Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit

  CHARLES BUKOWSKI

  PLAY THE PIANO DRUNK LIKE A PERCUSSION INSTRUMENT UNTIL THE FINGERS BEGIN TO BLEED A BIT

  for Linda Lee Beighle,

  the best

  waiting

  in a life full of little stories

  for a death to come

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Epigraph

  tough company

  12-24-78

  an ideal

  leaning on wood

  the souls of dead animals

  another argument

  the red porsche

  some picnic

  the drill

  40,000 flies

  the strangest thing

  the paper on the floor

  2 flies

  through the streets of anywhere

  fire station

  an argument over Marshal Foch

  40 cigarettes

  a killer gets ready

  I love you

  a little atomic bomb

  the egg

  the knifer

  the ladies of summer

  I’m in love

  the apple

  the violin player

  5 dollars

  cooperation

  the night I was going to die

  2347 Duane

  a radio with guts

  Solid State Marty

  interviews

  face of a political candidate on a street billboard

  Yankee Doodle

  blue moon, oh bleweeww mooooon how I adore you!

  nothing is as effective as defeat

  success

  Africa, Paris, Greece

  the drunk tank judge

  claws of paradise

  the loner

  the sandwich

  the happy life of the tired

  the proud thin dying

  under

  hot month

  maybe tomorrow

  junk

  8 rooms

  I liked him

  the killer smiles

  horse and fist

  close encounters of another kind

  mermaid

  hug the dark

  59 cents a pound

  promenade

  metamorphosis

  we’ll take them

  dow average down

  to weep

  fair stand the fields of France

  art

  about the author

  other books by charles bukowski

  cover

  copyright

  about the publisher

  tough company

  poems like gunslingers

  sit around and

  shoot holes in my windows

  chew on my toilet paper

  read the race results

  take the phone off the

  hook.

  poems like gunslingers

  ask me

  what the hell my game is,

  and

  would I like to

  shoot it out?

  take it easy, I say,

  the race is not to

  the swift.

  the poem sitting at the

  south end of the couch

  draws

  says

  balls off for that

  one!

  take it easy, pardner, I

  have plans for

  you.

  plans, huh? what

  plans?

  The New Yorker,

  pard.

  he puts his iron

  away.

  the poem sitting in the

  chair near the door

  stretches

  looks at me:

  you know, fat boy, you

  been pretty lazy

  lately.

  fuck off

  I say

  who’s running this

  game?

  we’re running this

  game

  say all the

  gunslingers

  drawing iron:

  get

  with it!

  so

  here you

  are:

  this poem

  was the one

  who was sitting

  on top of the

  refrigerator

  flipping

  beercaps.

  and now

  I’ve got him

  out of the way

  and all the others

  are sitting around pointing

  their weapons at me and

  saying:

  I’m next, I’m next, I’m

  next!

  I suppose that when

  I die

  the leftovers

  will jump some other

  poor

  son of a bitch.

  12-24-78

  I suck on this beer

  in my kitchen

  and think about

  cleaning my fingernails

  and shaving

  as I listen to the

  classical radio

  station.

  they play holiday

  music.

  I prefer to hear Christmas

  music in July

  while I am being threatened

  with death by

  a woman.

  that’s

  when I need it—

  that’s

  when I need

  Bing Crosby and the

  elves and

  some fast

  reindeer.

  now I sit here

  listening to this

  slop in

  season—it’s such

  a sugar tit—

  I’d rather play a game of

  ping-pong with

  the risen ghost

  of Hitler.

  amateur drunks run their cheerful

  cars into each other

  the ambulances sing to each

  other outside.

  an ideal

  the Waxmans, she said,

  he starved,

  all these builders wanted to

  buy him;

  he worked in Paris in London and

  even in Africa,

  he had his own

  concept of

  design…

  what the fuck? I said,

  a starving architect,

  eh?

  yes, yes, he starved and his

  wife and his children

  but he was true to

  his ideals.

  a starving architect,

  eh?

  yes, he finally came through,

  I saw him and his wife last

  Wednesday night, the Waxmans…

  would you care to meet

  them?

  tell him, I said, to stick 3 fingers up

  his ass

  and flick-off.

  you’re always so fucking nasty, she said,

  knocking over her tall-stemmed

  glass of scotch and

  water.

  uh huh, I said, in honor of

  the dead.

  leaning on wood

  there are 4 or 5 guys at the

  racetrack bar.

  there is a mirror behind the

  bar.

  the reflections are not

  kind

  of the 4 or 5 guys at the

  racetrack bar.

  there are many bottles at the

  racetrack bar.

  we order different drinks.

  there is a mirror behind the
/>
  bar.

  the reflections are not

  kind.

