“Love Is a Dog from Hell”, Charles Bukowski (I)

reading now this poetry book. and i find it very interesting and touching…

so far, i’ve only read only a fifth of the book, and want to share 3 poems that i especially like.

one for old snaggle-tooth

     1            I know a woman
     2            who keeps buying puzzles
     3            chinese
     4            puzzles
     5            blocks
     6            wires
     7            pieces that finally fit
     8            into some order.
     9            she works it out
     10          mathematically
     11          she solves all her
     12          puzzles
     13          lives down by the sea
     14          puts sugar out for the ants
     15          and believes
     16          ultimately
     17          in a better world.
     18          her hair is white
     19          she seldom combs it
     20          her teeth are snaggled
     21          and she wears loose shapeless
     22          coveralls over a body most
     23          women would wish they had.
     24          for many years she irritated me
     25          with what I considered her
     26          eccentricities—-
     27          like soaking eggshells in water
     28          (to feed the plants so that
     29          they’d get calcium).
     30          but finally when I think of her
     31          life
     32          and compare it to other lives
     33          more dazzling, original
     34          and beautiful
     35          I realize that she has hurt fewer
     36          people than anybody I know
     37          (and by hurt I simply mean hurt).
     38          she has had some terrible times,
     39          times when maybe I should have
     40          helped her more
     41          for she is the mother of my only
     42          child
     43          and we were once great lovers,
     44          but she has come through
     45          like I said
     46          she has hurt fewer people than
     47          anybody I know,
     48          and if you look at it like that,
     49          well,
     50          she has created a better world.
     51          she has won.

     52          Frances, this poem is for
     53          you.

trying to get even:

     1            we’d had any number of joints and some
     2            beer and I was on the bed stretched out
     3            and she said, “look, I’ve had 3 abortions
     4            in a row, real fast, and I’m sick of
     5            abortions, I don’t want you to stick that
     6            thing in me!”

     7            it was sticking up there and we were both
     8            looking at it.
     9            “ah, come on,” I said, “my girlfriend fucked
     10          2 different guys this week and I’m trying to
     11          get even.”

     12          “don’t get me involved in your domestic
     13          horseshit! now what I want you to do is
     14          to BEAT that thing OFF while I WATCH!
     15          I want to WATCH while you beat that thing
     16          OFF! I want to see it shoot JUICE!”

     17          “o.k. get your face closer.”

     18          she got it closer and I spit on my palm
     19          and began working.

     20          it got bigger. just before I was ready I
     21          stopped, I held it at the bottom
     22          stretching it,
     23          the head throbbed
     24          purple and shiny.

     25          “oooh,” she said.
     26          she ducked her mouth over it, sucked at
     27          it and
     28          pulled away.

     29          “finish it off,” I said.

     30          “no!”

     31          I whacked away and then stopped again
     32          at the last moment and held it at the
     33          bottom and waved it all around the
     34          bedroom.

     35          she eyed it
     36          fell upon it again
     37          sucked
     38          and pulled away.

     39          we alternated the process
     40          back and forth

     41          again and again.

     42          finally I just pulled her off
     43          the chair
     44          onto the bed
     45          rolled on top of her
     46          stuck it in
     47          worked it
     48          worked it
     49          and came.

     50          when she walked back out of
     51          the bathroom she said,
     52          “you son of a bitch, I love you,
     53          I’ve loved you for a long time.
     54          when I get back to Santa Barbara
     55          I’m going to write you. I’m
     56          living with this guy but I hate
     57          him, I don’t even know what I’m
     58          doing with him.”

     59          “o.k.,” I said, “but you’re up
     60          now. can you get me a glass of
     61          water? I’m dry.”

     62          she walked into the kitchen and
     63          I heard her remark that
     64          all my drinking glasses were
     65          dirty.

     66          I told her to use a
     67          coffee cup. I
     68          heard the water running and I
     69          thought, one more fuck
     70          I’ll be even
     71          and I can be in love with my girlfriend again—-
     72          that is
     73          if she hasn’t slipped in an
     74          extra
     75          and she probably
     76          has.

quiet clean girls in gingham dresses…

     1            all I’ve ever known are whores, ex-prostitutes,
     2            madwomen. I see men with quiet,
     3            gentle women—-I see them in the supermarkets,
     4            I see them walking down the streets together,
     5            I see them in their apartments: people at
     6            peace, living together. I know that their
     7            peace is only partial, but there is
     8            peace, often hours and days of peace.

     9            all I’ve ever known are pill freaks, alcoholics,
     10          whores, ex-prostitutes, madwomen.

     11          when one leaves
     12          another arrives
     13          worse than her predecessor.

     14          I see so many men with quiet clean girls in
     15          gingham dresses
     16          girls with faces that are not wolverine or
     17          predatory.

     18          “don’t ever bring a whore around,” I tell my
     19          few friends, “I’ll fall in love with her.”

     20          “you couldn’t stand a good woman, Bukowski.”

     21          I need a good woman. I need a good woman
     22          more than I need this typewriter, more than
     23          I need my automobile, more than I need
     24          Mozart; I need a good woman so badly that I
     25          can taste her in the air, I can feel her
     26          at my fingertips, I can see sidewalks built
     27          for her feet to walk upon,
     28          I can see pillows for her head,
     29          I can feel my waiting laughter,
     30          I can see her petting a cat,
     31          I can see her sleeping,
     32          I can see her slippers on the floor.

     33          I know that she exists
     34          but where is she upon this earth
     35          as the whores keep finding me?