by Charles Bukowski
I see the high-heeled
shoes and a dried white rose
lying on the bar
like a clenched
fist.
whiskey makes the heart beat faster
but it sure doesn't help the
mind and isn't it funny how you can ache just
from the deadly drone
of existence?
I see this
nudie dancer running along the top of
the bar
shaking what she thinks is
magic
with all those faces staring
up from overpriced drinks.
and me? being there? no shit.
I really didn't care about
her but I love the pulsing of
the loud flat music thumping
in the purple glow, some-
thing about it all: I hardly
ever felt better.
I watch her, the purple
doll so
sad so cheap so
sad, you would never want to
bed down with her or even hear her
speak, yet in that drunken place
you would
like to hand your heart to her
and say
touch it
but then
give it back.
she dances so fiercely now in
the purple glow,
purple does something strange to me:
there was a night
30 years ago
i was drunk, true, and there was
a purple Christ in a glass box
outside a little church and I
smashed the glass, I broke
the glass, and then I reached in and touched
Christ but
He was only a dummy and I heard the
sirens then and started
running.
well, my mind has never been the same
since and the typing helps but you can't
type all the time, so the nudie dancer now
breaks
what heart I have left and I
don't know why but I start giving money
to everyone in the bar, I give a five to this
guy
a ten to that, I think maybe it might wake them to the wisdom
of it all
but they don't even say "thanks," they just think I'm a
fool.
the manager comes up and tells me
I'm 86'D, I hand him a
twenty, he takes,
it.
two friends
have been sitting at a back
table,they help me up and out of the
bar .
I think the situation is very
funny but they are
angry:
where's your car?
Where's your fucking car?
I say,
I dunno.
too fucking bad, they
say and
leave me sitting alone on an
apartment house
step.
I light up and smoke a cigarette.
then get up and begin the long
walk, a walk I know will
entail at least a couple of
hours
to find my car (past experience)
But I know that when I
find it, the rush of
happiness will be
all I need
and that I will be able to
begin my life all over
again.
