Read Online Toca el piano borracho como un instrumento de percusión hasta que los dedos te empiecen a sangrar un poco by Charles Bukowski - Free Book Online

and when I came back
    he was still playing, and he was still playing
    after Boomerang won the 4th.
    nobody stopped him
    nobody asked him what he was doing
    nobody applauded.
    after Pawee won the 5th
    he continued
    the music falling over the edge of the
    grandstand and into the
    wind and sun.
    Stars and Stripes won the 6th
    and he played some more
    and Staunch Hope got up on the inside
    to take the 7th
    and the violin player worked away
    and when Lucky Mike won at 4 to 5 in the 8th
    he was still making music.
    after Dumpty’s Goddess took the last
    and they began their long slow walk to their cars
    beaten and broke again
    the violin player continued
    sending his music after them
    and I sat there listening
    we were both alone up there and
    when he finished I applauded.
    the violin player stood up
    faced me and bowed.
    then he put his fiddle in the case
    got up and walked down the stairway.
    I allowed him a few minutes
    and then I got up
    and began the long slow walk to my car.
    it was getting into evening.

5 dollars
    I am dying of sadness and alcohol
    he said to me over the bottle
    on a soft Thursday afternoon
    in an old hotel room by the train depot.
    I have, he went on, betrayed myself with
    belief, deluded myself with love
    tricked myself with sex.
    the bottle is damned faithful, he said,
    the bottle will not lie.
    meat is cut as roses are cut
    men die as dogs die
    love dies like dogs die,
    he said.
    listen, Ronny, I said,
    lend me 5 dollars.
    love needs too much help, he said.
    hate takes care of itself.
    just 5 dollars, Ronny.
    hate contains truth. beauty is a facade.
    I’ll pay you back in a week.
    stick with the thorn
    stick with the bottle
    stick with the voices of old men in hotel rooms.
    I ain’t had a decent meal, Ronny, for a
    couple of days.
    stick with the laughter and horror of death.
    keep the butterfat out.
    get lean, get ready.
    something in my gut, Ronny, I’ll be able
    to face it.
    to die alone and ready and unsurprised,
    that’s the trick.
    Ronny, listen—
    that majestic weeping you hear
    will not be for
    us.
    I suppose not, Ronny.
    the lies of centuries, the lies of love,
    the lies of Socrates and Blake and Christ
    will be your bedmates and tombstones
    in a death that will never end.
    Ronny, my poems came back from the
    New York Quarterly.
    that is why they weep,
    without knowing.
    is that what all that noise is, I said,
    my god shit.

cooperation
    she means well.
    play the piano
    she says
    it’s not good for you
    not to write.
    she’s going for a walk
    on the island
    or a boatride.
    I believe she’s taken a modern novel
    and her reading glasses.
    I sit at the window
    with her electric typewriter
    and watch young girls’ asses
    which are attached to
    young girls.
    the final decadence.
    I have 20 published books
    and 6 cans of beer.
    the tourists bob up and down in the water
    the tourists walk and talk and take
    photographs and
    drink soft drinks.
    it’s not good for me not to
    write.
    she’s in a boat now, a
    sightseeing tour
    and she’s thinking, looking
    at the waves—
    “it’s 2:30 p.m.
    he must be writing
    it’s not good for him not to write.
    tonight there will be other things to do.
    I hope he doesn’t drink
    too much beer. he’s a much better
    lover than Robert was
    and the sea is beautiful.”

the night I was going to die
    the night I was going to die
    I was sweating on the bed
    and I could hear the crickets
    and there was a cat fight outside
    and I could feel my soul dropping down through the
    mattress
    and just before it hit the floor I jumped up
    I was almost too weak to walk
    but I walked around and turned on all the lights
    then made it back to the bed
    and again my soul dropped down through the mattress
    and I leaped up
    just before it hit the floor
    I walked around and I turned on all the lights
    and then I went back to bed
    and down it dropped again and
    I was up
    turning on all the lights
    I had a 7 year old daughter
    and I felt sure she didn’t want me dead
    otherwise