The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills by Charles Bukowski

what a man I was
     
     
    I shot off his left ear
    then his right,
    and then tore off his belt buckle
    with hot lead,
    and then
    I shot off everything that counts
    and when he bent over
    to pick up his drawers
    and his marbles
    (poor critter)
    I fixed it so he wouldn’t have
    to straighten up
    no more.
     
 
    Ho Hum.
    I went in for a fast snort
    and one guy seemed
    to be looking at me sideways,
    and that’s how he died—
    sideways,
    lookin’ at me
    and clutchin’
    for his marbles.
     
 
    Sight o’ blood made me kinda
    hungry.
    Had a ham sandwich.
    Played a couple of sentimental songs…
    Shot out all the lights
    and strolled outside.
    Didn’t seem to be no one around
    so I shot my horse
    (poor critter).
     
 
    Then I saw the Sheerf
    a standin’ at the end a’ the road
    and he was shakin’
    like he had the Saint Vitus dance;
    it was a real sorrowful sight
    so I slowed him to a quiver
    with the first slug
    and mercifully stiffened him
    with the second.
     
 
    Then I laid on my back awhile
    and I shot out the stars one by one
    and then
    I shot out the moon
    and then I walked around
    and shot out every light
    in town,
    and pretty soon it began to get dark
    real dark
    the way I like it;
    just can’t stand to sleep
    with no light shinin’
    on my face.
     
 
    I laid down and dreamt
    I was a little boy again
    a playin’ with my toy six-shooter
    and winnin’ all the marble games,
    and when I woke up
    my guns was gone
    and I was all bound hand and foot
    just like somebody
    was scared a me
    and they was slippin’
    a noose around my ugly neck
    just as if they
    meant to hang me,
    and some guy was pinnin’
    a real pretty sign
    on my shirt:
    there’s a law for you
    and a law for me
    and a law that hangs
    from the foot of a tree.
     
 
    Well, pretty poetry always did
    make my eyes water
    and can you believe it
    all the women was cryin’
    and though they was moanin’
    other men’s names
    I just know they was cryin’
    for me (poor critters)
    and though I’d slept with all a them,
    I’d forgotten
    in all the big excitement
    to tell ’em my name
     
 
    and all the men looked angry
    but I guess it was because the kids
    was all being impolite
    and a throwin’ tin cans at me,
    but I told ’em not to worry
    because their aim was bad anyhow
    not a boy there looked like he’d turn
    into a man—
    90% homosexuals, the lot of them,
    and some guy shouted
    “let’s send him to hell!”
    and with a jerk I was dancin’
    my last dance,
    but I swung out wide
    and spit in the bartender’s eye
    and stared down
    into Nellie Adam’s breasts,
    and my mouth watered again.
     

mine
     
     
    She lays like a lump
    I can feel the great empty mountain
    of her head.
    But she is alive. She yawns and
    scratches her nose and
    pulls up the cover.
    Soon I will kiss her goodnight
    and we will sleep.
    and far away is Scotland
    and under the ground the
    gophers run.
    I hear engines in the night
    and through the sky a white
    hand whirls:
    good night, dear, goodnight.
     

freedom
     
     
    he drank wine all night the night of the
    28th. and he kept thinking of her:
    the way she walked and talked and loved
    the way she told him things that seemed true
    but were not, and he knew the color of each
    of her dresses
    and her shoes—he knew the stock and curve of
    each heel
    as well as the leg shaped by it.
     
 
    and she was out again when he came home, and
    she’d come back with the special stink again,
    and she did
    she came in at 3 a.m. in the morning
    filthy like a dung-eating swine
    and
    he took out the butcher knife
    and she screamed
    backing into the roominghouse wall
    still pretty somehow
    in spite of love’s reek
    and he finished the glass of wine.
     
 
    that yellow dress
    his favorite
    and she screamed again.
     
 
    and he took up the knife
    and unhooked his belt
    and tore away the cloth before her
    and cut off his balls.
    and carried them in his hands
    like apricots
    and flushed them down the
    toilet bowl
    and she kept