Burning in water Drowning in flame -- Charles Bukowski (1920-1994)

Deux extraits de ce recueil de la période 1955-1973



fuzz

3 little boys run toward me
blowing whistles
and they scream
you're under arrest !
you're drunk !
and they begin
hitting me on the legs with
their toy clubs.
one even has a
badge. another has
handcuffs but my hands are too high in the air.



when I go into the liquor store
they whirl around outside
like bees
shut out of their nest.
I buy a fifth of cheap
whiskey
and
3
candy bars.







palm leaves

at exactly 12:00 midnight
1973-74
Los Angeles
it began to rain on the
palm leaves outside my window
the horns and firecrackers
went off
and it thundered

I'd gone to bed at 9 p.m.
turned out the lights
pulled up the covers --
their gaiety, their happiness,
their screams, their paper hats,
their automobiles, their women,
their amateur drunks . . .

New Year's Eve always terrifies
me

life knows nothing of years



now the horns have stopped and
the firecrackers and the thunder . . .
it's all over in five minutes . . .
all I hear is the rain
on the palm leaves,
and I think,
I will never understand men,
but I have lived
it through.





Et en prime, celui-ci, nettement plus court que le titre du recueil qu'il clôt (Play the piano drunk like a percussion instrument till the fingers begin to bleed a bit, publié en 1982)



art

as the
spirit
wanes
the
form
appears.



Les poèmes de Charles Bukowski sont publiés par Black Sparrow Press.