Free Love is a Dog from Hell by Charles Bukowski Page B

then blows
    out of her mouth
    the largest pink globe of
    bubble gum
    I have ever seen
    while I am listening to Beethoven
    on the car radio.
    she enters a small grocery store
    and is gone
    and I am left with
    Ludwig.

dead now
     
     
    I always wanted to ball
    Henry Miller, she said,
    but by the time I got there
    it was too late.
 
    damn it, I said, you girls
    always arrive too late.
    I’ve already masturbated
    twice today.
 
    that wasn’t his problem,
    she said. by the way,
    how come you flog-off
    so much?
 
    it’s the space, I said,
    all that space between
    poems and stories, it’s
    intolerable.
 
    you should wait, she said,
    you’re impatient.
 
    what do you think of Celine?
    I asked.
 
    I wanted to ball him too.
 
    dead now, I said.
 
    dead now, she said.
 
    care to hear a little
    music? I asked.
    might as well, she said.
 
    I gave her Ives.
 
    that’s all I had left
    that night.

twins
     
     
    hey, said my friend, I want you to meet
    Hangdog Harry, he reminds me of you,
    and I said, all right, and we went to
    this cheap hotel.
    old men sitting around watching
    some program on the tv in the lobby
    as we went up the stairway
    to 209 and there was Hangdog
    sitting in a straight strawback chair
    bottle of wine at his feet
    last year’s calendar on the wall,
    “you guys sit down,” he said,
    “that’s the problem:
    man’s inhumanity to man.”
    we watched him slowly roll a
    Bull Durham cigarette.
    “I’ve got a 17 inch neck and I’ll kill
    anybody who fucks with me.”
    he licked his cigarette
    then spit on the rug.
    “just like home here. feel free.”
 
    “how you feeling, Hangdog?” asked
    my friend.
 
    “terrible. I’m in love with a whore,
    haven’t seen her in 3 or 4 weeks.”
 
    “what you think she’s doing, Hang?”
 
    “well, right now about now I’d say
    she’s sucking some turkeyneck.”
 
    he picked up his wine bottle
    took a tremendous drain.
    “look,” my friend said to Hangdog,
    “we’ve got to get going.”
 
    “o.k., time and tide, they don’t
    wait…”
 
    he looked at me:
    “whatcha say your name was?”
 
    “Salomski.”
 
    “pleased to meet cha, kid.”
 
    “likewise.”
 
    we went down the stairway
    they were still in the lobby
    looking at t.v.
 
    “what did you think of him?”
    my friend asked.
 
    “shit,” I said, “he was really
    all right. yes.”

the place didn’t look bad
     
     
    she had huge thighs
    and a very good laugh
    she laughed at everything
    and the curtains were yellow
    and I finished
    rolled off
    and before she went to the bathroom
    she reached under the bed and
    threw me a rag.
    it was hard
    it was stiff with other men’s
    sperm.
    I wiped off on the sheet.
 
    when she came out
    she bent over
    and I saw all that behind
    as she put Mozart
    on.

the little girls
     
     
    up in northern California
    he stood in the pulpit
    and had been reading for some time
    he had been reading poems about
    nature and the goodness
    of man.
 
    he knew that everything was all
    right and you couldn’t blame him:
    he was a professor and had never
    been in jail or in a whorehouse
    had never had a used car die
    in a traffic jam;
    had never needed more than
    3 drinks during his wildest
    evening;
    had never been rolled, flogged,
    mugged,
    had never been bitten by a dog
    he got nice letters from Gary
    Snyder, and his face was
    kindly, unmarked and
    tender.
    his wife had never betrayed him,
    nor had his luck.
 
    he said, “I’m just going to read
    3 more poems and then I’m going
    to step down and let
    Bukowski read.”
 
    “oh no, William,” said all the
    little girls in their pink and blue
    and white and orange and lavender
    dresses, “oh no, William,
    read some more, read some
    more!”
 
    he read one more poem and then he said,
    “this will be the last poem that
    I will read.”
 
    “oh no, William,” said all the little
    girls in their red and green see-through
    dresses, “oh no, William,” said
    all the little girls in their