Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame

Charles Bukowski

• Publisher: Ecco
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780876851913
• eBook ISBN: 9780061860744
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Classics
• Index: Literature

“The Walt Whitman of Los Angeles.”—Joyce Carol Oates, bestselling author

“He brought everybody down to earth, even the angels.”—Leonard Cohen, songwriter

Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame is poetry full of gambling, drinking and women. Charles Bukowski writes realistically about the seedy underbelly of life.

IV

Burning In Water Drowning In Flame

Poems 1972-1973

if you think I have gone crazy
try picking a flower from the garden of your
neighbor

now

I had boils the size of tomatoes

all over me

they stuck a drill into me

down at the county hospital,

and

just as the sun went down

everyday

there was a man in a nearby ward

he’d start hollering for his friend Joe.

JOE! he’d holler, OH JOE! JOE! J O E!

COME GET ME, JOE!

Joe never came by.

I’ve never heard such mournful

sounds.

Joe was probably working off a

piece of ass or

attempting to solve a crossword puzzle.

I’ve always said

if you want to find out who your friends are

go to a madhouse or

jail.

and if you want to find out where love is not

be a perpetual

loser.

I was very lucky with my boils

being drilled and tortured

against the backdrop of the Sierra Madre mountains

while that sun went down;

when that sun went down I knew what I would do

when I finally got that drill in my hands

like I have it

now.

the trash men

here they come

these guys

grey truck

radio playing

they are in a hurry

it’s quite exciting:

shirt open

bellies hanging out

they run out the trash bins

roll them out to the fork lift

and then the truck grinds it upward

with far too much sound…

they had to fill out application forms

to get these jobs

they are paying for homes and

drive late model cars

they get drunk on Saturday night

now in the Los Angeles sunshine

they run back and forth with their trash bins

all that trash goes somewhere

and they shout to each other

then they are all up in the truck

driving west toward the sea

none of them know

that I am alive

REX DISPOSAL CO.

zoo

the elephants are caked with mud and tired

and the rhinos don’t move

the zebras are stupid dead stems

and the lions don’t roar

the lions don’t care

the vultures are overfed

the crocodiles don’t move

and there was a strange type of monkey,

I forget the name,

he was on a shelf up there, this male,

he topped the female and worked one off,

finished,

fell on his back and grinned,

and I said to my girlfriend,

let’s go, at last something’s happened.

back at my place we talked about it.

the zoo is a very sad place, I said,

taking my clothes off.

only those 2 monkeys seemed happy, she said,

getting out of her

clothes.

did you see that look on the male monkey’s face?

I asked.

you look just like that afterwards, she

said.

later in the mirror I saw

a strange type of monkey. and

wondered about the giraffes and the

rhinos, and the elephants, especially the

elephants.

we’ll have to go to the zoo

again.

tv

I went to this place to see a movie

on tv

Alexander the Great,

and here come the armies

ta ta ta

horses, spears, knives, swords, shields,

men falling…

then turn to a roller derby—

here’s a girl strangling another,

then back to Alexander—

a guy jumps out and assassinates Alex’s father,

Alex kills the guy, Alex is king,

back to the roller derby—

a man is down across the track and another man rams his head

with his skates—

and here come the armies

they appear to be fighting in a cave, there’s smoke and

flame, swords,

men falling—

the Thunderbirds are behind,

one girl dives under another ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Author's Introduction
• It Catches My Heart in Its Hands...
• Crucifix in a Deathhand
• At Terror Street And Agony Way
• Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame
• About the Author
• By Charles Bukowski
• Copyright
• About the Publisher