All of Us Read online

  You hear the song. And it is long ago.

  You look for it with the sun in your face.

  But you don’t remember.

  You honestly don’t remember.

  For Semra, with Martial Vigor

  How much do writers make? she said

  first off

  she’d never met a writer

  before

  Not much I said

  they have to do other things as well

  Like what? she said

  Like working in mills I said

  sweeping floors teaching school

  picking fruit

  whatnot

  all kinds of things I said

  In my country she said

  someone who has been to college

  would never sweep floors

  Well that’s just when they’re starting out I said

  all writers make lots of money

  Write me a poem she said

  a love poem

  All poems are love poems I said

  I don’t understand she said

  It’s hard to explain I said

  Write it for me now she said

  All right I said

  a napkin/a pencil

  for Semra I wrote

  Not now silly she said

  nibbling my shoulder

  I just wanted to see

  Later? I said

  putting my hand on her thigh

  Later she said

  O Semra Semra

  Next to Paris she said

  Istanbul is the loveliest city

  Have you read Omar Khayyam? she said

  Yes yes I said

  a loaf of bread a flask of wine

  I know Omar backwards

  & forwards

  Kahlil Gibran? she said

  Who? I said

  Gibran she said

  Not exactly I said

  What do you think of the military? she said

  have you been in the military?

  No I said

  I don’t think much of the military

  Why not? she said

  goddamn don’t you think men

  should go in the military?

  Well of course I said

  they should

  I lived with a man once she said

  a real man a captain

  in the army

  but he was killed

  Well hell I said

  looking around for a saber

  drunk as a post

  damn their eyes retreat hell

  I just got here

  the teapot flying across the table

  I’m sorry I said

  to the teapot

  Semra I mean

  Hell she said

  I don’t know why the hell

  I let you pick me up

  Looking for Work [1]

  I’ve always wanted brook trout

  for breakfast.

  Suddenly, I find a new path

  to the waterfall.

  I begin to hurry.

  Wake up,

  my wife says,

  you’re dreaming.

  But when I try to rise,

  the house tilts.

  Who’s dreaming?

  It’s noon, she says.

  My new shoes wait by the door.

  They are gleaming.

  Cheers

  Vodka chased with coffee. Each morning

  I hang the sign on the door:

  OUT TO LUNCH

  but no one pays attention; my friends

  look at the sign and

  sometimes leave little notes,

  or else they call—Come out and play,

  Ray-mond.

  Once my son, that bastard,

  slipped in and left me a colored egg

  and a walking stick.

  I think he drank some of my vodka.

  And last week my wife dropped by

  with a can of beef soup

  and a carton of tears.

  She drank some of my vodka, too, I think,

  then left hurriedly in a strange car

  with a man I’d never seen before.

  They don’t understand; I’m fine,

  just fine where I am, for any day now

  I shall be, I shall be, I shall be…

  I intend to take all the time in this world,

  consider everything, even miracles,

  yet remain on guard, ever

  more careful, more watchful,

  against those who would sin against me,

  against those who would steal vodka,

  against those who would do me harm.

  Rogue River Jet-Boat Trip,

  Gold Beach, Oregon, July 4, 1977

  They promised an unforgettable trip,

  deer, marten, osprey, the site

  of the Mick Smith massacre —

  a man who slaughtered his family,

  who burnt his house down around his ears —

  a fried chicken dinner.

  I am not drinking. For this

  you have put on your wedding ring and driven

  500 miles to see for yourself.

  This light dazzles. I fill my lungs

  as if these last years

  were nothing, a little overnight portage.

  We sit in the bow of the jet-boat

  and you make small talk with the guide.

  He asks where we’re from, but seeing

  our confusion, becomes

  confused himself and tells us

  he has a glass eye and we

  should try to guess which is which.

  His good eye, the left, is brown, is

  steady of purpose, and doesn’t

  miss a thing. Not long past

  I would have snagged it out

  just for its warmth, youth, and purpose,

  and because it lingers on your breasts.

  Now, I no longer know what’s mine, what

  isn’t. I no longer know anything except

  I am not drinking—though I’m still weak

  and sick from it. The engine starts.

  The guide attends the wheel.

  Spray rises and falls on all sides

  as we head upriver.

