Charles Bukowski - Bukowski lyrics

Bukowski's Still At It

The curtains are waving and people
Walk through the afternoon
Here, and in Berlin, and in New York City
And in Mexico
I wait on life like a pregnancy
With the stethoscope to the gut
But all I hear now is the piano slamming
It's teeth through areas of my brain
Somebody in this neighborhood likes
Gershwin, which is, Too bad for me
And the woman sit's behind me
Sit's there, sit's there
And keeps lighting cigarettes
And now the nurses leave
The hospital near here
And they wear dresses that are
Naked in the sun to
Cheer the dead and the dying and the doctors
Especially the doctors, but
It does not help me
If I could rip them with moans of delight
It would neither add or take away anything
Now, now
A horn blows a tired summer like a gladiola
Given up and leaning against the house
And the bottles we have emptied would
Strangle the sensibilities of god himself
Now I look up and see my face in the mirror
If I could only kill the
Man who killed the man
More than coffee pots and cheruse
Have done me in
More than myself has done me in
Madness come like a mouse out
Of the cupboard and
They hand me a photograph of the moon
So a woman behind me has
A daughter who falls in
Love with men in beards
And sandals and berets
Who smoke pipes, and carefully
Comb their hair, And
Play chess, and talk continually of the soul
And of art "This is good enough you've
Got to love something"
Now the landlord waters outside
Dripping the plants with false rain
Gershwin is finished now it sounds like Greek
Ah, it's also common and hard impossible
I do wish somebody would go blackberry while
I do wish they would
But, no, I do suppose it will be the same
A beer, and then another beer
And then another beer
Maybe then a half pint of scotch
Three cigars smoke smoke yes, smoke
Under the electric sun of night
Hidden here in these walls with
This woman in her life
While the police are taking the
Drunks of the streets
I do not know how much longer I
Can last but I keep thinking, "Ow my god
The gladiola will straighten hard and
Full of color like
An arrow pointing at the sun
Christ will shudder like marmalade
My cat will look like Gandhi once looked"
Everything, everything
Even the tile in the men's room at
The union station will be true
All those mirrors there
Finally with faces in them
Roses, forests, no more policemen, no more me