Free Come On In by Charles Bukowski

absence.”
    “BARKEEP!” I yelled. “COUPLE MORE!” 
    “he sold his house and moved into an apartment
    on Fountain Avenue. his friends came by for
    a while, then they stopped.”
    “suckerfish like winners.”
    “yes, and then there was a period when he tried to
    get back with his x-wife but she didn’t want any more
    of that. she was with a young sculptor from Boston
    who was immensely talented and who taught
    at an Ivy League university.”

    “a rough turn of events,” I said. 
    “anyhow, our friend had this apartment
    on Fountain Avenue and
    one day the manager who lived in the apartment
    below noticed water coming down through the
    ceiling …”
    “oh?” 
    “he ran upstairs and knocked on the door, there
    was no answer, he took out his key and opened it, went
    in and there was Randy standing there like a statue,
    his head down in the bathroom sink, the water
    running and overflowing,
    running over the floor, and the manager wasn’t sure what
    to think, it looked so strange, and he went over and
    saw that the head was wedged there in the sink,
    and the manager felt his legs, his back, and everything
    was stiff, rigor mortis had long ago set in, there he
    was standing with his head down under the water
    and the overhead light on …” 
    “listen, Monty,” I said, “your name is ‘Monty,’ isn’t
    it?”
    “yes, you’ve got it right.” 
    “I drove over here earlier but that was such a long time ago.
    do you remember if the parking lot is out front
    or in the back?” 

    “it’s straight out back.”
    “goodnight, Monty.”
    “goodnight.” 
    fortunately after all that
    I still knew front from back. I climbed down off
    that bar stool and made my way as best I could to the
    exit. 

my turn
    the male reviewer writes that he
    misses the poems about
    the drinking bouts and the hard
    women and the low
    life. 
    the female reviewer says that
    all I write about
    is drinking and puking and bad
    women
    and a life nobody could
    ever care
    about. 
    their reviews are
    on the same page
    and are about
    the same book 
    and
    this is a poem
    about
    book reviewers. 

skinny-dipping
    as a young man
    he went skinny-dipping with
    Kafka
    but it was too much
    for him:
    the sun burned him badly
    and he was in bed
    for two days
    with a high
    fever.
    he was fat
    and in great pain
    as he twisted in the
    sheets. 
    now Kafka didn’t get burned
    and he visited the fat
    boy
    and the fat boy’s
    mother
    gave Kafka
    hell.
    and life continued. 
    and the fat boy
    went on to write many
    books and he became
    famous in his own
    time
    while Kafka only wrote
    a few books and remained
    unknown. 

    the fat boy
    even went on to live
    comfortably in Paris
    with a wife of some
    importance
    and they mixed with
    many of the
    great artists of their
    day 
    while Kafka remained
    unknown
    and life continued. 

a close call
    pushing my cart through the supermarket
    today
    the thought crossed my mind
    that I could start
    knocking cans from the shelves and swiping
    at rolls of towels, toilet paper and
    silver foil,
    I could throw oranges, bananas, tomatoes
    into the air, I could take cans of
    beer from the refrigerator and roll
    them down the aisle, I could pull up
    women’s skirts and grab their asses,
    I could ram my shopping cart through
    the plate glass window.
    then another thought occurred to me:
    people generally consider the consequences
    before they do something
    like that.
    I pushed my cart along.
    a young woman in a checkered skirt was
    bending over in the pet food section.
    I seriously considered grabbing her
    ass
    but I didn’t, I rolled on
    by.
    I had the items I needed and I pushed
    my cart up to the checkout stand.
    a lady in a red smock with a nameplate

    waited on me.
    the nameplate indicated her name was
    “Robin.”
    Robin looked at me: “how you doing?”
    she asked.
    “fine,” I told her.
    and then she began tabulating and
    bagging my purchases
    with no idea that
    the fellow standing there before