  “it don’t take brains to beat

  the horses, it just takes money

  and guts.”

  our reflections are not

  kind.

  the clouds are outside.

  the sun is outside.

  the horses are warming up outside.

  we stand at the racetrack

  bar.

  “I’ve been playing the races for

  40 years and I still can’t beat

  them.”

  “you can play the races for another

  40 years and you still won’t beat

  them.”

  the bartender doesn’t like

  us.

  the 5 minute warning buzzer

  sounds.

  we finish our drinks and

  turn away to make our

  bets.

  our reflections look better

  as we walk away:

  you can’t see our

  faces.

  4 or 5 guys from the racetrack

  bar.

  what shit. nobody

  wins. ask

  Caesar.

  the souls of dead animals

  after the slaughterhouse

  there was a bar around the corner

  and I sat in there

  and watched the sun go down

  through the window,

  a window that overlooked a lot

  full of tall dry weeds.

  I never showered with the boys at the

  plant

  after work

  so I smelled of sweat and

  blood.

  the smell of sweat lessens after a

  while

  but the blood-smell begins to fulminate

  and gain power.

  I smoked cigarettes and drank beer

  until I felt good enough to

  board the bus

  with the souls of all those dead

  animals riding with

  me;

  heads would turn slightly

  women would rise and move away from

  me.

  when I got off the bus

  I only had a block to walk

  and one stairway up to my

  room

  where I’d turn on my radio and

  light a cigarette

  and nobody minded me

  at all.

  another argument

  she had an uncle who sniffed her

  panties by

  firelight while eating

  crackerjack and

  muffins with honey,

  she sat across from me

  in that Chinese place

  the drinks kept coming and she

  talked about Matisse, Iranian

  coins, fingerbowls at Cambridge, Pound

  at Salerno, Plato at

  Madagascar, the death of

  Schopenhauer, and the times she and

  I had been together and

  ebullient.

  drunk in the afternoon

  I knew she had kept me too long

  and when I got back to the other

  she was

  raving

  underprivileged

  pissed and

  bloody unorthodox burning

  mad.

  then she said it didn’t matter anymore

  and I felt like saying

  what do you mean it doesn’t matter anymore?

  how can you say it about anything, least of

  all us? where are your eyes and your feet and

  your head? if the thin blue marching of troops is

  correct, we are all about to be

  murdered.

  the red porsche

  it feels good

  to be driven about in a red

  porsche

  by a woman better-

  read than I

  am.

  it feels good

  to be driven about in a red

  porsche

  by a woman who can explain

  things about

  classical

  music to

  me.

  it feels good

  to be driven about in a red

  porsche

  by a woman who buys

  things for my refrigerator

  and my

  kitchen:

  cherries, plums, lettuce, celery,

  green onions, brown onions,

  eggs, muffins, long

  chilis, brown sugar,

  Italian seasoning, oregano, white

  wine vinegar, pompeian olive oil

  and red

  radishes.

  I like being driven about

  in a red porsche

  while I smoke cigarettes in

  gentle languor.

  I’m lucky. I’ve always been

  lucky:

  even when I was starving to death

  the bands were playing for

  me.

  but the red porsche is very nice

  and she is

  too, and

  I’ve learned to feel good when

  I feel good.

  it’s better to be driven around in a

  red porsche

  than to own

  one. the luck of the fool is

  inviolate.

  some picnic

  which reminds me

  I shacked with Jane for 7 years

  she was a drunk

  I loved her

  my parents hated her

  I hated my parents

  it made a nice

  foursome

  one day we went on a picnic

  together

  up in the hills

  and we played cards and drank beer and

  ate potato salad and weenies

  they talked to her as if she were a living person

  at last

  everybody laughed

  I didn’t laugh.

  later at my place

  over the whiskey

  I said to her,

  I don’t like them

  but it’s good they treated you

  nice.

  you damn fool, she said,

  don’t you see?

  see what?

  they keep looking at my beer-belly,

  they think I’m

  pregnant.

  oh, I said, well here’s to our beautiful

  child.

  here’s to our beautiful child,

  she said.

  we drank them down.

  the drill

  our marriage book, it

  says.

  I look through it.

  they lasted ten years.

  they were young once.

  now I sleep in her bed.

  he phones her:

  “I want my drill back.

  have it ready.

  I’ll pick the children up at

  ten.”

  when he arrives he waits outside

  the door.