The Pleasures of the Damned. Charles BukowskiЧитать онлайн книгу.

       the angel who pushed his wheelchair

      long ago he edited a little magazine

       it was up in San Francisco

       during the beat era

       during the reading-poetry-with-jazz experiments

       and I remember him because he never returned my manuscripts

       even though I wrote him many letters,

       humble letters, sane letters, and, at last, violent letters;

       I’m told he jumped off a roof

       because a woman wouldn’t love him.

       no matter. when I saw him again

       he was in a wheelchair and carried a wine bottle to piss in;

       he wrote very delicate poetry

       that I, naturally, couldn’t understand;

       he autographed his book for me

       (which he said I wouldn’t like)

       and once at a party I threatened to punch him and

       I was drunk and he wept and

       I took pity and instead hit the next poet who walked by

       on the head with his piss bottle; so,

       we had an understanding after all.

      he had this very thin and intense woman

       pushing him about, she was his arms and legs and

       maybe for a while

       his heart.

       it was almost commonplace

       at poetry readings where he was scheduled to read

       to see her swiftly rolling him in,

       sometimes stopping by me, saying,

       “I don’t see how we are going to get him up on the stage!” sometimes she did. often she did.

      then she began writing poetry, I didn’t see much of it, but, somehow, I was glad for her. then she injured her neck while doing her yoga and she went on disability, and again I was glad for her, all the poets wanted to get disability insurance it was better than immortality.

      I met her in the market one day

       in the bread section, and she held my hands and

       trembled all over

       and I wondered if they ever had sex

       those two. well, they had the muse anyhow

       and she told me she was writing poetry and articles

       but really more poetry, she was really writing a lot,

       and that’s the last I saw of her

       until one night somebody told me she’d o.d.’d

       and I said, no, not her

       and they said, yes, her.

      it was a day or so later

       sometime in the afternoon

       I had to go to the Los Feliz post office

       to mail some dirty stories to a sex mag.

       coming back

       outside a church

       I saw these smiling creatures

       so many of them smiling

       the men with beards and long hair and wearing,

       blue jeans

       and most of the women blonde

       with sunken cheeks and tiny grins,

       and I thought, ah, a wedding,

       a nice old-fashioned wedding,

       and then I saw him on the sidewalk

       in his wheelchair

       tragic yet somehow calm

       looking grayer, a profile like a tamed hawk,

       and I knew it was her funeral,

       she had really o.d.’d

       and he did look tragic out there.

      I do have feelings, you know.

      maybe tonight I’ll try to read his book.