Free Mockingbird Wish Me Luck by Charles Bukowski

lift our coffees, touch them in toast,
    our eyes spark the question
    and we sit by a kitchen window on a Los Angeles
    Sunday,
    waiting.
     

a split
     
     
    death, he said, let it come,
    it was after the races,
    zipper on pants broken,
    $80 winner
    out one woman
    he drove through stop signs and
    red lights
    at 70 m.p.h. on a side street
    and then he heard the noise—
    he was smashing through a barricade of
    street obstructions
    boards and lights flying
    things jumping on the hood,
    the car was thrown against the curbing
    and he straightened it just in time
    to miss a parked car,
    he was drunk but it was the first time in
    35 years he had hit anything,
    and he ran up a dead end street,
    turned, came on out,
    took two rights
    and 5 minutes later he was inside his
    apartment. He got on the phone
    and an hour later there were 14 people
    drinking with him,
    all but the right one,
    and the next day he was sick
    and she was there
    and she said she had lost her purse out of
    town ($55 and all her i.d.), 100 miles out of town,
    she had gotten tired of waiting for him to phone
    or not to phone;
    she said, let’s not have any more splits, I can’t
    bear them,
    and he vomited, and she said,
    all you want to do is kill yourself.
    he said, all right, no more splits,
    but he knew it would happen again and again
    right down to the last split,
    and he got up and cleaned his mouth and washed
    and got back into bed with her
    and she held him like a baby,
    and he thought, hell, what kind of man am I?
    and then he didn’t care
    and they kissed
    and it was all right until
    next time.
     

power failure
     
     
    was all set to write an immortal poem,
    it was 9:30 p.m.,
    had taken me all day to get the juices
    properly aligned,
    I sat down to the typewriter
    reached for the keys and then
    all the lights in the neighborhood went out.
    she was working on her novel.
    well, she said, we might as well go to
    bed.
    we went to bed.
    since we had fucked 5 times in 2 nights
    we decided it might be a better time to
    tell eerie stories.
    she told me one about the 2 sisters lost in the woods
    who came upon the madman’s house, but it was
    cold and dark and he was nowhere about
    so they decided to go in, and one sister slept in
    one bed and the other slept in the other,
    and later in the night one sister was awakened by
    this squeeking sound
    and she looked up and here was the madman
    rocking back and forth in this rocker
    with her sister’s head in his lap,
    and I told one
    about how these two bums were in a skidrow room
    and one bum sat on the floor and stuck his hand in his
    mouth and ate his hand and then his arm and then ate the
    other hand and soon ate himself up while the other bum
    watched, and then the other bum sat on the floor and did
    the same thing, and the story ends with this neon sign
    blinking color off and on across the vacant floor…
    well, we went to sleep
    and then we were awakened when all the lights came on
    plus the radio and the t.v.,
    and I said, oh god, life is back again,
    and she said, well, we might as well sleep now,
    and so I got up and turned everything off
    and we closed our eyes
    and she thought, there goes my immortal novel,
    and I thought, there goes my immortal poem,
    everything depends upon some type of electricity,
    the street lights kept me awake for 30 minutes,
    then I dreamed that I ate matchsticks and lightbulbs
    for a living and I was the best in my trade.
     

snake in the watermelon
     
     
    we french kissed in the bathtub
    then got up and rode the merrygoround
    I fell over backwards in the chair
    then we ate 2 cheese sandwiches
    watered the plants and
    read the New York Times .
    the essence is in the action
    the action is the essence,
    between the moon and the sea and the ring
    in the bathtub
    the tame rats become more beautiful
    than long red hair,
    my father’s hands cut steak again
    I roller skate before pygmies with green eyes,
    the snake in the watermelon shakes the shopping cart,
    we entered between