulls, the bullfighters?

      those who have never seen

      them?

      and as I break the web of the

      spider reaching for my wine,

      the hum of bombers

      breaking the solace, I decide

      I must write an impatient letter to my

      priest about some 3rd St.

      whore

      who keeps calling me up at 3 in

      the morning.

      ass full of

      splinters,

      thinking of pocketbook poets

      and the priest,

      I go over to the typewriter

      next to the window

      to see to my letter

      and look look

      the sky’s black as ink

      and my wife says Brock, for

      Christ’s sake,

      the typewriter all night,

      how can I sleep? and I crawl quickly

      into bed and

      kiss her hair and say

      sorry sorry sorry

      sometimes I get excited

      I don’t know why …

      a friend of mine has

      written a book about

      Manolete …

      who’s that? nobody, kid,

      somebody dead

      like Chopin or our old mailman

      or a dog,

      go to sleep, go to sleep,

      and I kiss her and rub her

      head,

      a good woman,

      and soon she sleeps as I wait

      for morning.

       a child’s bedtime story

      unsaid, said the snail.

      untold, said the tortoise.

      doesn’t matter, said the tiger.

      obey me, said the father.

      be loyal, said the country.

      watch me climb, said the vine.

      doesn’t matter, said the tiger.

      untold, said the tortoise,

      unsaid, said the snail.

      I’ll run, said the mouse.

      I’ll hide, said the cat.

      I’ll fly, said the sparrow.

      I’ll swim, said the whale.

      obey and be loyal, said the

      father and

      everybody shut up! roared the

      Queen.

      the night came and all

      the lights went out

      as the cities

      burned.

      now, go to

      sleep.