vegas

By Charles Bukowski 1920–1994 Charles Bukowski

there was a frozen tree that I wanted to paint

but the shells came down

and in Vegas looking across at a green sunshade

at 3:30 in the morning,

I died without nails, without a copy of the Atlantic Monthly,

the windows screamed like doves moaning the bombing of Milan

and I went out to live with the rats

but the lights were too bright

and I thought maybe I'd better go back and sit in a

poetry class:

a marvelous description of a gazelle

is hell;

the cross sits like a fly on my window,

my mother’s breath stirs small leaves

in my mind;

and I hitch-hiked back to L.A. through hangover clouds

and I pulled a letter from my pocket and read it

and the truckdriver said, what’s that?

and I said, there's some gal up North who used to

sleep with Pound, she's trying to tell me that H.D.

was our greatest scribe; well, Hilda gave us a few pink

Grecian gods in with the chinaware, but after reading her

I still have 140 icicles hanging from my bones.

I'm not going all the way to L.A., the truckdriver said.

it's all right, I sad, the calla lilies nod to our minds

and someday we’ll all go home

together.

in fact, he said, this is as far

as we go.

so I let him have it; old withered whore of time

your breasts taste the sour cream of dreaming . . .

he let me out

in the middle of the desert;

to die is to die is to die,

old phonographs in cellars,

joe di maggio,

magazines in with the onions . . .

an old Ford picked me up

45 minutes later

and, this time,

I kept my mouth

shut.

"vegas" by Charles Bukowski, from Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame: Selected Poems 1955-1973. Copyright © 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1974 by Charles Bukowski, Used by permision of HarperCollins Publishers, www.harpercollins.com.

Source: Burning in Water Drowning in Flame: Selected Poems 1955-1973 (Black Sparrow Press, 1996)

Biography

Charles Bukowski was a prolific underground writer who used his his poetry and prose to depict the depravity of urban life and the downtrodden in American society. A cult hero, Bukowski relied on experience, emotion, and imagination in his work, using direct language and violent and sexual imagery. While some critics found his style offensive, others claimed that Bukowski satirized the machismo attitude through his routine use . . .

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