Free The Roominghouse Madrigals by Charles Bukowski

rape her
    spiritually I spit in her
    eye
     
 
    I realize that really she is no more say than
    some words written by a small boy in a public
    crapper
     
 
    these innumerable and astounding
    realizations
    this dirty
    life
     
 
    her skin is white and sagging
    she has on a purple
    underslip
     
 
    this is what causes
    wars
    great paintings
    suicides
    harps
    geognosy and
    hermits.
     

Nothing Subtle
     
     
    there is nothing subtle about dying or
    dumping garbage, or the spider
    and this fist full of nickels and
    the barking of dogs tonight
    when the beast puffs on beer
    and moonlight,
    and asks my name
    and I hold to the wall
    not man enough to cry
    as the city dumps its sorrow
    in wine bottles and stale kisses,
    and the handcuffs and crutches and slabs
    fornicate like mad.
     

I Don’t Need a Bedsheet with Slits for Eyes to Kill You in
     
     
    if it’s raining and you’re sitting behind a shade with
    a cup of curari or a dead
    antelope
    with bluer eyes than any of the beautiful blue eyes
    of any of the girls in this ugly
    town
    I’ll paint your fence green or
    unplug your drain for almost
    nothing;
    if the fog comes in like soft cleanser
    and you can see old men looking out at it
    from behind curtains
    these warm old men smoking pipes
    I will tell you stories to make your dreams
    easier;
    but if you mutilate me
    hang me alongside the scarecrow like a
    cheap Christ
    and let some schoolboy hang a sign about my
    throat
    I’m going to walk your streets of night
    with a knife
    in the rain in the snow
    on gay holidays I’ll be there
    behind you
    and when I decide finally that we will
    meet
    you will not understand
    because you did not want
    to
    and the flowers and the dogs and the
    cities and the children will not
    miss you.
     

86’d
     
     
    the most binding labor
    is
    trying to make it
    under a sanctified
    banner.
    similarity of intention
    with others
    marks the fool from the
    explorer
     
 
    you can learn this at
    any
    poolhall, racetrack, bar
    university or
    jail.
     
 
    people run from rain but
    sit
    in bathtubs full of
    water.
     
 
    it is fairly dismal to know that
    millions of people are worried about
    the hydrogen bomb
    yet
    they are already
    dead.
     
 
    yet they keep trying to make
    women
    money
    sense.
     
 
    and finally the Great Bartender will lean forward
    white and pure and strong and mystic
    to tell you that you’ve had
    enough
    just when you feel like
    you’re getting
    started.
     

The Ants
     
     
    I was down by the mill at last,
    and I saw a rabbit go by
    and a rotten log
    and a rotten heart,
    and I sat and smoked on a stump
    and I watched the ants;
    the ants are everywhere
    picking up the dead,
    their dead and the other dead,
    cleaning up the earth,
    and the sky was the same old
    pale blue
    like a weak water color,
    and a couple of clouds,
    fat and senseless;
    and I took out the bottle
    and the notebook
    and I was a man a thousand years old,
    and a thousand years back
    or a thousand years ahead,
    and I looked down into the oil of water
    and the sun came back
    painting blurs in my head,
    showing me who was master
    and how weak I was
    and I put my hand flat on the dirt
    palm up
    and the ants came up
    and touched
    and passed around
    so I guessed that I was not dead,
    but no, there was one,
    he came up and climbed
    and I could feel the thin hair-legs
    as he climbed
    both of us brilliant in the sunlight,
    and then down he went into the dirt,
    and he ran ahead, but the next one ran
    up my sleeve and then out,
    and then stood there in my palm, blind,
    looking up at me, and while he stood there
    another came up and touched his feelers
    and they talked about me,
    and then came a third and a fourth
    and I felt their excitement:
    this palm in the dust could be theirs ,
    and I rose with a curse
    and pinched and blew them off
    like the idiots they were:
    their time would come to share with the worm,
    but this time this time was mine!
    but no matter that I walked off into the pines
    and frightened a