“writing has been my fountain of youth
my whore,
my love,
my gamble.

The gods have spoiled me.”

Charles Bukowski

“If you are going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery, isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you are going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It is the only good fight there is.”

Charles Bukowski

“The tired sun…

“The tired sunsets
and the tired people-
It takes a lifetime to die
and no time at
all.”

Charles Bukowski

An Almost Made Up Poem

“I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny
blue hands, no, your hands are not tiny
they are small, and the fountain is in France
where you wrote me that last letter and
I answered and never heard from you again.
you used to write insane poems about
ANGELS AND GOD, all in upper case, and you
knew famous artists and most of them
were your lovers, and I wrote back, it’ all right,
go ahead, enter their lives, I’ not jealous
because we’ never met. we got close once in
New Orleans, one half block, but never met, never
touched. so you went with the famous and wrote
about the famous, and, of course, what you found out
is that the famous are worried about
their fame –– not the beautiful young girl in bed
with them, who gives them that, and then awakens
in the morning to write upper case poems about
ANGELS AND GOD. we know God is dead, they’ told
us, but listening to you I wasn’ sure. maybe
it was the upper case. you were one of the
best female poets and I told the publishers,
editors, “ her, print her, she’ mad but she’
magic. there’ no lie in her fire.” I loved you
like a man loves a woman he never touches, only
writes to, keeps little photographs of. I would have
loved you more if I had sat in a small room rolling a
cigarette and listened to you piss in the bathroom,
but that didn’ happen. your letters got sadder.
your lovers betrayed you. kid, I wrote back, all
lovers betray. it didn’ help. you said
you had a crying bench and it was by a bridge and
the bridge was over a river and you sat on the crying
bench every night and wept for the lovers who had
hurt and forgotten you. I wrote back but never
heard again. a friend wrote me of your suicide
3 or 4 months after it happened. if I had met you
I would probably have been unfair to you or you
to me. it was best like this.”

—  by Charles Bukowski

Fingernails; Nostrils; Shoelaces

The gas line is leaking, the bird is gone from the

cage, the skyline is dotted with vultures;

Benny finally got off the stuff and Betty now has a job

as a waitress; and

the chimney sweep was quite delicate as he

giggled up through the

soot.

I walked miles through the city and recognized

nothing as a giant claw ate at my

stomach while the inside of my head felt

airy as if I was about to go

mad.

It’s not so much that nothing means

anything but more that it keeps meaning

nothing,

there’s no release, just gurus and self-

appointed gods and hucksters.

The more people say, the less there is

to say.

Even the best books are dry sawdust.

I watch the boxing matches and take copious

notes on futility.

Then the gate springs open again

and there are beautiful silks

and powerful horses riding

against the sky.

Such sadness: everything trying to

break through into

blossom.

Every day should be a miracle instead

of a machination.

In my hand rests the last bluebird.

The shades roar like lions and the walls

rattle, dance around my head.

Then her eyes look at me, love breaks my

bones and I

laugh.

Charles Bukowski