Читать книгу Essential Bukowski: Poetry - Чарльз Буковски, Abel Debritto - Страница 19

this thing upon me is not death

but it’s as real,

and as landlords full of maggots

pound for rent

I eat walnuts in the sheath

of my privacy

and listen for more important

drummers;

it’s as real, it’s as real

as the broken-boned sparrow

cat-mouthed to utter

more than mere

and miserable argument;

between my toes I stare

at clouds, at seas of gaunt

sepulcher . . .

and scratch my back

and form a vowel

as all my lovely women

(wives and lovers)

break like engines

into some steam of sorrow

to be blown into eclipse;

bone is bone

but this thing upon me

as I tear the window shades

and walk caged rugs,

this thing upon me

like a flower and a feast,

believe me

is not death and is not

glory

and like Quixote’s windmills

makes a foe

turned by the heavens

against one man;

. . . this thing upon me,

great god,

this thing upon me

crawling like a snake,

terrifying my love of commonness,

some call Art

some call poetry;

it’s not death

but dying will solve its power

and as my gray hands

drop a last desperate pen

in some cheap room

they will find me there

and never know

my name

my meaning

nor the treasure

of my escape.