The Roominghouse Madrigals by Charles Bukowski

it
    wondering about the pure nerve
    of the life-thing going on:
    after the jails the hospitals
    the factories the good dogs
    the brainless butterflies.
    but now I am back at the window
    there is an opera on the radio
    and a woman sits in a chair to my left
    saying over and over again:
    BRATCH BRATSHT BRAATCHT!
    and she is holding a book in her hand:
    How to Learn Russian Easily .
    but there is really nothing you can do
    easily: live or die or accept fame
    or money or defeat, it’s all hard.
    the opera says this, the dead birds
    the dead countries the dead loves
    the man shot because somebody thought
    he was an elk
    the elk shot because somebody thought
    it was an elk.
    all the pure nerve of going on
    this woman wanting to speak Russian
    myself wanting to get drunk
    but we need something to eat.
    GRIND CAT GRIND MEAT says
    the woman in Russian so I figure
    she’s hungry, we haven’t eaten
    in a couple of hours. CLAM
    BAYONET TURKEY PORK
    AND PORK she says, and I walk
    over and put on my pants and
    I am going out to get something.
    the forests are far away and I am
    no good with the bow and arrow
    and somebody sings on the radio:
    “ farewell, foolish objects .”
    and all I can do is walk into a grocery
    store and pull out a wallet and hope
    that it’s loaded. and this is
    about how I waste my Sundays.
    the rest of the week gets better
    because there is somebody telling
    me what to do
    and although it seems madness
    almost everybody is doing it
    whatever it is.
    so now if you will excuse me
    (she is eating an orange now)
    I will put on my shoes and shirt
    and get out of here—it’ll
    be better for
    all of us.
     

A Report Upon the Consumption of Myself
     
     
    I am a panther shut up and bellowing in
    cement walls, and I am angry at blue
    evenings without ventilation
    and I am angry with you, and it will come
                like a rose
    it will come like a man walking through fire
    it will shine like an unseen trumpet in a trunk
    the eyes will smell like sausages
    the feet will have small propellers
    and I will hold you in Bayonne and
    the sailors will smile
    my heart like something cut away from
    cancer will feel and beat again feel
    and beat again—but now
    the blue evening is cinched like old
    muskets and the dangling sex rope hangs
    as the tree stands up and calls:
    July . the dust of hope in the bottom of paper cups
    along with small spiders that have names like ancient
    European cities; spit and dross, heavy wheels;
    oilwells stuck between fish and sucking up the grey gas
    of love and the palms up on the cliff waving
    waving in the warm yellow light
    as I walk into a drugstore to buy toothpaste,
    rubbers, photographs of frogs, a copy of the latest
    Consumer Reports (50 cents) for I consume and
    am consumed and would like to know
    on this blue evening
    just which razorblade it would be best for me
    to use, or maybe I could get a station wagon or buy a
    stereo or a movie camera, say 8mm, under $55
    or an electric frying pan…like the silver head
    of some god-thing after they drop the bomb BANG
    and the grass gives up and love is a shadow
    and love is a fishtail weaving through
    threads that seem eyes but are only what’s
    left of me on the last blue evening after the bands
    have suicided out, the carnival has left town and
    they’ve blown up the Y.W.C.A. like a giant balloon and
    sent it out to sea full of screaming lovely lonely
    girls.
     

Fleg
     
     
    Now it’s Borodin…4:18 a.m.,
    symphony #2,
    the gas is on
    but the masses still sleep
    except the bastard
    downstairs
    who always has the light on
    all night, he yawns all night
    and sleeps all day,
    he’s either a madman
    or a poet; and has an
    ugly wife,
    neither of them work
    and we pass each other
    on the steps (the wife and I)
    when we go down
    to dump our bottles,
    and I look at his name
    on the mailbox: Fleg
    God. No wonder . A fleg
    never sleeps. Some kind
    of fish-thing waiting
    for a twist in the sky.
    but very kind, I must
    remember, when