Home ⇒ 📌Charles Bukowski ⇒ Rain Or Shine
Rain Or Shine
the vultures at the zoo
(all three of the)
Sit very quietly in their
Caged tree
And below
On the ground
Are chunks of rotten meat.
The vultures are over-full.
Our taxes have fed them
Well.
We move on to the next
Cage.
A man is in there
Sitting on the ground
Eating
His own shit.
I recognize him as
Our former mailman.
His favorite expression
Had been:
“have a beautiful day.”
That day i did.
(2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- Billy’s Rain How do you think I feel When you make me talk to you And won’t let me stop Till the words turn into a moan? Do you think I mind When you put your hand over my mouth And tell me not to move So you can “hear” it happening? And how do you think […]...
- Shit List; Or, Omnium-gatherum Of Diversity Into Unity You’ll rejoice at how many kinds of shit there are: Gosling shit (which J. Williams said something Was as green as), fish shit (the generality), trout Shit, rainbow trout shit (for the nice), mullet shit, Sand dab shit, casual sloth shit, elephant shit (awesome as process or payload), wildebeest shit, Horse shit (a favorite), caterpillar […]...
- Rain Towards Morning The great light cage has broken up in the air, Freeing, I think, about a million birds Whose wild ascending shadows will not be back, And all the wires come falling down. No cage, no frightening birds; the rain Is brightening now. The face is pale That tried the puzzle of their prison And solved […]...
- Should Lanterns Shine Should lanterns shine, the holy face, Caught in an octagon of unaccustomed light, Would wither up, an any boy of love Look twice before he fell from grace. The features in their private dark Are formed of flesh, but let the false day come And from her lips the faded pigments fall, The mummy cloths […]...
- American Football Hallelujah! It works. We blew the shit out of them. We blew the shit right back up their own ass And out their fucking ears. It works. We blew the shit out of them. They suffocated in their own shit! Hallelujah. Praise the Lord for all good things. We blew them into fucking shit. They […]...
- Walking the Dog Two universes mosey down the street Connected by love and a leash and nothing else. Mostly I look at lamplight through the leaves While he mooches along with tail up and snout down, Getting a secret knowledge through the nose Almost entirely hidden from my sight. We stand while he’s enraptured by a bush Till […]...
- Horses and Men in Rain LET us sit by a hissing steam radiator a winter’s day, gray wind pattering frozen raindrops on the window, And let us talk about milk wagon drivers and grocery delivery boys. Let us keep our feet in wool slippers and mix hot punches-and talk about mail carriers and messenger boys slipping along the icy sidewalks. […]...
- Shine, Perishing Republic While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening to empire And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the mass hardens, I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots to make earth. Out of the mother; and through the […]...
- Dark Prophecy: I Sing Of Shine And, yeah brothers While white America sings about the unsinkable molly brown (who was hustling the titanic When it went down) I sing to thee of Shine The stoker who was hip enough to flee the fucking ship And let the white folks drown With screams on their lips (jumped his black ass into the […]...
- Carbonara eyes Nicky said I couldn’t write, she’s got a charming Sense of social etiquette – given she’s a bitch (the canine sort, can’t spell for shit or even write A word) but then she has the most expressive eyes. So what she said was no surprise, she’d heard My lamentations, licked my hands, rested forepaws On […]...
- Our little Kinsmen after Rain Our little Kinsmen after Rain In plenty may be seen, A Pink and Pulpy multitude The tepid Ground upon. A needless life, it seemed to me Until a little Bird As to a Hospitality Advanced and breakfasted. As I of He, so God of Me I pondered, may have judged, And left the little Angle […]...
- The Tourist From Syracuse One of those men who can be a car salesman or a tourist from Syracuse or a Hired assassin. John D. MacDonald You would not recognize me. Mine is the face which blooms in The dank mirrors of washrooms As you grope for the light switch. My eyes have the expression Of the cold eyes […]...
- Little Little Man Little little man, little little man, Set free your canary that wants to fly. I am that canary, little little man, Leave me to fly. I was in your cage, little little man, Little little man who gave me my cage. I say “little little” because you don’t understand me Nor will you understand. Nor […]...
- The Revenge of Rain-in-the-Face In that desolate land and lone, Where the Big Horn and Yellowstone Roar down their mountain path, By their fires the Sioux Chiefs Muttered their woes and griefs And the menace of their wrath. “Revenge!” cried Rain-in-the-Face, “Revenue upon all the race Of the White Chief with yellow hair!” And the mountains dark and high […]...
- We Ain't Got No Money, Honey, But We Got Rain call it the greenhouse effect or whatever But it just doesn’t rain like it used to. I particularly remember the rains of the Depression era. There wasn’t any money but there was Plenty of rain. It wouldn’t rain for just a night or A day, It would RAIN for 7 days and 7 Nights And […]...
- "I Love You Sweatheart" A man risked his life to write the words. A man hung upside down (an idiot friend Holding his legs?) with spray paint To write the words on a girder fifty feet above A highway. And his beloved, The next morning driving to work…? His words are not (meant to be) so unique. Does she […]...
- Rain on the Hill Now on the hill The fitful wind is so still That never a wimpling mist uplifts, Nor a trembling leaf drop-laden stirs; From the ancient firs Aroma of balsam drifts, And the silent places are filled With elusive odors distilled By the rain from asters empearled and frilled, And a wild wet savor that dwells […]...
- Willard Fluke My wife lost her health, And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds. Then that woman, whom the men Styled Cleopatra, came along. And we we married ones All broke our vows, myself among the rest. Years passed and one by one Death claimed them all in some hideous form, And I was borne along […]...
