Free The Roominghouse Madrigals by Charles Bukowski Page B

to
    go
    on.
     

Practice
     
     
    I keep practicing death
    and as the worms writhe
    in agony of waiting
    I might as well have another
    drink, and I am thinking
    I am there :
    and I cross my legs
    in the patio of
    some Mexico City hotel
    in 1997
    and the birds come down
    to pick out my eyes
    and the birds fly away
    and I no longer see
    them.
     
 
    is it shotguns of cancer
    or sun-madness?
     
 
    the rotting of the heart,
    the gut, the lily.
     
 
    now there’s Hem. I always thought of Hem
    as a tough old guy frying a steak
    in some kitchen
    under a bright light. what
    happened, Ernie?
     
 
    Hem was practicing too.
    Everytime he watched a bull die
    he got ready. when he lit a cigar
    at four in the afternoon, he
    got ready.
    the bulls, the soldiers, the cities
    the towns…
     
 
    my sadness, my sadness
    (let me have this drink)
    could be strung across guitars
    everywhere
    and played for 10 minutes
    with all the generals bowing
    whores little girls again
    maids kissing my photograph
    on the plaza wall haha
    and old warriors
    rubbing their blue stiff veins
    and hoping for one more day
    of bravery.
     
 
    I practice for you, death:
    your wig
    that dress
    your eyes
    these teeth.
     
 
    I too am an old man frying a steak
    in a small kitchen.
     
 
    when I run out of luck
    I’ll run out of whiskey
    and when I run out of whiskey
    the land will not be green,
    and my love and my sadness…
    who needs these?
     
 
    I practice death pretty good:
    send in the bull
    send in the girl whose white flesh
    maddens men on the boulevards,
    send in Paris,
    send in a car on the freeway
    with 6 people going to a picnic,
    send in the winner of the 8th,
    send in Palm Beach and all the people
    on the sand!
    and I practice for you
    too,
    and the man sweeping the sidewalk
    and the lady in bed with me
    and the poems of Shakespeare
    and the elephants
    and the queers and the murderers,
    I practice for everybody,
    but for myself mostly.
     
 
    pouring another drink now
    at 9:30 in the morning,
    the Racing Form on the couch,
    the mailman walking toward me
    with a loveletter from a lady who
    doesn’t want to die and a letter from the
    government
    telling me to give them money;
    and I practice for the government too,
    and I’m red, all red inside,
    punctured with heart and intestine and lung,
    I hope they don’t arrest me,
    I practice pretty good
    and I’ve got a steak, a cigar
    and a fifth of scotch,
    I’ve read most of the classics
    and I watch the birds fly this morning
    and I can see most of them,
    many of them that you can’t see,
    and I’m going to take a bath pretty soon,
    put on some clean clothes
    and drive South to the track.
    it is not an unusual morning except that
    it is one more,
    and I want to thank you
    for listening.
     

I Kneel
     
     
    these legs need to run
    but I kneel
    before female flowers
    catch the scent of
    forgetfulness
    and grab it
    sure
    and evenings
    hours of evenings
    grey-headed evenings
    nod
    and afterwards
    fall asleep.
     

Freedom: The Unmolested Eagle of Myself
     
     
    justification of blood and rock is
    justification of you
    waiting in the doorway
     
 
    justification of gun and club and pincers is
    justification of you
    spreading a tablecloth
     
 
    the tree’s mathematics is the pounding dull leaves of
    your eyes
     
 
    my feet pushed into socks is an Arab crawling up to
    kill
     
 
    juice of christ in a pear is myself driving away
    at 90 miles an hour
     
 
              and
     
 
    the flak and the gruel and the words are riveted to the
    walls
     
                        they are
 
    packaged like bombs to explode under my
    enemies
     
 
    and the evening comes down smiling and humming one
    more dead tune
     
 
              and
     
 
    it’s hooray: look out: wait:
    starve and be covered by dirt until
    life is tall and silver
    again.
     

Singing Is Fire
     
     
    the birds are on fire
    now
    out there
    and I walk across the room
    and hold back the shade
    and they are out there