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

a
    drink.
     
 
    the matador did not seem to get in very
    close. the bull kept getting in those
    tired and desperate lunges at the cape
    getting more and more winded
    more and more
    useless.
     
 
    each of the matador’s movements had some meaning, some
    name. the Mexicans knew it. the drunken Americans in the
    shade with good jobs and subnormal wives
    didn’t know anything. they rooted for the
    bull.
    they didn’t know that it took guts
    to even do a bad job with the bull.
     
 
    well, this bull was bad and the matador was bad
    but the matador was worse than the
    bull, and I guess that’s about as bad as the act can
    get.
    except when the bull is so much less worse than the
    matador and the mat gets gored and the Americans go
    home happy and
    fuck all night
    trying to forget about the job in the
    morning.
     
 
    kill time came. the mat knew what to do. he knew the
    spot. it was like running a hot poker into a
    barrel of loose tin foil.
     
 
    the bull
    beaten and stabbed about the neck and back
    winded totally by ripping at a vision of a
    red cape that only
    gave, gave, gave
    folded over the horn forever—
    the bull was winded spiritually as
    well.
    and finally stood
    disgusted and doomed
    looking
    LOOKING.
     
 
    we had another
    drink. we knew the plot, the hero, the whole
    fucking thing. the sword went
    in.
     
 
    but it wasn’t
    over.
    the bull stood there.
    and with the sword cutting his vitals
    they came up.
     
 
    4 or 5 Mexicans with dirty
    behinds. including the
    mat.
    and they turned
    him. flicked their capes at
    him. punched him on the
    nose.
     
 
    still he wouldn’t
    fall.
    they were trying to push him into death
    but he was hanging
    in.
     
 
    and every now and then
    the head would remember
    and give a lunge of
    horn and
    they would step back
    remembering their own deaths.
     
 
    then the mat came up
    pulled the sword
    out, stuck it home
    again.
     
 
    still no good.
    the bull would not go
    down.
     
 
    we had another drink.
     
 
    “you see,” said Harry, “they keep turning him. that
    sword is cutting him. every time they make him move,
    the sword cuts again.”
     
 
    finally somebody took his foot and
    kicked the bull over and the bull
    fell down.
    but still
    it wasn’t any
    good.
    the bull kept kicking his
    legs, trying to get
    up. he wouldn’t
    quit.
     
 
    so then a little fat chap came
    out. he was all dressed in white and wore a little
    white butcher’s cap. he seemed quite
    angry.
    he had a short blade and walked up
    and very angry and quick
    he chopped and chopped and chopped and
    chopped. it appeared that he was chopping at the
    bull’s head, his
    brain.
     
 
    the bull couldn’t get at the boy in the
    butcher’s cap. he had to
    take it. finally one of the chops
    took.
     
 
    you could SEE the bull
    die. the bull gave it
    up. the crowd
    cheered.
     
 
    Harry took a
    drink, that was the end of that
    pint. and that
    matador.
    “what’s the name of the next
    bull?” I asked
    Harry.
     
 
    “I don’t know. the light is
    bad.”
     
 
    anyhow, the next bull came
    out.
     
 
    we had one more pint and the
    drive back in.
     

on a grant
     
     
    …an ocean liner
    the Captain smiles and farts and knows my
    name
    the sea is boiling and smells of
    torn chunks and warm raw meat
    and
    half-daft sick spiders try to
    wind their dead legs around each other
    around everything
    but they tangle off slide off drift off
    losing legs against the prow
    and wanting to scream and not being able to
    scream
    while
    I am on the grant from a University
    and
    translating Rimbaud and Lorca and
    Günter Grass over and over
    again
    then
    after a conversation on Proust and
    Patchen I rape a
    rich beautiful girl in my cabin
    and
    afterwards she turns into a
    dead peach tree which I
    hang on the wall
    then
    I awaken in a small dirty bedroom and the
    woman walks in:
    “listen, I need a stroller. the kid is
    getting too heavy to carry.”
     
 
    “o.k., o.k.”
     
 
    “but when?