Charles Bukowski,
dear boy,
the game is ending and you
never got
past midfield,
punk.
fact
I have 90 thousand dollars
in the bank
am 50 years old
weigh 280 pounds
never awaken to an alarm clock
and am closer to God
than the
sparrow.
blues song
pardon the territory of my grieving—
it’s improper I know,
maybe even
hostile
but the bacon’s burning
the bacon’s burning
tall nights
armed with machineguns
circle my dizzy and cowardly
bed
the
bacon’s
burning
so let’s wipe our silly
arses
pretend that we are pleasurable
meaningful things
isn’t that the tune
to try to beat
the dirtiest trick of them
all?
fat upon the land
all these,
fat upon the land
teaching English at the universities
and writing
legless
headless
bellybuttonless
poetry
knowing where to apply for the
grants and
getting the grants and
more grants
and writing more
handless
hairless
eyeless
poetry
all these,
fat upon the land
have found a hiding place
and have even achieved wives to
attach to their ninny
souls
these,
take paid trips
to the islands
to Europe
Paris
anywhere
in order
it is said
to gather
material
(Mexico, they simply run to on their
own)
while the jails are overcrowded with the
mislaid innocent
while the hunkies go down
in the mines
while idiot sons of the poor
are fired from jobs
these
wouldn’t dirty their hands and
souls on
these,
fat upon the land
join at the universities
read their poems to
each other
read their poems to
their students
these,
pretend wisdom and
immortality
control the presses
fat upon the land
as the jail-lines form for half-dinners
while 34 hunkies are trapped in a
mine
these
board a boat for a south sea island
to gather an anthologized
poetry of
friends
and/or
appear at anti-war demonstrations
without ever knowing what
any kind of war
is
fat upon the land
they are drawing a map of our
culture—
a division of zero,
a multiplication of
senseless
grace
“Robert Hunkerford teaches English at
S.U. Married. 2 children, pet dog.
This is his first collection of
verse. He is presently working on a
translation of the poems of
Vallejo. Mr. Hunkerford was awarded
a Sol Stein last year.”
these,
fat upon the land
teaching English at the universities
and writing
neckless
handless
ball-less
poetry
such is the manner and the way
and why the people
do not understand
the streets
the verse
the war
or
their hands upon the
table
our culture is hiding in the lace dreams of
our English classes
in the lace dresses of our English
classes
American classes
is what we need
and American poets
from mines
the docks
the factories
the jails
the hospitals
the bars
the ships
the steel mills.
American poets,
deserters from armies
deserters from madhouses
deserters from strangling wives and lives;
American poets:
ice cream-men, necktie-salesmen, corner paperboys,
warehousemen, stockboys, messengerboys,
pimps, elevator operators, plumbers, dentists, clowns, hot-
walkers, jockeys, murderers (we’ve been hearing from the
murdered), barbers, mechanics, waiters, bellboys,
dope-runners, boxers, bartenders, others others
others
until these arrive
our land will remain
dead and ashamed
the head guillotined off
and speaking to the students
in English II
this is your culture
but not
mine.
love song
I have eaten your cunt like a peach,
I have swallowed the seed
the fuzz,
locked in your legs
I have sucked and chewed and tongued and
swallowed you,
have felt your whole body jerk and twist as
one
machinegunned
and I made my tongue into a point
and the juices slid down
and I swallowed
maddened
and sucked your whole insides out—
your entire cunt sucked into my mouth
I bit
I bit
and swallowed
and you too
went mad
and I drew away and kissed
then your belly
your bellybutton
then slid down inside your white flower legs
and kissed and bit and
nibbled,
all the time
once again
those wondrous cunt hairs
beckoning and beckoning
as I held away as long as I could bear
then I leaped upon the thing
sucking and tongueing,
hairs in my soul
cunt in my soul
you in my soul
in a miracle bed
with children screaming outside
while riding on skates
bicycles at
5 P.M. in the afternoon
at that wonderful hour of
5 P.M. in the afternoon
all the love poems were written:
my tongue entered your cunt and your soul
and the blue bedspread was there
and the children in the alley
and it sang and it sang and it sang and
it sang.
poem for Dante
Dante, baby, the Inferno
is here now.
I wish you could see
it. for some time
we’ve had the power to
blow up the earth
and now we’re finding
the power to leave
it. but most will have to
; stay and
die. either by the Bomb
or the refuse of stacked-up
bones
and other emptied containers,
and shit and glass and smoke,
Dante, baby, the Inferno
is here now.
and people still look at roses
ride bicycles
punch time clocks
buy homes and paintings and cars;
people continue to
copulate
everywhere, and the young look around
and scream
that this should be a better place,
as they’ve always done,
and then gotten old
and played the same dirty game.
only now
all the dirty games of the centuries
have added to a score that seems almost
impossible to right.
some still try—
we call them saints, poets, madmen, fools.
Dante, baby, o Dante, baby,
you should see us
now.
the conditions
presently, under the conditions of the sun
my world is ending.
marked by the worm,
haggled by a world population
that has no reference to me.
presently, under the conditions of the sun
my world is ending.
my friends, it has hardly ever been
a kind time.
I’ve shown courage, drunkenness and
fear.
the heart continues to work
through unquestionable terror.
under the conditions of the sun
I make ready to lay down
the labor, the pain and whatever
honor is left.