  II

  You Don’t Know What Love Is

  (an evening with Charles Bukowski)

  You don’t know what love is Bukowski said

  I’m 51 years old look at me

  I’m in love with this young broad

  I got it bad but she’s hung up too

  so it’s all right man that’s the way it should be

  I get in their blood and they can’t get me out

  They try everything to get away from me

  but they all come back in the end

  They all came back to me except

  the one I planted

  I cried over that one

  but I cried easy in those days

  Don’t let me get onto the hard stuff man

  I get mean then

  I could sit here and drink beer

  with you hippies all night

  I could drink ten quarts of this beer

  and nothing it’s like water

  But let me get onto the hard stuff

  and I’ll start throwing people out windows

  I’ll throw anybody out the window

  I’ve done it

  But you don’t know what love is

  You don’t know because you’ve never

  been in love it’s that simple

  I got this young broad see she’s beautiful

  She calls me Bukowski

  Bukowski she says in this little voice

  and I say What

  But you don’t know what love is

  I’m telling you what it is

  but you aren’t listening

  There isn’t one of you in this room

  would recognize love if it stepped up

  and buggered you in the ass

  I used to think poetry rea
dings were a copout

  Look I’m 51 years old and I’ve been around

  I know they’re a copout

  but I said to myself Bukowski

  starving is even more of a copout

  So there you are and nothing is like it should be

  That fellow what’s his name Galway Kinnell

  I saw his picture in a magazine

  He has a handsome mug on him

  but he’s a teacher

  Christ can you imagine

  But then you’re teachers too

  here I am insulting you already

  No I haven’t heard of him

  or him either

  They’re all termites

  Maybe it’s ego I don’t read much anymore

  but these people who build

  reputations on five or six books

  termites

  Bukowski she says

  Why do you listen to classical music all day

  Can’t you hear her saying that

  Bukowski why do you listen to classical music all day

  That surprises you doesn’t it

  You wouldn’t think a crude bastard like me

  could listen to classical music all day

  Brahms Rachmaninoff Bartok Telemann

  Shit I couldn’t write up here

  Too quiet up here too many trees

  I like the city that’s the place for me

  I put on my classical music each morning

  and sit down in front of my typewriter

  I light a cigar and I smoke it like this see

  and I say Bukowski you’re a lucky man

  Bukowski you’ve gone through it all

  and you’re a lucky man

  and the blue smoke drifts across the table

  and I look out the window onto Delongpre Avenue

  and I see people walking up and down the sidewalk

  and I puff on the cigar like this

  and then I lay the cigar in the ashtray like this

  and take a deep breath

  and I begin to write

  Bukowski this is the life I say

  it’s good to be poor it’s good to have hemorrhoids

  it’s good to be in love

  But you don’t know what it’s like

  You don’t know what it’s like to be in love

  If you could see her you’d know what I mean

  She thought I’d come up here and get laid

  She just knew it

  She told me she knew it

  Shit I’m 51 years old and she’s 25

  and we’re in love and she’s jealous

  Jesus it’s beautiful

  she said she’d claw my eyes out if I came up here and got laid

  Now that’s love for you

  What do any of you know about it

  Let me tell you something

  I’ve met men in jail who had more style

  than the people who hang around colleges

  and go to poetry readings

  They’re bloodsuckers who come to see

  if the poet’s socks are dirty

  or if he smells under the arms

  Believe me I won’t disappoint em

  But I want you to remember this

  there’s only one poet in this room tonight

  only one poet in this town tonight

  maybe only one real poet in this country tonight

  and that’s me

  What do any of you know about life

  What do any of you know about anything

  Which of you here has been fired from a job

  or else has beaten up your broad

  or else has been beaten up by your broad

  I was fired from Sears and Roebuck five times

  They’d fire me then hire me back again

  I was a stockboy for them when I was 35

  and then got canned for stealing cookies

  I know what’s it like I’ve been there

  I’m 51 years old now and I’m in love

  This little broad she says

  Bukowski

  and I say What and she says

  I think you’re full of shit

  and I say baby you understand me

  She’s the only broad in the world

  man or woman

  I’d take that from

  But you don’t know what love is

  They all came back to me in the end too

  every one of em came back

  except that one I told you about

  the one I planted

  We were together seven years

  We used to drink a lot

  I see a couple of typers in this room but

  I don’t see any poets

  I’m not surprised

  You have to have been in love to write poetry

  and you don’t know what it is to be in love

  that’s your trouble

  Give me some of that stuff

  That’s right no ice good

  That’s good that’s just fine

  So let’s get this show on the road

  I know what I said but I’ll have just one

  That tastes good

  Okay then let’s go let’s get this over with

  only afterwards don’t anyone stand close

  to an open window

  III

  Morning, Thinking of Empire

  We press our lips to the enameled rim of the cups

  and know this grease that floats

  over the coffee will one day stop our hearts.

