storm
— Charles Bukowski
a storm at last in this damned Los Angeles
desert,
even the lights went out in the neighborhood,
most of the people asleep,
the drunks just pour another drink,
I poured another drink,
1:42 a.m.
the lights go back on,
Brahms begins to play on the radio again,
I think of Turgenev, just for the hell of it,
just because I like his name.
there are good names: Mozart, Celine,
Artaud, Bach.
some names ring through and stick.
anyhow, it’s raining and raining and raining.
and Joe Louis is dead and Ty Cobb is dead
and it’s been a long time since the Waner brothers
patrolled the outfield in Pittsburgh
and whatever happened to Smith Brothers cough
drops?
I used to eat them like candy.
we need the rain.
we need the rain.
we need it.
I used to eat those cough drops like candy and I had
a dot-and-dash set and I knew the Morse code and I
sent out S.O.S.s for years but help never
came.
Turgenev.
I wish my name was Turgenev.
hello, I am Ivan Turgenev and it’s raining and I’m writing
about the rain
it rains hard here in Russia and the nights are black and
the days are black
and my girlfriend keeps telling me about our leader who has
arching eyebrows.
and I say, “oh yes, very interesting...”
my name is Turgenev and it’s raining and we need the rain.
ran into Gorky the other day and he said rain was just so
much capitalist bullshit.
crazy guy, crazy.
well it’s 1:58 a.m. and I am sleepy.
sleeping in the rain helps me forget things like I am going
to
die and you are going to die and the cats are going to die
but it’s still good to stretch out and know you have arms
and
feet and a head, hands, all the parts, even eyes to close
once
more, it really helps to know these things, to know your
advantages
and your limitations, but why do the cats have to die, I
think that the
world should be full of cats and full of rain, that’s all, just
cats and
rain, rain and cats, very nice, good
night.