machine guns towers & timeclocks

  
I feel gypped by dunces
as if reality were the property
of little men
with luck and a headstart,
and I sit in the cold
wondering about purple flowers
along a fence
while the rest of them            
stack gold          
and Cadillacs and         
ladyfriends,         
I wonder about palmleaves          
and gravestones          
and the preciousness of a          
cocoon-like sleep;         
to be a lizard would be          
bad enough     
to be scalding in the sun         
would be bad enough          
but not so bad        
as being built up to          
Man-size and Man-life          
and not wanting the          
game, not wanting         
machineguns and towers and          
timeclocks,          
not wanting a carwash         
a toothpull     
a wristwatch, cufflinks          
a pocket radio         
tweezers and cotton          
a cabinet full of iodine,          
not wanting cocktail parties          
a front lawn          
sing-togethers       
new shoes, Christmas presents          
life insurance, Newsweek          
162 baseball games         
a vacation in Bermuda.        
not wanting not wanting,         
and I judge the purple flowers       
better off than I        
the lizard better off          
the dark green hose      
the ever grass         
the trees the birds,        
the cats dreaming in the butter         
sun are         
better off than         
I, getting into this old coat now        
feeling for my cigarettes          
car keys          
a roadmap back,          
going out          
down the walk          
like a man to be executed        
walking toward it    
surely,        
going into it         
without guards          
driving toward it          
racing at it        
70 miles per hour,        
jockeying        
cussing         
dropping ashes       
deadly ashes of every          
deadly thing        
burning,         
the caterpillar knows less         
horror         
the armies of ants are         
braver          
the kiss of a snake          
less ravenous,          
I only want the sky          
to burn me more and more          
burn me out          
so that the sun begins at          
6 in the morning          
and goes past midnight          
like a drunken door always open,          
I drive toward it          
not wanting it          
getting it getting it         
as the cat stretches
yawns
and rolls over into         
another dream.  

Charles Bukowski