  Eyes and fingers drop onto silverware

  that is not silverware. Outside the window, waves

  beat against the chipped walls of the old city.

  Your hands rise from the rough tablecloth

  as if to prophesy. Your lips tremble…

  I want to say to hell with the future.

  Our future lies deep in the afternoon.

  It is a narrow street with a cart and driver,

  a driver who looks at us and hesitates,

  then shakes his head. Meanwhile,

  I coolly crack the egg of a fine Leghorn chicken.

  Your eyes film. You turn from me and look across

  the rooftops at the sea. Even the flies are still.

  I crack the other egg.

  Surely we have diminished one another.

  The Blue Stones

  If I call stones blue it is because

  blue is the precise word, believe me.

  — FLAUBERT

  You are writing a love scene

  between Emma Bovary and Rodolphe Boulanger,

  but love has nothing to do with it.

  You are writing about sexual desire,

  that longing of one person to possess another

  whose ultimate aim is penetration.

  Love has nothing to do with it.

  You write and write that scene

  until you arouse yourself,

  masturbate into a handkerchief.

  Still, you don’t get up from the desk

  for hours. You go on writing that scene,

  writing about hunger, blind energy —

  the very nature of sex —

  a fiery leaning into consequence

  and eventually, utter ruin

  if unbridled. And sex,

  what is sex if it is not unbridled?

  You walk on the strand that night

  with your magpie friend, Ed Goncourt.

  You tell him when you write

  love scenes these days you can jackoff

  without leaving your desk.

  “Love has nothing to do with it,” you say.

  You enjoy a cigar and a clear view of Jersey.

  The tide is going out across the shingle,

  and nothing on earth can stop it.

  The smooth stones you pick up and examine

  under the moon’s light have been made blue

  from the sea. Next morning when you pull them

  from
your trouser pocket, they are still blue.

  — for my wife

  Tel Aviv and Life on the Mississippi

  This afternoon the Mississippi —

  high, roily under a broiling sun,

  or low, rippling under starlight,

  set with deadly snags come out to fish

  for steamboats —

  the Mississippi this afternoon

  has never seemed so far away.

  Plantations pass in the darkness;

  there’s Jones’s landing appearing out

  of nowhere, out of pine trees,

  and here at 12-Mile Point, Gray’s

  overseer reaches out of fog and receives

  a packet of letters, souvenirs and such

  from New Orleans.

  Bixby, that pilot you loved,

  fumes and burns:

  D——nation, boy! he storms at you time and again.

  Vicksburg, Memphis, St Looey, Cincinnati,

  the paddleblades flash and rush, rush

  upriver, soughing and churning

  the dark water.

  Mark Twain you’re all eyes and ears,

  you’re taking all this down to tell later,

  everything,

  even how you got your name,

  quarter twain, mark twain,

  something every schoolboy knew

  save one.

  I hang my legs further over the banister

  and lean back in shade,

  holding to the book like a wheel,

  sweating, fooling my life away,

  as some children haggle,

  then fiercely slap each other

  in the field below.

  The News Carried to Macedonia

  On the banks of the

  river they call Indus today

  we observe a kind of

  bean

  much like the Egyptian bean

  also

  crocodiles are reported

  upstream & hillsides grown over

  with myrrh & ivy

  He believes

  we have located the headwaters

  of the River Nile

  we offer

  sacrifice

  hold games

  for the occasion

  There is much rejoicing &

  the men think

  we shall turn back

  These elephants their

  emissaries offer

  are giant

  terrifying beasts yet

  with a grin he yesterday

  ran up a ladder onto

  the very top of one

  beast

  The men

  cheered him & he

  waved & they cheered him

  again