Love is a Dog from Hell Read Free Page A

fought so well:
    Hemingway, Celine, Dostoevsky, Hamsun.
    if you think they didn’t go crazy
    in tiny rooms
    just like you’re doing now
 
    without women
    without food
    without hope
 
    then you’re not ready.
 
    drink more beer.
    there’s time.
    and if there’s not
    that’s all right
    too.

the price
     
     
    drinking 15 dollar champagne—
    Cordon Rouge —with the hookers.
 
    one is named Georgia and she
    doesn’t like pantyhose:
    I keep helping her pull up
    her long dark stockings.
 
    the other is Pam-prettier
    but not much soul, and
    we smoke and talk and I
    play with their legs and
    stick my bare foot into
    Georgia’s open purse.
    it’s filled with
    bottles of pills. I
    take some of the pills.
 
    “listen,” I say, “one of
    you has soul, the other
    looks. Can’t I combine
    the 2 of you? take the soul
    and stick it into the looks?”
 
    “you want me,” says Pam, “it
    will cost you a hundred.”
 
    we drink some more and Georgia
    falls to the floor and can’t
    get up.
 
    I tell Pam that I like her
    earrings very much. Her
    hair is long and a natural
    red.
    “I was only kidding about the
    hundred,” she says.
 
    “oh,” I say, “what will it cost
    me?”
 
    she lights her cigarette with
    my lighter and looks at me
    through the flame:
 
    her eyes tell me.
 
    “look,” I say, “I don’t think I
    can ever pay that price again.”
 
    she crosses her legs
    inhales on her cigarette
 
    as she exhales she smiles
    and says, “sure you can.”

alone with everybody
     
     
    the flesh covers the bone
    and they put a mind
    in there and
    sometimes a soul,
    and the women break
    vases against the walls
    and the men drink too
    much
    and nobody finds the
    one
    but they keep
    looking
    crawling in and out
    of beds.
    flesh covers
    the bone and the
    flesh searches
    for more than
    flesh.
 
    there’s no chance
    at all:
    we are all trapped
    by a singular
    fate.
 
    nobody ever finds
    the one.
 
    the city dumps fill
    the junkyards fill
    the madhouses fill
    the hospitals fill
    the graveyards fill
    nothing else
    fills.

the 2nd novel
     
     
    they’d come around and
    they’d ask
    “you finished your
    2nd novel yet?”
 
    “no.”
 
    “whatsamatta? whatsamatta
    that you can’t
    finish it?”
 
    “hemorrhoids and
    insomnia.”
 
    “maybe you’ve lost
    it?”
 
    “lost what?”
 
    “you know.”
 
    now when they come
    around I tell them,
    “yeh. I finished
    it. be out in Sept.”
 
    “you finished it?”
 
    “yeh.”
 
    “well, listen, I gotta
    go.”
    even the cat
    here in the courtyard
    won’t come to my door
    anymore.
 
    it’s nice.

Chopin Bukowski
     
     
    this is my piano.
 
    the phone rings and people ask,
    what are you doing? how about
    getting drunk with us?
 
    and I say,
    I’m at my piano.
 
    what?
 
    I’m at my piano.
 
    I hang up.
 
    people need me. I fill
    them. if they can’t see me
    for a while they get desperate, they get
    sick.
 
    but if I see them too often
    I get sick. it’s hard to feed
    without getting fed.
 
    my piano says things back to
    me.
 
    sometimes the things are
    scrambled and not very good.
    other times
    I get as good and lucky as
    Chopin.
 
    sometimes I get out of practice
    out of tune. that’s
    all right.
    I can sit down and vomit on the
    keys
    but it’s my
    vomit.
 
    it’s better than sitting in a room
    with 3 or 4 people and
    their pianos.
 
    this is my piano
    and it is better than theirs.
 
    and they like it and they do not
    like it.

gloomy lady
     
     
    she sits up there
    drinking wine
    while her husband
    is at work.
    she puts quite
    some importance
    upon getting her
    poems published
    in the little
    magazines.
    she’s had two or
    three of her slim
    volumes of poems
    done in mimeo.
    she has two or
    three children
    between the ages
    of 6 and 15.
    she is no longer
    the beautiful woman
    she was. she sends
    photos of herself
    sitting upon a rock
    by the ocean
    alone and damned.
    I could have had
    her once. I wonder
    if she