The Sound of Human Lives
strange warmth, hot and cold females,
I make good love, but love isn’t just
sex. most females I’ve known are
ambitious, and I like to lie around
on large comfortable pillows at 3 o’clock
in the afternoon, I like to watch the sun
through the leaves of a bush outside
while the world out there
holds away from me, I know it so well, all
those dirty pages, and I like to lie around
my belly up to the ceiling after making love
everything flowing in:
it’s so easy to be easy—if you let it, that’s all
that’s necessary.
but the female is strange, she is very
ambitious—shit! I can’t sleep away the day!
all we do is eat! make love! sleep! eat! make love!
my dear, I say, there are men out there now
picking tomatoes, lettuce, even cotton,
there are men and women dying under the sun,
there are men and women dying in factories
for nothing, a pittance...
I can hear the sound of human lives being ripped to
pieces...
you don’t know how lucky we
are...
but you’ve got it made, she says,
your poems...
my love gets out of bed.
I hear her in the other room.
the typewriter is working.
I don’t know why people think effort and energy
have anything to do with
creation.
I suppose that in matters like politics, medicine,
history and religion
they are mistaken
also.
I turn on my belly and fall asleep with my
ass to the ceiling for a change.
Other works by Charles Bukowski...