- Rain After a Vaudeville Show The last pose flickered, failed. The screen’s dead white Glared in a sudden flooding of harsh light Stabbing the eyes; and as I stumbled out The curtain rose. A fat girl with a pout And legs like hams, began to sing “His Mother”. Gusts of bad air rose in a choking smother; Smoke, the wet […]...
- The Travelling Post Office The roving breezes come and go, the reed-beds sweep and sway, The sleepy river murmers low, and loiters on its way, It is the land of lots o’time along the Castlereagh. . . .. . . . . The old man’s son had left the farm, he found it full and slow, He drifted to […]...
- Rain a symphony orchestra. There is a thunderstorm, They are playing a Wagner overture And the people leave their seats under the trees And run inside to the pavilion The women giggling, the men pretending calm, Wet cigarettes being thrown away, Wagner plays on, and then they are all under the Pavilion. the birds even come […]...
- Like A Flower In The Rain I cut the middle fingernail of the middle Finger Right hand Real short And I began rubbing along her cunt As she sat upright in bed Spreading lotion over her arms Face And breasts After bathing. Then she lit a cigarette: “don’t let this put you off,” An smoked and continued to rub The lotion […]...
- Passport They did not recognize me in the shadows That suck away my color in this Passport And to them my wound was an exhibit For a tourist Who loves to collect photographs They did not recognize me, Ah. . . Don’t leave The palm of my hand without the sun Because the trees recognize me […]...
- What We Are What we are? We say we want to become What we are or what we have an intent to be. We read the possibilities, or try. We get to some. We think we know how to read. We recognize a word, here and there, A syllable: male, it says perhaps, Or female, talent look what […]...
- RAIN IN SUMMER How beautiful is the rain! After the dust and heat, In the broad and fiery street, In the narrow lane, How beautiful is the rain! How it clatters along the roofs, Like the tramp of hoofs How it gushes and struggles out From the throat of the overflowing spout! Across the window-pane It pours and […]...
- Freedom he drank wine all 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 […]...
- I Shall Forget You Presently IV I SHALL forget you presently, my dear, So make the most of this, your little day, Your little month, your little half a year, Ere I forget, or die, or move away, And we are done forever; by and by I shall forget you, as I said, but now, If you entreat me with […]...
- Whenever I Go There Whenever I go there everything is changed The stamps on the bandages the titles Of the professors of water The portrait of Glare the reasons for The white mourning In new rocks new insects are sitting With the lights off And once more I remember that the beginning Is broken No wonder the addresses are […]...
- Solidarity Song Peoples of the world, together Join to serve the common cause! So it feeds us all for ever See to it that it’s now yours. Forward, without forgetting Where our strength can be seen now to be! When starving or when eating Forward, not forgetting Our solidarity! Black or white or brown or yellow Leave […]...
- Hope The spirit killeth, but the letter giveth life. The week is dealt out like a hand That children pick up card by card. One keeps getting the same hand. One keeps getting the same card. But twice a day except on Saturday The wheel stops, there is a crack in Time: With a hiss of […]...
- Poetry it Takes A lot of Desperation Dissatisfaction And Disillusion To Write A Few Good Poems. It’s not For Everybody Either to Write It Or even to Read It....
- Rain and the Robin A ROBIN in the morning, In the morning early, Sang a song of warning, “There’ll be rain, there’ll be rain.” Very, very clearly From the orchard Came the gentle horning, “There’ll be rain.” But the hasty farmer Cut his hay down, Did not heed the charmer From the orchard, And the mower’s clatter Ceased at […]...
- Like the Touch of Rain Like the touch of rain she was On a man’s flesh and hair and eyes When the joy of walking thus Has taken him by surprise: With the love of the storm he burns, He sings, he laughs, well I know how, But forgets when he returns As I shall not forget her ‘Go now’. […]...
- Morning Rain A slight rain comes, bathed in dawn light. I hear it among treetop leaves before mist Arrives. Soon it sprinkles the soil and, Windblown, follows clouds away. Deepened Colors grace thatch homes for a moment. Flocks and herds of things wild glisten Faintly. Then the scent of musk opens across Half a mountain and lingers […]...
- The Rain and the Wind The rain and the wind, the wind and the rain They are with us like a disease: They worry the heart, they work the brain, As they shoulder and clutch at the shrieking pane, And savage the helpless trees. What does it profit a man to know These tattered and tumbling skies A million stately […]...
- Rain I opened my eyes And looked up at the rain, And it dripped in my head And flowed into my brain, And all that I hear as I lie in my bed Is the slishity-slosh of the rain in my head. I step very softly, I walk very slow, I can’t do a handstand I […]...
- During Wind And Rain They sing their dearest songs He, she, all of them yea, Treble and tenor and bass, And one to play; With the candles mooning each face…. Ah, no; the years O! How the sick leaves reel down in throngs! They clear the creeping moss Elders and juniors aye, Making the pathways neat And the garden […]...
- The Rain All night the sound had Come back again, And again falls This quite, persistent rain. What am I to myself That must be remembered, Insisted upon So often? Is it That never the ease, Even the hardness, Of rain falling Will have for me Something other than this, Something not so insistent Am I to […]...
- Rain Has Fallen All the Day Rain has fallen all the day. O come among the laden trees: The leaves lie thick upon the way Of memories. Staying a little by the way Of memories shall we depart. Come, my beloved, where I may Speak to your heart....
- When The Sun Come After Rain WHEN the sun comes after rain And the bird is in the blue, The girls go down the lane Two by two. When the sun comes after shadow And the singing of the showers, The girls go up the meadow, Fair as flowers. When the eve comes dusky red And the moon succeeds the sun, […]...