Читать книгу The Pleasures of the Damned - Charles Bukowski - Страница 16

they, all of them, know

ask the sidewalk painters of Paris

ask the sunlight on a sleeping dog

ask the 3 pigs

ask the paperboy

ask the music of Donizetti

ask the barber

ask the murderer

ask the man leaning against a wall

ask the preacher

ask the maker of cabinets

ask the pickpocket or the pawnbroker or the glass blower or the seller of manure or the dentist

ask the revolutionist

ask the man who sticks his head in the mouth of a lion

ask the man who will release the next atom bomb

ask the man who thinks he’s Christ

ask the bluebird who comes home at night

ask the peeping Tom

ask the man dying of cancer

ask the man who needs a bath

ask the man with one leg

ask the blind

ask the man with the lisp

ask the opium eater

ask the trembling surgeon

ask the leaves you walk upon

ask a rapist or a streetcar conductor or an old man pulling weeds in his garden

ask a bloodsucker

ask a trainer of fleas

ask a man who eats fire

ask the most miserable man you can find in his most miserable moment

ask a teacher of judo

ask a rider of elephants

ask a leper, a lifer, a lunger

ask a professor of history

ask the man who never cleans his fingernails

ask a clown or ask the first face you see in the light of day

ask your father

ask your son and his son to be

ask me

ask a burned-out bulb in a paper sack

ask the tempted, the damned, the foolish the wise, the slavering

ask the builders of temples

ask the men who have never worn shoes

ask Jesus

ask the moon

ask the shadows in the closet

ask the moth, the monk, the madman

ask the man who draws cartoons for The New Yorker ask a goldfish ask a fern shaking to a tapdance ask the map of India ask a kind face ask the man hiding under your bed ask the man you hate the most in this world ask the man who drank with Dylan Thomas ask the man who laced Jack Sharkey’s gloves ask the sad-faced man drinking coffee ask the plumber ask the man who dreams of ostriches every night ask the ticket taker at a freak show ask the counterfeiter ask the man sleeping in an alley under a sheet of paper ask the conquerors of nations and planets ask the man who has just cut off his finger ask a bookmark in the bible ask the water dripping from a faucet while the phone rings ask perjury ask the deep blue paint ask the parachute jumper ask the man with the bellyache ask the divine eye so sleek and swimming ask the boy wearing tight pants in the expensive academy ask the man who slipped in the bathtub ask the man chewed by the shark ask the one who sold me the unmatched gloves ask these and all those I have left out ask the fire the fire the fire— ask even the liars ask anybody you please at any time you please on any day you please whether it’s raining or whether the snow is there or whether you are stepping out onto a porch yellow with warm heat ask this ask that ask the man with birdshit in his hair ask the torturer of animals ask the man who has seen many bullfights in Spain ask the owners of new Cadillacs ask the famous ask the timid ask the albino and the statesman ask the landlords and the poolplayers ask the phonies ask the hired killers ask the bald men and the fat men and the tall men and the short men ask the one-eyed men, the oversexed and undersexed men ask the men who read all the newspaper editorials ask the men who breed roses ask the men who feel almost no pain ask the dying ask the mowers of lawns and the attenders of football games ask any of these or all of these ask ask ask and they’ll all tell you:

a snarling wife on the balustrade is more than a man can bear.