A View from the Quarter, March 12th, 1965

we are in a terrible hurry to die
as large Negroes break the
pavement
our fingers tremble on dark
coffee cups
as this city
all the cities
lie spread-legged
dipped into with
beak,
I awaken to pull a shade
open
I awaken to black men and
white men and no
men—
they rape everything
they walk into churches and
churches bum down
they pet dogs and dogs heave
yellow saliva and
die

they buy paintings that they
don’t understand
they buy women that they
don’t understand
they buy everything and
what they can’t buy
they kill

their women approach me
they wiggle in the sacrament of
their flesh
they sway before me upon the towers
of their high-heels
the whole sum of them wanting
to make me scream
in some idiot’s glory
but I look again
and I know that they are
dead
that it is useless
and I cross the street
to buy a loaf of
bread

at night
the sweetest sound I hear is
the dripping of the
toilet
or some unemployed Jazzman
practicing his runs—
a wail of martyrdom to an
always
incomplete
self

we only pretend to live
while we wait on something
we wait on something
and look at diamond wrist watches
through plate glass windows
as a spider sucks the guts out of a
fly
we pay homage to Marshal Foch’s
granddaughter bending over a
tub of laundry,
we walk down St. Peter St.
hoping to find a
dime in the gutter

the dogs know us
the dogs know us
best
the Jazzman sends it home to
me through the blue glass of a
4 p.m. Friday
afternoon

he wants me to know how he
feels
as feet run over my
head
as the dead men suck in
spaghetti
as the dead men machinegun the
bridge
and in moments of rest
pray and drink
good scotch

I have watched the artists
rotting in their chairs
while the tourists took pictures
of an old iron railing not yet made
into guns

I have seen you, New Orleans,
I have seen you, New York,
Miami, Philly, Frisco, St. Louie,
L.A., Dago, Houston, and
most of the rest. I have
seen nothing, your best men are
drunks and your worst men are
locking them
up,
your best men are killers and
your worst men are
selling them
bullets

your best men die in alleys
under a sheet of paper
while your worst men
get statues in parks
for pigeons to shit upon for
centuries

the Jazzman stops. My god, it’s
quiet, that’s all I can say now!
it’s quiet, it’s quiet, let me think
if I feel like thinking and if
I don’t, mama, let me not think.

4:26 p.m.
the Quarter

I look down on the floor—
a beer carton
busted open and empty
says

“Don’t litter!
Keep America
Beautiful!”

and like the Jazzman:
don’t wanta think
no more.

by Charles Bukowski,
from Betting on the Muse

This is a dark poem. A friend recommended Bukowski to me and I purchased the book of poems. This poem is a serrated reminder of our mortality, “memento mori” an idea that the ancients knew better than do we. Living in a post-industrial age hypnotized by the effect of our works, we are children lost in play with our toys. In any case we are the walking dead. That’s nothing new.

The POV of the poet: that we are in a hurry to die. The summation is drawn from assessment of America’s major cities. Chicago is not on the list, though it certainly belongs. Is this assessment, the collective rush to the grave not also a commentary on the consequences of capitalism? I mean its extractive nature, the death throes of the cast-offs, those with minimal market value are soon to die, a enveloping tide of wasted humanity… The poet makes a point of describing the female sex workers and the ephemeral “idiot’s glory” they are fated to represent. The poet takes a second look, and decides “they are dead, it is useless. And I cross the street to buy a loaf of bread.”

Now I am slammed by the hopelessness of this scene. Have I followed the poet into a charnel house? Then the dread of everything is relieved by the notes of the unemployed Jazzman practicing his runs.  “a wail of martyrdom to an always incomplete self.” The sound brings a sliver of light to a dark place.

I contend that there is nothing wrong with the tableau of humanity, even if grim, because to be always an incomplete self is exactly what it means to be homo sapiens. “Pretending to live, while we wait on something” suggests our misunderstanding of the nature of homo sapiens. To always, to ever be in process is our fate and our privilege as humans.

What makes it possible for a Jazzman to transpose into a musical mode – that self-sacrifice is the glory and the tragedy to homo sapiens? Nothing less than the Jazzman’s bid to vicariously fulfill the incompleteness of us all… What the fuck are we waiting for, waiting while we just pretend to live? There is nothing wrong with us, nothing to be saved from. Besides nothing/no one is to arrive in any case. Nothing at all should obstruct us from living!

Yes, the rest of the poem is a unrelenting portrayal of a grim reversal, the twist of fate that delivers the “best men” to alcoholism, or murder, and the worst, are the meat-headed shysters who leverage the misfortune of their fellows to their benefit. These vignettes bring to mind the con-man who now represents America from the White House. I do not think that Bukowski would be at all surprised.

When the last note played by the Jazzman fades, in the silence the poet realizes that he simply does not want to think any more. Yep. Soon enough that is what one comes to. Silence is apt, and nothing except silence.

Thinking exhausts the spirit, – especially when there isn’t any point.

and like the Jazzman:
don’t wanta think
no more.