The Roominghouse Madrigals Read Online Free PDF Page B

necessary; and
    when it comes time to die
    do not be selfish:
    consider it inexpensive
    and where you are going:
    neither a mark of shame or failure
    or a call upon sorrow
    as the wind breaks in from the sea
    and time goes on
    flushing your bones with soft peace.
     

I Wait in the White Rain
     
     
    I wait in the white rain for knives like your tongue
    I see the spiral clowns fountain up with myths untrue,
    I wrestle spasms in the dark on dark stairways
    while dollar crazy landladies
    are threaded with the hot needles of sperm,
    come these morning drunks
    brushing away sunlight from the eyes like a web,
    come darling, come gloria patri, come luck,
    come anything,
    this is the hot way—
    points sticking in like armadillos
    in the rear of a Benedictine mind,
    and snow snow snow snow snow
    shovel all the snow upon me I can hold,
    gingerbread mouth, duck-like dick,
    raisins for buttons, thread for heart-strings,
    damned waves of blood caught in them
    like a minnow in the Tide of Everywhere
    I wait in the white rain for knives like your tongue,
    and the trucks go by
    with bankrupt faces
    the steam of their essence like foul sweat
    stale stink death in my socks
    all the drums of hell
    cannot awaken a rhythm within me
    I am gone
    like an old pale goldfish
    dead and stiff as aunt Helen
    looking flat-eyed into the center of my brain
    and flushed away like any other waste of man,
    the man-turd, the breath of life,
    and why we don’t go mad as roaches, why not more
    suicides I’ll never know
    as I wait in the white rain for knives like your tongue,
    I am done, quite; like any ford that cuts off a river
    I am done forever and only,
    this christ-awful waiting on the end of a stale movie,
    everyone screaming for beauty and victory
    like children for candy,
    my hands open
    unamazed hand
    unamazed mind
    unamazed doorsill
    send your flowers to Shakey Joe
    or Butternut Carlyle
    who might trade them to useful purpose
    before everything, everyone,
    is dead
     

Breakout
     
     
    The landlord walks up and down the hall
    coughing
    letting me know he is there,
    and I’ve got to sneak
    in the bottles,
    I can’t walk to the crapper
    the lights don’t work,
    there are holes in the walls from
    broken water pipes
    and the toilet won’t flush,
    and the little jackoff
    walks up and down
    out there
    coughing, coughing,
    up and down his faded rug
    he goes,
    and I can’t stand it anymore,
    I break out ,
    I GET him
    just as he walks by,
    “ What the hell’s wrong ?”
    he screams,
    but it’s too late,
    my fist is working against the bone;
    it’s over fast and he falls,
    withered and wet;
    I get my suitcase and then
    I am going down the steps,
    and there’s his wife in the doorway,
    she’s ALWAYS IN THE DOORWAY,
    they don’t have anything to do but
    stand in doorways and walk up and down the halls,
    “Good morning, Mr. Bukowski,” her face is a mole’s face
    praying for my death, “what—”
    and I shove her aside,
    she falls down the porch steps and
    into a hedge,
    I hear the branches breaking
    and I see her half-stuck in there
    like a blind cow,
    and then I am going down the street
    with my suitcase,
    the sun is fine,
    and I begin to think about
    the next place where I’m
    going to set up, and I hope
    I can find some decent humans,
    somebody who can treat me
    better.
     

I Cannot Stand Tears
     
     
    there were several hundred fools
    around the goose who broke her leg
    trying to decide
    what to do
    when the guard walked up
    and pulled out his cannon
    and the issue was finished
    except for a woman
    who ran out of a hut
    claiming he’d killed her pet
    but the guard rubbed his straps
    and told her
    kiss my ass,
    take it to the president;
    the woman was crying
    and I cannot stand tears.
     
 
    I folded my canvas
    and went further down the road:
    the bastards had ruined
    my landscape.
     

Horse on Fire
     
     
    Bring bring
    straight things
    like a horse on fire
     
 
    Ezra said,
    write it
    soaz a man on th’ West Coast’a
    Africka