29 chilled grapes
the process of learning is devious
all these windmills
all this bloody transition
plugged sinks
toilet-paper minds
love’s lie, that naked whore
dogs with more souls than Pittsburgh millionaires
wrecked men who thought grace more eternal than cunning
the process of living is too short and too long
too long for the old who never find out
too short for the old who found out
too soon for the young who never know
too much for the young who find out
the process of continuing is possible
with the aid of alcohol or dope or sex
or gold or golf or symphony music,
or deer hunting or learning to dance the funky chicken
or watching a baseball game or betting on a horse
or taking 6 hot baths a day
or hanging it onto yogi
or becoming a baptist or a guitar player
or getting a rubdown or reading the comics
or masturbating or eating 29 chilled grapes
or arguing about John Cage or going to the zoo
or smoking cigars or showing your pecker to little girls in the park
or being black and fucking a white girl
or being white and fucking a black girl
or walking a dog or feeding a cat or screaming at a child
or working a crossword puzzle or sitting in the park
or going to college or riding a bicycle or eating spaghetti
or going to poetry readings or giving poetry readings
or going to a movie or voting or traveling to India or
New York City or beating somebody up
or polishing silverware or shining your shoes
or writing a letter or waxing your car
or buying a new car or a throw rug
or a red shirt with white dots
or growing a beard or getting a crewcut
or standing on the corner sweating and looking wise
the process of continuing is possible.
the process of learning is devious
all those without hope
and never knowing it
the wildflower is the tiger who runs the universe
the tiger is the wildflower that runs the universe
and those mad and incomparable human creatures with roach souls
that I am beckoned to love and hate and live among,
these must truly someday vanish
in the dinosaur strength of their ugliness
so the sun will not feel so bad
so the sea can throw off the ships and oil and shit
so the sky can clear of their mean greed
so night can be told from day
so that treachery can become the palest of anachronisms
so that love, which probably began it all, can begin again
and last and last and last and last and last and last and
last and last and last and last
burning in water, drowning in flame
carbon copy people
choosing clothes and shoes and objects
carbon copy people
walking in and out of buildings,
seeing the same sun
the same moon,
reading the same paper
looking at the same programs
having the same ideas,
sleeping at the same time,
arising at the same time,
eating the same food,
driving the same cars down the same freeways
carbon copy people
with carbon copy children
in carbon copy houses
with carbon copy Christmases and New Years
and birthdays and lives and
deaths
and lawns and dishwashers and rugs
and vases and loves and copulations, and
they have carbon copy dentists and
carbon copy mayors and governors and presidents
all seeing the same sun and the same moon,
o carbon copy coffins
o carbon copy graves
o carbon copy funerals
under the same moon,
the carbon copy grass the frost
the carbon copy tombstones,
the carbon copy laughter
the carbon copy screams
the carbon copy jokes
the carbon copy poems
the carbon copy carbon copy
madmen and drunks and dope fiends and rapists
and cats and dogs and birds and snakes and spiders,
there is too much of everything all alike,
I have fingers and there are fingers everywhere,
if I enter a door I must exit a door,
I have shit and there is shit everywhere,
I have eyes and there are eyes everywhere,
I have nightmares and there are nightmares everywhere,
if I sleep I must awake,
if I fuck I must stop fucking,
if I eat I must stop eating,
I can’t do anything I want to,
I am locked into a repetition of sameness . . .
I am burning in water
I am drowning in flame
I am released into sugar clouds that piss vinegar,
but so are you and so are they and so are we,
ant thoughts and ant struggles
against a dynamo of alikened contortions,
help help help help help help help
I scream the carbon copy help against the carbon copy sky,
that all this carbon and cardboard contains blood and pain,
even love and history and hope,
that’s the hitch, or is it a trick?
how can we know? the carbon copy psychiatrists and preachers
and philosophers tell us carbon copy things . . .
death? is there death? perhaps the gate swings open
and we are welcomed by roasted and tortured angels
where we are finally gypped into an insufficient Eternity,
> a gag worse than Life . . .
wouldn’t that be shit?
to get away from men like gearshifts and women like
horsemeat, only to
unfold into worse? o,
think then of the angered suicides
the dead heroes of dead wars . . .
the run-over children,
the saints burnt at stake—
all of them short-changed, rolled, doped,
sold into a slavery worse than snot
sing your deaths sing your deaths sing your
deaths, sing your life, sing
life, this isn’t any
good, this isn’t any
good. good god, I forgot to put a
carbon under this
paper . . .
a cop-out to a possible immortality:
if we can’t make literature out of our
agony
what are we going to do with
it?
beg in the streets?
I like my minor comforts
just like any other
son of a
bitch.
well, now that Ezra has died . . .
well, now that Ezra has died
we are going to have a great many poems written
about Ezra and what he meant and who he
was and how it went
and how it still is with
Ezra gone.
well, I was shacked with this alcoholic woman
for 7 years
and I kept packing home the Cantos through the
door, and she kept saying,
“For God’s sake, you got POUND again? You know
you can’t read him. Did you bring any
wine?”
she was right. I couldn’t read the Cantos.
but I usually brought the wine
and we drank the
wine.
I don’t know how many years I packed those
Cantos back and forth from the downtown public
library
but they were always available in the shelves of
the Literature and Philology section.
well, he died, and I finally went from wine to
beer; I suppose he was a great writer
it’s just that I’m so lazy in my reading habits.
I detest any sort of immaculate strain,
but I still feel rather warm for him and Ernie
and Gertie and James J., all that gang
gripping to world war one
making the 20’s and 30’s available
in their special way; then there was world war 2,
Ezra backed a loser and got 13 years in with the
loonies, and now he’s dead at 87 and his mistress is