New Poems Book Three

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Authors: Charles Bukowski

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CONTENTS

Cover

About the Book

About the Author

Title Page

PART 1

GERMAN

THE OLD GIRL

THE BIRDS

GAME DAY

GAS

MYSTERY LEG

BE COOL, FOOL

AN UNLITERARY AFTERNOON

POOP

THE END OF AN ERA

THE 60’S

THE WOULD-BE HORSEPLAYER

THE NIGHT RICHARD NIXON SHOOK MY HAND

THROWING AWAY THE ALARM CLOCK

PRETENDERS

$1.25 A GALLON

FLOSS-JOB

A FRIENDLY PLACE

THE OLD COUPLE

WHAT?

BORN AGAIN

CARD GIRLS

IT’S NEVER BEEN SO GOOD

GOADING THE MUSE

THE WAVERING LINE

THE ROAD TO HELL

CRUCIFIXION

BARFLY

PART 2

THOUGHTS WHILE EATING A SANDWICH

NOTHING’S FREE

WHAT BOTHERS THEM MOST

INTO THE WASTEBASKET

IT’S OVER AND DONE

NICE GUY

FEET TO THE FIRE

THE POETRY GAME

THE FIX IS IN

PHOTOS

TONIGHT

A VISITOR COMPLAINS

BESIEGED

THE NOVICE

CLEOPATRA NOW

PLEASE

THE BAROMETER

ENEMY OF THE KING, 1935

NIGHTS OF VANILLA MICE

LARK IN THE DARK

LONELY HEARTS

B AS IN BULLSHIT

A RIOT IN THE STREETS

INTERLUDE

D.N.F.

READING LITTLE POEMS IN LITTLE MAGAZINES

HOW TO GET AWAY?

THE DIFFICULTY OF BREATHING

HELP WANTED AND RECEIVED

HEART IN THE CAGE

PLACES TO DIE AND PLACES TO HIDE

POEM FOR THE YOUNG AND TOUGH

OW

MY DOOM SMILES AT ME—

HEY, KAFKA!

A STRANGE VISIT

1970 BLUES

SNOW WHITE

SOUR GRAPES

FENCING WITH THE SHADOWS

A HELL OF A DUET

THE DOGS

PART 3

COLD SUMMER

CRIME DOES PAY

THROWING MY WEIGHT AROUND

THEY ROLLED THE BED OUT OF THERE

CRAWL

NOTHING HERE

MY LAST WINTER

FIRST POEM BACK

A SUMMATION

WALKING PAPERS

ALONE IN THIS ROOM

FAREWELL, FAREWELL

ABOUT THE MAIL LATELY

LIFE ON THE HALF SHELL

THE HARDEST

A TERRIBLE NEED

BODY SLAM

THE GODS ARE GOOD

THE SOUND OF TYPEWRITERS

A FIGHT

SUNBEAM

APPARITIONS

SPEED

IT’S DIFFICULT TO SEE YOUR OWN DEATH APPROACHING

MADE IN THE SHADE (HAPPY NEW YEAR)

ONE FOR WOLFGANG

NIGHT UNTO NIGHT

NOTES ON SOME POETRY

THE BUZZ

A SIMPLE KINDNESS

GOOD TRY, ALL

PROPER CREDENTIALS ARE NEEDED TO JOIN

SILLY DAMNED THING ANYHOW

MOTH TO THE FLAME

7 COME 11

PUT OUT THE LIGHT

FOXHOLES

CALM ELATION, 1993

PART 4

I HAVE THIS NEW ROOM

WRITING

HUMAN NATURE

NOTATIONS

DEMOCRACY

KRAZNICK

HUNGARIA, SYMPHONIA POEM #9 BY FRANZ LISZT

CLUB HELL, 1942

UNLOADING THE GOODS

SARATOGA HOT WALKER

THE SIXTIES?

EXPERIENCE

FAME AT LAST

PARTY OF NINE

HE SHOWED ME HIS BACK

THE UNFOLDING

DRUNK BEFORE NOON

THUMBS UP, THUMBS DOWN

THEY ARE AFTER ME

FEELING FAIRLY GOOD TONIGHT

THERE’S A POET ON EVERY BAR STOOL

VALET

PRESCIENCE

10:45 A.M.

THE HORSES OF MEXICO

A BIG NIGHT

A MUSICAL DIFFERENCE

YOU TELL ME WHAT IT MEANS

DEAR READER:

NOT MUCH SINGING

THE SHADOWS

A PAUSE BEFORE THE COUNTER ATTACK

PICTURE THIS

9 BAD BOYS

ONE MORE DAY

Copyright

About the Book

Charles Bukowski was one of America’s best-known writers and one of its most influential and imitated poets. Although he published over 45 books of poetry, hundreds of his poems were kept by him and his publisher for postumous publication. This is the third collection of these unique poems, which Bukowski considered to be among his best work.

