Open All Night

Charles Bukowski

• Publisher: HarperCollins e-books
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780061882111
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

These 189 posthumously published new poems take us deeper into the raw, wild vein of Bukowski's that extends from the early 1980s up to the time of his death in 1994.

1

hymn from the hurricane

2 buddies

I am not sure of our exact ages

when we met

(perhaps 9 or 10)

but Moses was one of my first real

friends:

Jewish and very quiet

and my second real friend was

Red—

he had one healthy arm

and part of another:

the lower part of his right

arm was a pure white enamel with a

brown leather glove

over the artificial fingers.

Moses vanished first.

my father informed me about him:

he pointed to a garage down the street

a large white and yellow structure

with sagging doors:

“your friend Moses was caught in there

doing something to a 5-year-old

girl. they got him.”

Red’s friendship was more durable.

we went swimming together all summer in the public

pool. he had to remove his artificial arm

as he splashed about with his arm-and-a-

half, the short arm ending just below

the elbow. it looked like it had

tiny nipples on the end of it

or maybe

it looked like tiny fingers.

the other boys teased him about his

half-arm and his tiny fingers

but I was a very mean lad

and I told them

in terms most definite

that the pool belonged to

everybody

and to let him

swim

god-damn-it

or else.

sometimes this brought us trouble later:

a gang would follow us home

to his house or mine and

more than once

standing outside

they’d scream at us

until we came out

and met them on the front

lawn.

I wasn’t as good as Red.

he was very good with his pure white arm

with the brown glove,

it was usually around 4 or 5

against 2

but Red simply clubbed them down

one after another

swinging that hard arm

I’d hear the sound of it against

skulls

and there would be boys down on the lawn

holding their heads

and this only made me meaner

and I’d get one or two of my

own

and soon everybody but Red and

myself would have vanished off the

street.

we went swimming in the public pool

together

more and more often.

there always seemed to be new boys

always more new boys

who couldn’t quite grasp

how it worked.

they just didn’t understand that we only

wanted to swim and be left

alone.

harking back to

Moses

I’m not so sure

but in a way

unfortunately

he must have been

missing some parts

too.

we never saw him again

but his mother sure could

cook

I remember all those delicious

cooking smells throughout the

house.

I never saw Red’s mother cooking

anything.

Saturday afternoon

we must have been 14 or 15

and we sat in this movie house

and here came this blonde on the screen

with pale empty eyes

and my friend elbowed me and said,

“Jesus, Hank, look at her lips!

look how moist those lips are!

I want to kiss those lips!”

“Jesus, man,” I said, “shut

up!”

all the guys around us could hear

him.

“I’m in love!” he said.

“God damn,” I said, “shut up

or I’ll punch you!”

I didn’t like blondes: their skin

was like ivory and they always

looked like they were about to

faint.

“it’s her lips,” he said, “oh,

shit, it’s those lips! look at

them! just to kiss those

lips!”

the blonde was fallin...