Read Mockingbird Wish Me Luck Online
Authors: Charles Bukowski
absolutely sesamoid
said the skeleton
shoving his chalky foot
upon my desk,
and that was it,
bang bang,
he looked at me,
and it was my bone body
and I was what remained,
and there was a newspaper
on my desk
and somebody folded the newspaper
and I folded,
I was the newspaper
under somebody’s arm
and the sheet of me
had eyes
and I saw the skeleton
watching
and just before the door closed
I saw a man who looked
partly like Napoleon,
partly like Hitler,
fighting with my skeleton,
then the door closed
and we went down the steps
and outside
and I was under
the arm
of a fat little man
who knew nothing
and I hated him
for his indifference
to fact, how I hated him
as he unfolded me
in the subway
and I fell against the back
of an old woman.
5 men in black passing my window
it’s Sunday
they’ve been to church.
5 men in black passing my window;
they’re between 40 and 60
each with a little smile on his face
like a tarantula.
they’re without women;
I am too.
look at them,
it’s the way they walk by fives—
no two together,
not speaking,
just the little smiles.
each has done his horrible thing
during the week—
fired a stockboy, stolen from a partner;
cowardly horrible little men
passing my window.
5 men in black with little
smiles.
I could machinegun them
without feeling
banal
bury them without a tear:
death of all these things
Springtime.
there was one
made a thousand dollars
one day
in a town no larger than
El Paso
jumping taxies between
universities and ladies’
clubs.
hell, you can’t blame him;
I’ve worked for $16 a week,
quit, and lived a month on
that.
his wife is suing for divorce
and wants $200 a week
alimony.
he has to stay famous and
keep
talking.
I see his work
everywhere.
god I got the sad blue blues,
this woman sat there and she
said
are you really Charles
Bukowski?
and I said
forget that
I do not feel good
I’ve got the sad sads
all I want to do is
fuck you
and she laughed
she thought I was being
clever
and O I just looked up her long slim legs of heaven
I saw her liver and her quivering intestine
I saw Christ in there
jumping to a folk-rock
all the long lines of starvation within me
rose
and I walked over
and grabbed her on the couch
ripped her dress up around her face
and I didn’t care
rape or the end of the earth
one more time
to be there
anywhere
real
yes
her panties were on the
floor
and my cock went in
my cock my god my cock went in
I was Charles
Somebody.
look, he said, that story,
everybody knew it was me.
by god, I said, are you still
hacking at that?
I thought you were going to write a
story exposing
me
?what happened to that?
you didn’t have to write that
story about me!
forget it, I said, it’s not
important.
he leaped and slammed the door;
the glass didn’t break
but the curtain rod and curtain
fell.
I tried to finish a one-act play
gave up
and went to bed.
the phone rang.
listen, he said, when I came over
I had no idea I’d act like
that.
it’s o.k., I said.
relax.
I leaned back to sleep and I
thought,
now I’ll probably write a poem about
him.
there seems to be no way out, I thought,
everybody is always angry about the truth
even though they claim to
believe in it.
I slept and wrote the poem
in the morning.
long walks at
night—
that’s what’s good
for the
soul:
peeking into windows
watching tired
housewives
trying to fight
off
their beer-maddened
husbands.
comfrock, you motherfuck
get up off your crazy knees
and I’ll belt you down
again—
what’s that?
you say I eat stem pipes?
I’ll kill you!
stop crying. god damn.
all right, we dumped your car into the sea
and raped your daughter
but we are only extending the possibilities of a working
realism, shut up!, I said
any man must be ready for anything and
if he isn’t then he isn’t a
man a goat a note or a plantleaf,
you shoulda known the entirety of the trap, asshole,
love means eventual pain
victory means eventual defeat
grace means eventual slovenliness,
there’s no way
out…you see, you
understand?
hey, Mickey, hold his head up
want to break his nose with this pipe…
god damn, I almost forgot the
nose!
death is every second, punk.
the calendar is death. the sheets are death. you put on your
stockings: death. buttons on your shirt are death.
lace sportshirts are death. don’t you smell it? temperature is
death. little girls are death. free coupons are death. carrots are
death. didn’t you
know?
o.k., Mack, we got the nose.
no, not the balls, too much bleeding.
what was he
when
? oh, yeah, he used to be a cabbywe snatched him from his cab
right off Madison, destroyed his home, his car, raped his
12 year old daughter, it was beautiful, burned his wife with
gasoline.
look at his eyes
begging mercy…
56, she leans
forward
in the kitchen
2:25 a.
m.
same red
sweater
holes in
elbows
cook him something to
EAT
he says
from the
same red
face
3 years ago
we broke down a tree
fighting
after he caught me
kissing
her.
beer by the
quarts
we drink
bad beer
by the
quarts
she gets up
and
begins to
fry
something
all night
we sings songs
songs from 1925 a.
d. to
1939 a.
d.
we talk about
short skirts
Cadillacs the
Republican Administration
the depression
taxes
horses
Oklahoma
here
you son of a bitch,
she says.
drunk
I lean forward and
eat.
Bartenders are human too
and when he reached for the baseball bat
the little Italian hit him in the face
with a bottle
and several whores screamed.
I was just coming out
of the men’s room
when I saw the bartender
get off the floor
and open the cigar box
to get the gun,
and I turned around
and went out back,
and the Italian
must have argued poorly
because I heard the shot
just as I got
the car door open.
I drove down the alley
and turned East on 7th st.,
and I hadn’t gone a block
before a cop pulled me over.
You trying to get killed?
he asked. Turn your lights
on.
He was a big fat one and he
kept pushing his helmet
further and further
on the back of his head.
I took the ticket and then
drove down to Union. I
parked outside the Reno Hotel
and went downstairs
to Harry’s.
It was quiet there, only
a big redhead, bigger
than the cop.
She called me Honey
and I ordered 2.