Paradise Our Speech

Charles Bukowski kicks off TR's new morning poetry series. Verse goes well with coffee, and we will work tirelessly to provide you with poems best read when slightly hungover. The belly is full, the soul is hungry. - Yvonne Georgina Puig

Africa, Paris, Greece

by Charles Bukowski

there are these 2 women
I know who are
quite similar

almost the same
age
well-read
literary

I once slept with both of
them
but that's all
over

we're friends

they've been to Africa
Paris
Greece

here and there

fucked some famous men

one is now living with a
millionaire
a few miles
from here
goes to breakfast and
dinner with him
feeds his fish his cats and
his dog
when she gets drunk she phones
me

the other is having it
more difficult living
alone in a small apartment in
Venice (Calif.)
listening to the bongo
drums

famous men seem to want
young women
a young woman is easier
to get rid
of: they have more
places to
go

it is difficult for women who
were once beautiful
to get
old

they have to become more
intelligent (if they want to
hold their men) and do
more things
in bed and out of
bed

these 2 women I know
they're good both
in and out of
bed

and they're intelligent
intelligent enough to know
they can't come see me
and stay
more than an
hour or two

they are quite
similar

and I know
if they read this poem
they'll understand
it
just as well as they
understand

Rimbaud or Rilke

or Keats

meanwhile I have met a
young blonde from the
Fairfax district

as she looks at my paintings
on the walls
I rub the bottoms of
her feet.

Paintings by Egon Schiele

"Dancing With the Enemy" - Jeremy Warmsley (mp3)

"Turn Your Back" - Jeremy Warmsley (mp3)

"Waiting Room" - Jeremy Warmsley (mp3)

PREVIOUSLY ON THIS RECORDING

Alex and suicide

Will and Creeley

Boys and Brautigan