A RIOT IN THE STREETS
it's a good day, a good time, anybody can
blow a hole through you at any minute.
they are shooting from the rooftops now
and the night sky is smoking,
red.
what more could you want?
you can watch it on your tv or you
can look outside, it's the same
thing.
they are letting it all out again.
airing it out.
it's healthy.
the cops are hiding.
nobody is bored tonight.
the safest people are already in jail.
everybody feels curiously alive,
at last.
it's party time!
this city is the whole world
and it's running right at you.
it's a good day, a good time!
hell is coming out to play
with you.
9 BAD BOYS
Celine will bat
lead off,
Shostakovich is in the
second
spot,
Dostoevsky should hit
3rd,
Beethoven will definitely bat
clean-up,
Jeffers is in the 5th
spot,
Dreiser can hit
6th
and batting 7th
let's have
Boccaccio
and 8th the
catcher:
Hemingway.
the pitcher?
hell, give me the
fucking
ball.
BARFLY
Jane, who has been dead for 31 years,
never could have
imagined that I would write a screenplay of our drinking
days together
and
that it would be made into a movie
and
that a beautiful movie star would play her
part.
I can hear Jane now: "A beautiful movie star? oh,
for Christ sake!"
Jane, that's show biz, sp go back to sleep, dear, because
no matter how hard they tried they
just couldn't find anybody exactly like
you.
and neither can
I.
SILLY DAMNED THING ANYHOW
we tried to hide it in the house so that the
neighbors wouldn't see.
it was difficult, sometimes we both had to
be gone at once and when we returned
there would be excreta and urine all
about.
it wouldn't toilet train
but it had the bluest eyes you ever
saw
and it ate everything we did
and we often watched tv together.
one evening we came home and it was
gone.
there was blood on the floor,
there was a trail of blood.
I followed it outside and into the garden
and there in the brush it was,
mutilated.
there was a sign hung about its severed
throat:
"we don't want things like this in our
neighborhood."
I walked to the garage for the shovel.
I told my wife, "don't come out here."
then I walked back with the shovel and
began digging.
I sensed
the faces watching me from behind
drawn blinds.
they had their neighborhood back,
a nice quiet neighborhood with green
lawns, palm trees, circular driveways, children,
churches, a supermarket, etc.
I dug into the earth.
___________________________
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
NEW POEMS BOOK 3
edited by John Martin
Virgin Books, 2004
it's a good day, a good time, anybody can
blow a hole through you at any minute.
they are shooting from the rooftops now
and the night sky is smoking,
red.
what more could you want?
you can watch it on your tv or you
can look outside, it's the same
thing.
they are letting it all out again.
airing it out.
it's healthy.
the cops are hiding.
nobody is bored tonight.
the safest people are already in jail.
everybody feels curiously alive,
at last.
it's party time!
this city is the whole world
and it's running right at you.
it's a good day, a good time!
hell is coming out to play
with you.
9 BAD BOYS
Celine will bat
lead off,
Shostakovich is in the
second
spot,
Dostoevsky should hit
3rd,
Beethoven will definitely bat
clean-up,
Jeffers is in the 5th
spot,
Dreiser can hit
6th
and batting 7th
let's have
Boccaccio
and 8th the
catcher:
Hemingway.
the pitcher?
hell, give me the
fucking
ball.
BARFLY
Jane, who has been dead for 31 years,
never could have
imagined that I would write a screenplay of our drinking
days together
and
that it would be made into a movie
and
that a beautiful movie star would play her
part.
I can hear Jane now: "A beautiful movie star? oh,
for Christ sake!"
Jane, that's show biz, sp go back to sleep, dear, because
no matter how hard they tried they
just couldn't find anybody exactly like
you.
and neither can
I.
SILLY DAMNED THING ANYHOW
we tried to hide it in the house so that the
neighbors wouldn't see.
it was difficult, sometimes we both had to
be gone at once and when we returned
there would be excreta and urine all
about.
it wouldn't toilet train
but it had the bluest eyes you ever
saw
and it ate everything we did
and we often watched tv together.
one evening we came home and it was
gone.
there was blood on the floor,
there was a trail of blood.
I followed it outside and into the garden
and there in the brush it was,
mutilated.
there was a sign hung about its severed
throat:
"we don't want things like this in our
neighborhood."
I walked to the garage for the shovel.
I told my wife, "don't come out here."
then I walked back with the shovel and
began digging.
I sensed
the faces watching me from behind
drawn blinds.
they had their neighborhood back,
a nice quiet neighborhood with green
lawns, palm trees, circular driveways, children,
churches, a supermarket, etc.
I dug into the earth.
___________________________
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
NEW POEMS BOOK 3
edited by John Martin
Virgin Books, 2004
