Safe : A Reply.
Thoughts from a neighbour of Charles Bukowski.
the house next door makes me
sad.
The unshaven man
never gets up early
often he lies in bed
all day.
doesn’t go to work.
no family
no children living there.
in the evening the lights go on
he’ll drink some more
often he rants and shouts
and then the lights go out.
the house next door makes me
sad.
when he’s not drunk
he can be nice.
for a while at least
some women seem to like him
but I feel them drowning
and I can’t save them.
he is surviving
he is not
homeless
but the price is
terrible
sometimes during the day
I look at the house
and the house will look at me
and the house will
weep thru tears of booze.
the house is sad for the man living
there
and I am too
and we look at each other
and I see his pock marked
face
the bloodshot eyes
the greasy hair.
he puts out the bags of empty
bottles
and the cars go up and down the
street
and the tall palms poke
at the sky
and the sunlight burns
his eyes.
at 9pm the lights
will go on again.
and he will drink
and not only in that
house
but way across the
city
where life is almost stopped.
safe ,
hiding in the arms
of a whore
breathing in
an indifferent orifice, a body
and little else
to hold.
Kristine Byrne 7am sunday 4th Jan 2014.
The original poem by Charles Bukowski is called * safe *.