Free Burning in Water, Drowing in Flame by Charles Bukowski Page B

its
    color.
     

if you think I have gone crazy
try picking a flower from the garden of your
neighbor
     
     

now
     
     
    I had boils the size of tomatoes
    all over me
    they stuck a drill into me
    down at the county hospital,
    and
    just as the sun went down
    everyday
    there was a man in a nearby ward
    he’d start hollering for his friend Joe.
    JOE! he’d holler, OH JOE! JOE! J O E!
    COME GET ME, JOE!
     
     
    Joe never came by.
    I’ve never heard such mournful
    sounds.
     
     
    Joe was probably working off a
    piece of ass or
    attempting to solve a crossword puzzle.
     
     
    I’ve always said
    if you want to find out who your friends are
    go to a madhouse or
    jail.
     
     
    and if you want to find out where love is not
    be a perpetual
    loser.
     
     
    I was very lucky with my boils
    being drilled and tortured
    against the backdrop of the Sierra Madre mountains
    while that sun went down;
    when that sun went down I knew what I would do
    when I finally got that drill in my hands
    like I have it
    now.
     

the trash men
     
     
    here they come
    these guys
    grey truck
    radio playing
     
     
    they are in a hurry
     
     
    it’s quite exciting:
    shirt open
    bellies hanging out
     
     
    they run out the trash bins
    roll them out to the fork lift
    and then the truck grinds it upward
    with far too much sound…
     
     
    they had to fill out application forms
    to get these jobs
    they are paying for homes and
    drive late model cars
     
     
    they get drunk on Saturday night
     
     
    now in the Los Angeles sunshine
    they run back and forth with their trash bins
     
     
    all that trash goes somewhere
     
     
    and they shout to each other
     
     
    then they are all up in the truck
    driving west toward the sea
     
     
    none of them know
    that I am alive
     
     
    REX DISPOSAL CO.
     

zoo
     
     
    the elephants are caked with mud and tired
    and the rhinos don’t move
    the zebras are stupid dead stems
    and the lions don’t roar
    the lions don’t care
    the vultures are overfed
    the crocodiles don’t move
    and there was a strange type of monkey,
    I forget the name,
    he was on a shelf up there, this male,
    he topped the female and worked one off,
    finished,
    fell on his back and grinned,
    and I said to my girlfriend,
    let’s go, at last something’s happened.
     
     
    back at my place we talked about it.
     
     
    the zoo is a very sad place, I said,
    taking my clothes off.
     
     
    only those 2 monkeys seemed happy, she said,
    getting out of her
    clothes.
     
     
    did you see that look on the male monkey’s face?
    I asked.
     
     
    you look just like that afterwards, she
    said.
     
     
    later in the mirror I saw
    a strange type of monkey. and
    wondered about the giraffes and the
    rhinos, and the elephants, especially the
    elephants.
     
     
    we’ll have to go to the zoo
    again.
     

tv
     
     
    I went to this place to see a movie
    on tv
    Alexander the Great,
    and here come the armies
    ta ta ta
    horses, spears, knives, swords, shields,
    men falling…
    then turn to a roller derby—
    here’s a girl strangling another,
    then back to Alexander—
    a guy jumps out and assassinates Alex’s father,
    Alex kills the guy, Alex is king,
    back to the roller derby—
    a man is down across the track and another man rams his head
    with his skates—
    and here come the armies
    they appear to be fighting in a cave, there’s smoke and
    flame, swords,
    men falling—
    the Thunderbirds are behind,
    one girl dives under another girl’s ass,
    throws her into the rail—
    Alexander stands there listening to a guy who is holding
    a glass of wine in his hand, and this boy is really telling
    Alex wherehow, you know, and he turns his back to walk away
    and Alex spears him—
    the Thunderbirds are behind, they send out
    Big John—
    ta ta ta, here come the armies
    they are splashing through water
    through forests, they are going to get it
    all
    ta ta ta—
    Big John didn’t make it,
    the girls are out again now—
    Alexander is dying
    Alexander the Great is