Read Online The Roominghouse Madrigals by Charles Bukowski - Free Book Online
Authors: Charles Bukowski
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they’ll
walk all over it, and I walked out
and phoned a gal I knew from South Philly and she met
me on Olvera Street and we went into a fancy place
and ate and drank and this big female kept
whirling her fans and shaking her ass in my face
and the South Philly broad got mad and I laughed
and a little Mexican mean as a tarantula
kept asking us to keep quiet and I asked him out
in the alley and he went and I took him quite
easily and I felt like Hemingway and I took the
S. Philly broad to my room and I told her all about
the opera
how the people were so nicely dressed
and applauded all the time
whether it was good or bad
and we slept real good that night
the rain coming down on our heads
through the open window
but I kept thinking of the bigassed Mexican gal
with the fans who kept shaking it
and I don’t think she was kidding
because I am real handsome
and educated
and someday I’m going to give up
drinking and smoking and whoring
and kneel and pray in the Sunday sunshine
while they are killing the beautiful bulls
and selling their ears and tails in
Tiajuana, and I’m going to the opera,
I’m going to the opera and have 12 guys
working for me for
80 dollars a week, including half-days on
Saturdays and no
hangovers on
Monday.
Letter from the North
my friend writes of rejection and editors,
and how he has visited K. or R. or W.,
and am I in S.#12 ? he will have a poem in there,
and T. has written him from Florida
but rejected his poems; R. sleeps in the printshop
and T. chided him mercilessly…
met editor of the X. Review in the street,
and editor acted like he was kicked in the nuts
when he found out who he was
and pressed him for opinion of poems;
it does good to corner these guys sometime,
flush them outa the brush;
ad agencies have forgotten him, and W. is taking
too long to read his book; only got $5
for reading at the Unicorn,
phoned K. of the W. Review , sounds like a sharp guy;
and he thinks he is done with R.;
encloses some clippings for my amusement:
his name in a newspaper column;
he’ll have to call R. again: S. is lecturing at
the university
and he can’t bear to go; M. is a homo,
C. can’t make up his mind and P. is mad at him
because he drank beer in front of N.
nothing but rejects but he knows his stuff is good.
L. was there to borrow a pack of Pall Malls, bastard makes
him sick, always whining…
B. writes that P. is in trouble, they must organize
a benefit;
awful discouraged. not even money for stamps.
dead without stamps. write me, he says,
I got the blues.
write you? about what, my friend?
I’m only interested in
poetry.
The Best Way to Get Famous Is to Run Away
I found a loose cement slab outside the icecream store,
tossed it aside and began to dig; the earth was
soft and full of worms and soon I was in to my
waist, size 36;
a crowd gathered but stepped back before my shots
of mud,
and by the time the police came, I was in below
my head,
frightening gophers, eels and finding bits of golden
inlaid skull,
and they asked me, are you looking for oil, treasure,
gold, the end of China? are you looking for love, God,
a lost key chain? and little girls dripping icecream
peered into my darkness, and a psychiatrist came
and a
college professor and a movie actress in a bikini, and
a Russian spy and a French spy and an English spy,
and a drama critic and a bill collector and an old
girl friend, and they all asked me, what are you
looking
for? and soon it began to rain…atomic submarines
changed course, Tuesday Weld hid behind a newspaper,
Jean-Paul Sartre rolled in his sleep, and my hole
filled
with water; I came out black as Africa, shooting
stars
and epitaphs, my pockets full of lovely worms,
and they took me to their jail and gave me a shower
and a nice cell, rent-free, and even now the people
are picketing in my cause, and I have
walk all over it, and I walked out
and phoned a gal I knew from South Philly and she met
me on Olvera Street and we went into a fancy place
and ate and drank and this big female kept
whirling her fans and shaking her ass in my face
and the South Philly broad got mad and I laughed
and a little Mexican mean as a tarantula
kept asking us to keep quiet and I asked him out
in the alley and he went and I took him quite
easily and I felt like Hemingway and I took the
S. Philly broad to my room and I told her all about
the opera
how the people were so nicely dressed
and applauded all the time
whether it was good or bad
and we slept real good that night
the rain coming down on our heads
through the open window
but I kept thinking of the bigassed Mexican gal
with the fans who kept shaking it
and I don’t think she was kidding
because I am real handsome
and educated
and someday I’m going to give up
drinking and smoking and whoring
and kneel and pray in the Sunday sunshine
while they are killing the beautiful bulls
and selling their ears and tails in
Tiajuana, and I’m going to the opera,
I’m going to the opera and have 12 guys
working for me for
80 dollars a week, including half-days on
Saturdays and no
hangovers on
Monday.
Letter from the North
my friend writes of rejection and editors,
and how he has visited K. or R. or W.,
and am I in S.#12 ? he will have a poem in there,
and T. has written him from Florida
but rejected his poems; R. sleeps in the printshop
and T. chided him mercilessly…
met editor of the X. Review in the street,
and editor acted like he was kicked in the nuts
when he found out who he was
and pressed him for opinion of poems;
it does good to corner these guys sometime,
flush them outa the brush;
ad agencies have forgotten him, and W. is taking
too long to read his book; only got $5
for reading at the Unicorn,
phoned K. of the W. Review , sounds like a sharp guy;
and he thinks he is done with R.;
encloses some clippings for my amusement:
his name in a newspaper column;
he’ll have to call R. again: S. is lecturing at
the university
and he can’t bear to go; M. is a homo,
C. can’t make up his mind and P. is mad at him
because he drank beer in front of N.
nothing but rejects but he knows his stuff is good.
L. was there to borrow a pack of Pall Malls, bastard makes
him sick, always whining…
B. writes that P. is in trouble, they must organize
a benefit;
awful discouraged. not even money for stamps.
dead without stamps. write me, he says,
I got the blues.
write you? about what, my friend?
I’m only interested in
poetry.
The Best Way to Get Famous Is to Run Away
I found a loose cement slab outside the icecream store,
tossed it aside and began to dig; the earth was
soft and full of worms and soon I was in to my
waist, size 36;
a crowd gathered but stepped back before my shots
of mud,
and by the time the police came, I was in below
my head,
frightening gophers, eels and finding bits of golden
inlaid skull,
and they asked me, are you looking for oil, treasure,
gold, the end of China? are you looking for love, God,
a lost key chain? and little girls dripping icecream
peered into my darkness, and a psychiatrist came
and a
college professor and a movie actress in a bikini, and
a Russian spy and a French spy and an English spy,
and a drama critic and a bill collector and an old
girl friend, and they all asked me, what are you
looking
for? and soon it began to rain…atomic submarines
changed course, Tuesday Weld hid behind a newspaper,
Jean-Paul Sartre rolled in his sleep, and my hole
filled
with water; I came out black as Africa, shooting
stars
and epitaphs, my pockets full of lovely worms,
and they took me to their jail and gave me a shower
and a nice cell, rent-free, and even now the people
are picketing in my cause, and I have
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