Oh Yes
there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realize this
and most often
when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than
too late.
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My favorite Bukowski poem:
The Genius Of The Crowd
there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day
and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace
those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach love do not have love
beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average
but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect
like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock
their finest art
beautiful...
shareit was just a little while ago
almost dawn
blackbirds on the telephone wire
waiting
as I eat yesterday's
forgotten sandwich
at 6 a.m.
an a quiet Sunday morning.
one shoe in the corner
standing upright
the other laying on it's
side.
yes, some lives were made to be
wasted.
this one's my favorite:
"quiet clean girls in gingham dresses ...
all I've ever known are whores, ex-prostitutes,
madwomen. I see men with quiet,
gentle women I see them in the supermarkets,
I see them walking down the streets together,
I see them in their apartments: people at
peace, living together. I know that their
peace is only partial, but there is
peace, often hours and days of peace.
all I've ever known are pill freaks, alcoholics,
whores, ex-prostitutes, madwomen.
when one leaves
another arrives
worse than her predecessor.
I see so many men with quiet clean girls in
gingham dresses
girls with faces that are not wolverine or
predatory.
"don't ever bring a whore around," I tell my
few friends, "I'll fall in love with her."
"you couldn't stand a good woman, Bukowski."
I need a good woman. I need a good woman
more than I need this typewriter, more than
I need my automobile, more than I need
Mozart; I need a good woman so badly that I
can taste her in the air, I can feel her
at my fingertips, I can see sidewalks built
for her feet to walk upon,
I can see pillows for her head,
I can feel my waiting laughter,
I can see her petting a cat,
I can see her sleeping,
I can see her slippers on the floor.
I know that she exists
but where is she upon this earth
as the whores keep finding me?"
Democracy
fellow citizens
the problem never was the Democratic
System
the problem is
you
the bluebird
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?
PULL A STRING, A PUPPET MOVES
each man must realize
that it can all disappear very
quickly:
the cat, the woman, the job,
the front tire,
the bed, the walls, the
room; all our necessities
including love,
rest on foundations of sand -
and any given cause,
no matter how unrelated:
the death of a boy in Hong Kong
or a blizzard in Omaha ...
can serve as your undoing.
all your chinaware crashing to the
kitchen floor, your girl will enter
and you'll be standing, drunk,
in the center of it and she'll ask:
my god, what's the matter?
and you'll answer: I don't know,
I don't know ...
Great poem indeed!
In which book can I find: PULL A STRING, A PUPPET MOVES?
"Pull a String, A Puppet Moves" is in Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame.
shareTorched-Out
the worst was closing the bars at
2 a.m.
with my lady.
going home to get a couple hours
sleep,
then as a substitute postal carrier
to be on call at
5:30 a.m.
sitting there with the other
subs
along the little ledge
outside the magazine
cases.
too often given a route to
case and carry,
starting 15 or 20 minutes
late,
the sweat pouring down
your face,
gathering under the
armpits.
you’re dizzy, sick,
trying to get the case
up, pull it down and
sack it for the truck to
pick up.
you worked on sheer
nerve,
reaching down into the
gut,
flailing, fighting
as the last minutes,
the last
seconds
rushed toward
you.
then to get on the
route with the people
and the dogs,
to make the rounds
on a new
route,
making your legs
go,
making your feet
walk
as the sun baked
you alive,
you fought through
your first
round
with 6 or 7 more to
go.
never time for lunch,
you’d get a write-up
if you were 5 minutes
late.
a few too many write-ups and you were
finished,
they moved you
out.
it was living, a
deathly
a living, to somehow
finish your route,
come in and often
be told
you were assigned
to the night pick-
up run, another
ball-buster.
or
if you got out of that
to drive on in
to your place
to find your lady
already drunk,
dirty dishes in the
sink,
the dog unfed,
the flowers unwatered,
the bed unmade,
the ashtrays full of
punched-out
lipstick-smeared
cigarettes.
then to get in the tub
with a beer.
you were no longer
young,
you were no longer
anything,
just worn down and
out
with your lady in the
other room
lisping inanities and
insanities,
pouring her glasses
of cheap
wine.
you were always going
to get rid of her,
you were working on
that,
you were caught between
the post office and
her,
it was the vise of
death,
each side crushing in
upon you.
“Jesus, baby, please,
please, just shut up for
a little while . . .”
“ah, you *beep*
what’re you doing in
there, playing with
yourself?”
to come roaring out
of that tub, all the impossibilities
of that day and that life
corkscrewing through you
ripping away
everything.
out of that tub,
a naked, roaring rocket
of battered body and
mind:
“YOU GOD DAMNED WHORE,
WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT
ANYTHING?
SITTING THERE ON YOUR
DEAD ASS AND
SUCKING AT THE VINO!”
to rush into the other room,
looking all about,
the walls whirling,
the entire world tilting in
against you.
“DON’T HIT ME! DON’T HIT
ME!
YOU’D HIT ME BUT YOU
WOULDN’T HIT A
MAN!”
“HELL NO, I WOULDN’T
HIT A MAN, YOU THINK
I’M CRAZY?”
to grab the bottle from
her,
to drain damn near
half of it.
to find another bottle,
open it,
pour a tall waterglass
full,
then to smash the glass
against a
wall,
to explode it like
that
in purple glory.
to find a new glass,
sit down and pour a
full one.
she’d be quiet
then.
we’d drink an hour or so
like that.
then, to get
dressed,
cigarette dangling,
you are feeling somewhat
better,
then you are moving
toward the door.
“hey! where the hell
you going?”
“I’m going to the *beep*
bar!”
“not without me!
not without me, buster!”
“all right, get your ass
into gear!”
to walk there together.
to get our stools.
to sit before the long mirror.
the mirror you always hated to
look into.
to tell the bartender,
“vodka 7.”
To have her tell the bartender,
“scotch and water.”
everything was far away
then,
the post office, the world,
the past and the
future.
to have our drinks arrive.
to take the first hit in the
dark bar.
life couldn’t get any better.
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so you want to be a writer?
if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.
don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.
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