The Night Torn Mad With Footsteps

by Bukowski, Charles

• ISBN13: 9781574231663
• ISBN10: 1574231669
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-05-29
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

This collection of previously unpublished poems offers the author's take on squabbling neighbours, off-kilter lovers, would-be hangers-on, and the loneliness of a man afflicted with acute powers of observation. The tone is gritty and amusing, spiralling out towards a cock-eyed wisdom.

Table of Contents

1.
one writer's funeral	15	(2)
beagle	17	(1)
a smile to remember	18	(1)
where was Jane?	19	(2)
the fish with yellow eyes and green fins leaps into the volcano	21	(2)
1966 Volkswagen minivan	23	(2)
his cap	25	(2)
luck from a kitchen	27	(2)
it was just a little while ago	29	(1)
the fight game	30	(3)
a lady who wants to help?	33	(2)
Carson McCullers	35	(1)
a happening	36	(2)
albums	38	(2)
makeover	40	(1)
centuries of lies	41	(2)
too tough to care	43	(2)
funny man	45	(3)
a fan	48	(1)
Christ in his manger	49	(5)
the priest	54	(2)
1810-1856	56	(1)
back to the machine gun	57	(1)
love dead like a crushed fly	58	(6)
it beats love	64	(1)
the automobilies of DeLongpre	65	(1)
40 years ago	66	(4)
the counter revolution	70	(5)
a definition	75	(3)
Gothic and etc.	78	(2)
Brando	80	(2)
rogue's gallery	82	(3)
media	85	(3)
I was wrong	88	(3)
2.
up, down and all around	91	(1)
the main course	92	(3)
it's all music	95	(1)
my cat, the writer	96	(3)
one for the road	99	(1)
room 22	100	(4)
she caught it on the fly	104	(1)
a drink to that	105	(2)
sit and endure	107	(1)
out of the money	108	(2)
4 cops	110	(2)
my girlfriend says it's all so easy	112	(2)
American Literature II	114	(1)
heartache	115	(2)
I cause some remarkable creativity	117	(2)
the cosmic joke	119	(2)
the death of the snowman	121	(5)
shut out	126	(1)
the machine gunner	127	(2)
2 deaths	129	(1)
schoolyards of forever	130	(3)
beaujolais jadot	133	(2)
bar chatter	135	(2)
punched-out	137	(2)
counterpoint	139	(1)
3 pairs of panties	140	(1)
this drunk	141	(2)
Casablanca	143	(3)
the saddest words I ever heard	146	(2)
the light	148	(2)
the closing of the bottomless bar	150	(2)
fame of a sort	152	(1)
never look	153	(2)
now the professors	155	(3)
the hatchet job	158	(2)
shack jobs	160	(1)
ground zero	161	(1)
my telephone	162	(2)
exactly right	164	(3)
3.
progress	167	(2)
Carter	169	(3)
two cats asleep downstairs and death itself no problem	172	(1)
the pro	173	(3)
pain like a black-and-white snapshot	176	(2)
Life, Death, Love, Art	178	(8)
sometimes when you get the blues there's a reason	186	(1)
the Word	187	(2)
my nudie dancer	189	(9)
I can't see anything	198	(1)
not exactly the sun	199	(2)
the doomed lady poet	201	(2)
the eternal horseplayers	203	(1)
first day, first job	204	(3)
long sad story	207	(2)
the theory of the leisure class	209	(1)
divorce	210	(3)
no wonder	213	(2)
macho hell	215	(2)
you know who's best	217	(1)
he died April 9, 1553	218	(2)
pick-up	220	(2)
it's all right	222	(1)
one of those crazy nights	223	(2)
urban war	225	(2)
good pay	227	(4)
panasonic	231	(1)
out of place	232	(2)
a great place, here	234	(2)
horses don't bet on people and neither do I...	236	(2)
my failure	238	(2)
in memory of a dead jock	240	(2)
repeat	242	(2)
now you know why we kiss the wall	244	(2)
that's who sent them	246	(1)
it's just me	247	(4)
then I know why	251	(2)
her only son	253	(2)
the wrong way	255	(4)
4.
I move to the city of San Pedro	259	(4)
be angry at San Pedro	263	(2)
lost in San Pedro	265	(2)
justice	267	(2)
a boor	269	(4)
out of the dark	273	(1)
for the foxes	274	(3)
poem for Brigitte Bardot	277	(2)
having the flue and with nothing else to do	279	(1)
a time to remember	280	(1)
``I demand a little respect''	281	(2)
pink silks	283	(2)
milk a cow and you get milk	285	(1)
oh, to be young in 1942!	286	(3)
the condition book	289	(1)
the kid from Santiago	290	(2)
room service	292	(2)
passport	294	(2)
darlings of the word	296	(3)
KFAC	299	(2)
it is good to know when you are done	301	(2)
TB	303	(2)
a song with no end	305	(1)
the lucky ones	306	(2)
spelling it out on my computer	308	(1)
crazy as a fox	309	(1)
cats and you and me	310	(2)
they need what they need	312	(1)
hello, how are you?	313	(1)
one thirty-six a.m.	314	(2)
harbor freeway south	316	(3)
gamblers all	319	(1)
guitars	320	(5)
no man is an island	325	(2)
an animal poem	327	(2)
eulogy	329	(2)
two writers	331	(4)
small conversation in the afternoon with John Fante	335	(1)
girl on the escalator	336	(2)
one learns	338	(2)
the beginning of a brief love affair	340	(1)
melodies that echo	341	(2)
self-inflicted wounds	343	(2)
racetrack parking lot at the end of the day	345	(3)
moving toward what?	348	(2)
if I had failed to make the struggle	350	(2)
wine pulse	352