Poetry Snafu's Bukowski Repository

[Jabberwocky]

I will post lesser known and rare/unpublished Bukowski poems I find here. Enjoy it like some dust in your mind.


Soul - Bukowski

oh how they are worried
about my soul
I get letters
the phone rings

"Are you going to be alright?" they ask

"Oh... I'll be alright." I tell them

"I've seen so many go down the drain" they tell me

"Don't worry about me" I say

yet, they make me nervous
I go in and take a shower
come out and squeeze
a pimple on my nose
then I go into the kitchen
and make a salami and ham sandwich
I used to live on candy bars
now I have imported German mustard
for my sandwich
I might be in danger for that.

The phone keeps ringing
and the letters keep arriving
if you live in a closet with rats
and eat dry bread they like you--
you're a genius then
or if you're in the madhouse or the drunk tank--
they call you a genius
or if you're drunk and shouting obscenities
and vomiting your life guts on the floor--
you're a genius

but get the rent paid up a month in advance
put on a new pair of stockings
go to the dentist
make love to a healthy clean girl
instead of a whore
and you've lost your soul.

I'm not interested enough
to ask about their souls
I supposed I should.

 

[Jabberwocky]

"beds, toilets, you and me--" - Bukowski

think of the beds
used again and again
to fuck in
to die in.

in this land
some of us fuck more than
we die
but most of us die
better than we
fuck,
and we die
piece by piece too--
in parks
eating ice cream, or
in igloos
of dementia,
or on straw mats
or upon disembarked
loves
or
or.

beds beds beds
toilets toilets toilets
the human sewage system
is the world's greatest
invention

and you invented me
and I invented you
and that's why we don't
get along
on this bed
any longer.

 

[Jabberwocky]

"untitled" - Bukowski

you were the world's
greatest invention
until you
flushed me
away.

now it's your turn
to wait for the touch
of the handle.
somebody will do it
to you,
bitch,
and if they don't
you will--
mixed with your own
green or yellow or white
or blue
or lavender
goodbye.

 

[Jabberwocky]

"disgusting" - Bukowski

I've got this large plastic floater with headreset
and I get unto it
and float about the pool
looking up at the tall majesty of the trees
and the unclear California air
and paddle about for different positions
and different views,
some of my cats
sitting at the edge of the pool,
stare,
thinking I have gone
crazy.
maybe I have.
they are used to seeing me
drunk,
they never mind
that.
but this?
have I turned into a
fish?
or what?

I flip off my floating bed,
sink down into the blue
pool,
rise up,
swim to the
edge.

I climb out,
walk toward my
towel.

dinner soon
and the boxing matches on
tv,
later a bottle of
cabernet.

it's so nice to
go to
hell.

 

[Jabberwocky]

"as crazy as I ever was"


drunk and writing poems
at 3 a.m.

what counts now
is one more
tight pussy

before the light
tilts out

drunk and writing poems
at 3:15 a.m.

some people tell me that I'm
famous.

what am I doing alone
drunk and writing poems at
3:18 a.m.?

I'm as crazy as I ever was
they don't understand
that I haven't stopped hanging out of 4th floor
windows by my heels-
I still do
right now
sitting here

writing this down
I am hanging by my heels
floors up:
68, 72, 101,
the feeling is the
same:
relentless
unheroic and
necessary

sitting here
drunk and writing poems
at 3:24 a.m.