Free The Last Night of the Earth Poems by Charles Bukowski

squeezed upright.
    in the bottom of the hour
    lurks
    the octopus
    Gloria gone mad while shaving her armpits
    the gang wars
    no toilet paper at all in a train station restroom
    a flat tire halfway to Vegas.
    in the bottom of the hour
    lurks
    the dream of the barmaid as the perfect girl
    the first and only home run
    the father sitting in the bathroom with the door open
    the brave and quick death
    the gang rape in the Fun House.
 
    in the bottom of the hour
    lurks
    the wasp in the spider web
    the plumbers moving to Malibu
    the death of the mother like a bell that never rang
    the absence of wise old men.
 
    in the bottom of the hour
    lurks
    Mozart
    fast food joints where the price of a bad meal exceeds the hourly wage
    angry women and deluded men and faded children
    the housecat
    love as a swordfish.
 
    in the bottom of the hour
    lurks
    17,000 people screaming at a homerun
    millions laughing at the obvious jokes of a tv comedian
    the long and hideous wait in the welfare offices
    Cleopatra fat and insane
    Beethoven in the grave.
    in the bottom of the hour
    lurks
    the damnation of Faust and sexual intercourse
    the sad-eyed dogs of summer lost in the streets
    the last funeral
    Celine failing again
    the carnation in the buttonhole of the kindly killer.
    in the bottom of the hour
    lurks
    fantasies tainted with milk
    our obnoxious invasion of the planets
    Chatterton drinking rat poison
    the bull that should have killed Hemingway
    Paris like a pimple in the sky.
 
    in the bottom of the hour
    lurks
    the mad writer in a cork room
    the falseness of the Senior Prom
    the submarine with purple footprints.
 
    in the bottom of the hour
    lurks
    the tree that cries in the night
    the place that nobody found
    being so young you thought you could change it
    being middle-aged and thinking you could survive it
    being old and thinking you could hide from it.
 
    in the bottom of the hour
    lurks
    2:30 a.m.
    and the next to last line
    and then the last.

the creative act
     
     
    for the broken egg on the floor
    for the 5th of July
    for the fish in the tank
    for the old man in room 9
    for the cat on the fence
 
    for yourself
 
    not for fame
    not for money
 
    you’ve got to keep chopping
 
    as you get older
    the glamour recedes
 
    it’s easier when you’re young
 
    anybody can rise to the
    heights now and then
 
    the buzzword is
    consistency
 
    anything that keeps it
    going
 
    this life dancing in front of
    Mrs. Death.

a suborder of naked buds
     
     
    the uselessness of the word is
    evident.
    I would like to make
    this
    piece of paper
    shriek and dance and
    laugh
    but
    the keys just
    strike it harmlessly
    and
    we settle
    for just a fraction of
    the whole.
 
    this incompleteness is all
    we have:
    we write the same things
    over and over
    again.
    we are fools,
    driven.
 
    the uselessness of the word is
    evident.
 
    writers can only pretend to
    succeed
    some pretend well, others
    not so
 
    yet
    none of us come
    near
    none of us even
    close
    sitting at these
    machines
 
    behooved to
    live
    out
    our indecent
    profession.

companion
     
     
    I am not alone.
    he’s here now.
    sometimes I think he’s
    gone
    then he
    flies back
    in the morning or at
    noon or in the
    night.
    a bird no one wants.
    he’s mine.
    my bird of pain.
    he doesn’t sing.
    that bird
    swaying on the
    bough.

you know and I know and thee know
     
     
    that as the yellow shade rips
    as the cat leaps wild-eyed
    as the old bartender leans on the wood
    as the hummingbird sleeps
 
    you know and I know and thee know
 
    as the tanks practice on false battlefields
    as your tires work the freeway
    as the midget drunk on cheap bourbon cries alone at night
    as the bulls are carefully bred for the matadors
    as the grass watches you and the trees watch you
    as the sea holds creatures vast and true
 
    you know and I know and thee know
 
    the sadness and the glory of two slippers under a bed
    the ballet of your heart dancing with your blood
    young girls of love who will someday