Essential Bukowski: Poetry

Автор

Чарльз Буковски

Жанр

Cтихи и поэзия

Год написания книги

2019

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in his bed

(they slept separately when they slept

at all)

and since all the chairs

were usually taken

he often slept on the stairway

wrapped in an old shawl;

she told him when to cut his nails,

not to sing or whistle

or put too much lemon in his tea

or press it with a spoon;

Symphony #2 in B MinorPrince IgorIn the Steppes of Central Asia he could sleep only by putting a piece of dark cloth over his eyes; in 1887 he attended a dance at the Medical Academy dressed in a merrymaking national costume; at last, he seemed exceptionally gay and when he fell to the floor, they thought he was clowning.

the next time you listen to Borodin,

remember . . .

when Hugo Wolf went mad (#ulink_c16343cc-29ea-501c-8e3a-0b5075812fb0)

Hugo Wolf went mad while eating an onion

and writing his 253rd song; it was rainy

April and the worms came out of the ground

humming Tannhãuser, and he spilled his milk

with his ink, and his blood fell out to the walls

and he howled and he roared and he screamed, and

down-

stairs his landlady said, I knew it, that rotten son of a bitch has dummied up his brain, he’s jacked-off his last piece of music and now I’ll never get the rent, and someday he’ll be famous and they’ll bury him in the rain, but right now I wish he’d shut up that god damned screaming—for my money he’s a silly pansy jackass and when they move him out of here, I hope they move in a good solid fisherman or a hangman or a seller of biblical tracts.

destroying beauty (#ulink_091a00b8-0010-5f05-8e1f-fbf670ab48dd)

a rose

red sunlight;

I take it apart

in the garage

like a puzzle:

the petals are as greasy

as old bacon

and fall

like the maidens of the world

backs to floor

and I look up

at the old calendar

hung from a nail

and touch

my wrinkled face

and smile

because

the secret

is beyond me.

the day I kicked a bankroll out the window (#ulink_91c1a6a4-c171-5725-a7ae-06d772411d04)

and, I said, you can take your rich aunts and uncles

and grandfathers and fathers

and all their lousy oil

and their seven lakes

and their wild turkey

and buffalo