Love is a Dog from Hell by Charles Bukowski Page B

afternoons
    never ever ever quit
    and new young boys arrive with new magazines
    and there is some correspondence with lady or men poets
    and some fucking
    and everything is exaggerated and dull.
 
    when the poems come back
    they retype them
    and send them off to the next magazine on the list,
    and they give readings
    all the readings they can
    for free most of the time
    hoping that somebody will finally know
    finally applaud them
    finally congratulate and recognize their
    talent
    they are all so sure of their genius
    there is so little self-doubt,
    and most of them live in North Beach or New York City,
    and their faces are like their poems:
    alike,
    and they know each other and
    gather and hate and admire and choose and discard
    and keep pumping out more poems
    more poems
    more poems
    the contest of the dullards:
    tap tap tap, tap tap, tap tap tap, tap tap…

the bee
     
     
    I suppose like any other boy
    I had one best friend in the neighborhood.
    his name was Eugene and he was bigger
    than I was and one year older.
    Eugene used to whip me pretty good.
    we fought all the time.
    I kept trying him but without much
    success.
 
    once we leaped off a garage roof together
    to prove our guts.
    I twisted my ankle and he came up clean
    as freshly-wrapped butter.
 
    I guess the only good thing he ever did for me
    was when the bee stung me while I was barefoot
    and while I sat down and pulled the stinger out
    he said,
    “I’ll get the son of a bitch!”
 
    and he did
    with a tennis racket
    plus a rubber hammer.
 
    it was all right
    they say they die
    anyway.
 
    my foot swelled up double-size
    and I stayed in bed
    praying for death
 
    and Eugene went on to become an
    Admiral or a Commander
    or something large in the United States Navy
    and he passed through one or two wars
    without injury.
 
    I imagine him an old man now
    in a rocking chair
    with his false teeth
    and glass of buttermilk…
 
    while drunk
    I fingerfuck this 19 year old groupie
    in bed with me.
 
    but the worst part is
    (like jumping off the garage roof)
    Eugene wins again
    because he’s not even thinking
    about me.

the most
     
     
    here comes the fishhead singing
    here comes the baked potato in drag
 
    here comes nothing to do all day long
    here comes another night of no sleep
 
    here comes the phone ringing the wrong tone
 
    here comes a termite with a banjo
    here comes a flagpole with blank eyes
    here comes a cat and a dog wearing nylons
 
    here comes a machinegun singing
    here comes bacon burning in the pan
    here comes a voice saying something dull
 
    here comes a newspaper stuffed with small red birds
    with flat brown beaks
 
    here comes a cunt carrying a torch
    a grenade
    a deathly love
 
    here comes victory carrying
    one bucket of blood
    and stumbling over the berrybush
 
    and the sheets hang out the windows
 
    and the bombers head east west north south
    get lost
    get tossed like salad
 
    as all the fish in the sea line up and form
    one line
    one long line
    one very long thin line
    the longest line you could ever imagine
 
    and we get lost
    walking past purple mountains
 
    we walk lost
    bare at last like the knife
 
    having given
    having spit it out like an unexpected olive seed
 
    as the girl at the call service
    screams over the phone:
    “don’t call back! you sound like a jerk!”

ah …
     
     
    drinking German beer
    and trying to come up with
    the immortal poem at
    5 p.m. in the afternoon.
    but, ah, I’ve told the
    students that the thing
    to do is not to try.
 
    but when the women aren’t
    around and the horses aren’t
    running
    what else is there to do?
 
    I’ve had a couple of
    sexual fantasies
    had lunch out
    mailed three letters
    been to the grocery store.
    nothing on tv.
    the telephone is quiet.
    I’ve run dental floss
    between my teeth.
 
    it won’t rain and I listen
    to the early arrivals from the
    8 hour day as they
    drive in and park their cars
    behind the apartment
    next door.
 
    I sit drinking German