Read Online The Roominghouse Madrigals by Charles Bukowski - Free Book Online Page A

signed
    contracts to appear on the stage and television,
    to write a guest column for the local paper and
    write a book and endorse some products, I have
    enough money to last me several years at the best
    hotels, but as soon as I get out of here, I’m gonna
    find me another loose slab and begin to dig, dig,
    dig, and this time I’m not coming back…rain, shine,
    or bikini, and the reporters keep asking, why did you
    do it? but I just light my cigarette and smile…
     

The Kings Are Gone
     
     
    to say great words of kings and life
    to give equations like a math genius;
    I sat in on a play by Shakespeare,
    but the grandeur did not come through;
    I do not claim to have a good ear
    or a good soul, but most of Shakespeare
    laid me dry, I confess,
    and I went me into a bar
    where a man with hands like red crabs
    laid his sick life before me through the fumes,
    and I grew drunk,
    mirror upon myself,
    the age of life like a spider
    taking last blood from us all,
    and I knew I had misjudged Shakey,
    his voice speaking out of the tube of the grave,
    and the traffic went past
    I could see it out the door,
    pieces of things that moved
    and the red crab hands moved before my face
    and I took my drink then knocked it over
    with the back of my hand;
    and I walked out on the street
    but nothing got better.
     

Reprieve and Admixture
     
     
    exposed to grief too long
    I become in time
    surfeited with suffering,
    decide that I owe myself
    survival; this is not easy:
    telling yourself that you
    deserve better days
    after the history of your past;
    but I have seen complete fools
    go on (of course)
    without ever
    considering their shortcomings;
    then too turtles crawl the
    land, dirty words scratched
    on their backs…
    but they hardly
    improve the horizon.
     

The Swans Walk My Brain in April It Rains
     
     
    would you have me peel an orange and
    talk of Saavedra (Miguel de) Cervantes?
    get out! you are like that fly on the
    curtain.
     
 
    I am not liked in the marketplace.
    I do not smile at the children.
    I am not interested in the doings of
    armies.
    I drink at fountains until my eyes
    stick out like ripe berries.
    I stink under the armpits and do not
    shine my shoes.
    I do not own
    anything.
     
 
    I understand little but my
    misuse.
    I understand only horror and
    more horror.
     
 
    I cannot rhyme.
    I am too tired to
    steal.
    I listen to Segovia
    smile.
    I look at a hog’s head and
    am in
    love.
     
 
    I walk I walk a
    hymenotomy of a
    man—o
    sweet things of this time
    where are you?
    you must find me now for I am
    terrified with what I
    see!
     
 
    the dungeons sweep past lit with
    eyes. eyes? magma!
    I enter a shop and buy wine from a
    dead man
    then walk away under a sky overflowing
    with pus. the hunters cough
    on the benches.
     
 
    I walk…
     

The End
     
     
    here they come
    grey and beastly
    rubbing out the night
    with their bloodred torches,
    Numbo! they scream,
    Hail Numbo!
    and grocer John gets down
    on the floor and hugs
    his precious eggs
    and sausage,
    and the bats of
    Babe Ruth get up and
    strut their
    averages
    around a dark bar,
    and the grey blonde in bed
    with me asks
    “what’s all the noise?”
    and I say,
    “the world is coming
    to an end.”
    and we sit in the window
    and watch, strangely
    happy. we have 14 cigarettes
    and a bottle of wine.
    enough to last
    until they
    find us.
     

A Farewell Thing While Breathing
     
     
    a farewell thing while breathing
    was walking down the hall
    in underwear
    with painted face like clown
    a bomb from Cologne in right pocket
    a Season in Hell
    in the left,
    stripes of sunset
    like
    bass
    running
    down
    his
    arms,
    and they found him in the morning
    dangling in the fire escape
    window,
    face frosted and gone as an electric bulb,
    and the sparrows
    were in the brush downstairs,
    and
    friend,
    sparrows do not sing
    and they
    (the people, not the sparrows)
    carried him down the steps
    like a wasted owl.
     

Sad-Eyed Mules of Men
     
     
    daily