Bukowski’s Beat Generation writing reflects his slum upbringing, his succession of menial jobs and his experience of low life urban America. He died in 1994 and is widely acknowledged as one of the most distinctive writers of the last fifty years.

About the Author

Born in 1920, Charles Bukowski became one of America’s best-known writers. During his lifetime he published more than forty-five books of poetry and prose including the novels
Post Office
(1971),
Factotum
(1975),
Women
(1979) and
Pulp
(1994) all available from Virgin Books.

PART 1.

I watch the old ladies

in the supermarket,

angry and alone.

GERMAN

being the German kid in the 20’s in Los Angeles

was difficult.

there was much anti-German feeling then,

a carry-over from World War I.

gangs of kids chased me through the neighborhood

yelling, “Hienie! Hienie! Hienie!”

they never caught me.

I was like a cat.

I knew all the paths through brush and alleys.

I scaled 6-foot back fences in a flash and was off through

backyards and around blocks

and onto garage roofs and other hiding places.

then too, they didn’t really want to catch me.

they were afraid I might bayonet them

or gouge out their eyes.

this went on for about 18 months

then all of a sudden it seemed to stop.

I was more or less accepted (but never really)

which was all right with me.

those sons-of-bitches were Americans,

they and their parents had been born here.

they had names like Jones and Sullivan and

Baker.

they were pale and often fat with runny

noses and big belt buckles.

I decided never to become an American.

my hero was Baron Manfred von Richthofen

the German air ace;

he’d shot down 80 of their best

and there was nothing they could do about

that now.

their parents didn’t like my parents

(I didn’t either) and

I decided when I got big I’d go live in some place

like Iceland,

never open my door to anybody and live on my

luck, live with a beautiful wife and a bunch of wild

animals:

which is, more or less, what

happened.

THE OLD GIRL

she was very thin, gray, bent, and each day she

waited at the door of the

First Interstate Bank in San Pedro,

and as the people came and went she

approached them

one by one

and asked for money.

about 75% of the time

I respond to those who ask but with

the other 25% I am instinctively put off

and just don’t have the will to

give.

the frail old woman at the bank put me off, she had

put me off for some time and we had a silent

understanding: I would lift my hand in a

gesture of protest and she would turn quickly

away, this had happened so often

that now she remembers and doesn’t

approach me.

one noon I sat in my car and watched

her

and after 20 attempts she scored

17 times.

I drove off as she was approaching yet another

soft touch, and even so I

suddenly felt real guilt for my unfeeling habit of

refusing the old

girl.

later in the clubhouse at Hollywood

park

between the 6th and 7th races

I saw her again as she was going up the

aisle

frail and bent, a large wad of

paper money clutched tight in a bony hand

clearly on her way to

bet the next race.

of course, she had every right to

be there,

to place her bets with the rest of us,

she only wanted and needed

what most people want and need:

a chance.

I watched as she

reached the top of the aisle and

I saw her stop and speak to a young man

who smiled and then

handed her a

bill.

not to be distracted I

rose and went to the betting window

to place my own

wager.

and, going back to my seat

as I was

walking down the aisle she was

coming up and we saw one another

and without thinking

I held my hand up,

gently, in that familiar

gesture

she’d seen so often

in front of the bank.

she looked at me with

unblinking blue eyes and said,

“fuck you!”

as we passed on the stairs.

she was right, of course, it’s

a matter of survival—General Motors does

it, you do it, the cat does it, so

does the bird, nations do it,

families do it, I do it,

the boxer sometimes does it,

it’s done when you

buy a loaf of bread, it’s done sometimes

out of madness and fear, it’s

done in the doctor’s office and

in the back alley,

it’s done everywhere

all the time

over and over again:

we all want to survive.

it is the inevitable way

the familiar way

the way things

work.

I went back to my seat to

ponder all that but I

couldn’t come up with anything useful at

all …

as the horses broke from the

gate

hustled by the crouching jocks

in their silks—

orange, blue, yellow, shocking pink,

green, chartreuse, a

stampeding rainbow of controlled

fury,

the sun shot through the

screaming

and I suddenly knew that

we are all caught forever in the

self-same trap

and I instantly forgave that old

girl

for belonging.

THE BIRDS

the acute and terrible air hangs with murder

as summer birds mingle in the branches

and warble

and mystify the clamour of the mind;

an old parrot

who never talks,

sits thinking in a Chinese laundry,

disgruntled

forsaken

celibate;

there is red on his wing

where there should be green,

and between us

the recognition of

an immense and wasted life.

… my 2nd wife left me

because I set our birds free:

one yellow, with crippled wing

quickly going down and to the left,

cat-meat,

cackling like an organ;

and the other,

mean green,

of empty thimble head,

popping up like a rocket

high into the hollow sky,

disappearing like sour love

and yesterday’s desire

and leaving me

forever.

and when my wife

returned that night

with her bags and plans,

her tricks and shining greeds,

she found me

glittering over a yellow feather

seeking out the music

which she,

oddly,

failed to

hear.

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