On Love. Charles Bukowski

the day I kicked a bankroll out the window

      and, I said, you can take your rich aunts and uncles

      and grandfathers and fathers

      and all their lousy oil

      and their seven lakes

      and their wild turkey

      and buffalo

      and the whole state of Texas,

      meaning, your crow-blasts

      and your Saturday night boardwalks,

      and your 2-bit library

      and your crooked councilmen

      and your pansy artists—

      you can take all these

      and your weekly newspaper

      and your famous tornadoes

      and your filthy floods

      and all your yowling cats

      and your subscription to Life,

      and shove them, baby,

      shove them.

      I can handle a pick and ax again (I think)

      and I can pick up

      25 bucks for a 4-rounder (maybe);

      sure, I’m 38

      but a little dye can pinch the gray

      out of my hair;

      and I can still write a poem (sometimes),

      don’t forget that, and even if

      they don’t pay off,

      it’s better than waiting for death and oil,

      and shooting wild turkey,

      and waiting for the world

      to begin.

      all right, bum, she said,

      get out.

      what? I said.

      get out. you’ve thrown your

      last tantrum.

      I’m tired of your damned tantrums:

      you’re always acting like a

      character

      in an O’Neill play.

      but I’m different, baby,

      I can’t help

      it.

      you’re different, all right!

      God, how different!

      don’t slam

      the door

      when you leave.

      but, baby, I love your

      money!

      you never once said

      you loved me!

      what do you want

      a liar or a

      lover?

      you’re neither! out, bum,

      out!

      . . . but baby!

       go back to O’Neill!

      I went to the door,

      softly closed it and walked away,

      thinking: all they want

      is a wooden Indian

      to say yes and no

      and stand over the fire and

      not raise too much hell;

      but you’re getting to be

      an old man, kiddo:

      next time play it closer

      to the

      vest.

I taste the ashes of your death

      the blossoms shake

      sudden water

      down my sleeve,

      sudden water

      cool and clean

      as snow—

      as the stem-sharp

      swords

      go in

      against your breast

      and the sweet wild

      rocks

      leap over

      and

      lock us in.

love is a piece of paper torn to bits

      all the beer was poisoned and the capt. went down

      and the mate and the cook

      and we had nobody to grab sail

      and the N.wester ripped the sheets like toenails

      and we pitched like crazy

      the bull tearing its sides

      and all the time in the corner

      some punk had a drunken slut (my wife)

      and was pumping away

      like nothing was happening

      and the cat kept looking at me

      and crawling in the pantry

      amongst the clanking dishes

      with flowers and vines painted on them

      until I couldn’t stand it anymore

      and took the thing

      and heaved it

      over

      the side.

to the whore who took my poems

      some say we should keep personal remorse from the

      poem,

      stay abstract, and there is some reason in this,

      but jezus:

      12 poems gone and I don’t keep carbons and you have

      my

      paintings too, my best ones; it’s stifling:

      are you trying to crush me out like the rest of them?

      why didn’t you take my money? they usually do

      from the sleeping drunken pants sick in the corner.

      next time take my left arm or a fifty

      but not my poems:

      I’m not Shakespeare

      but sometimes simply

      there won’t be any more, abstract or otherwise;

      there’ll always be money and whores and drunkards

      down to the last bomb,

      but as God said,

      crossing his legs,

      I see where I have made plenty of poets

      but not so very much

      poetry.

shoes

      shoes in the closet like Easter lilies,