and I know in my heart that it is right
Things I liked from this poetry collection by Bukowski.
the people, nothe people, no:
the strongest men are the fewest
and the strongest women die alone
too
---
purple glow:
you would
like to hand your heart to her
and say
touch it
but then
give it back.
*
well, my mind has never been the same
since and the typing helps but you can’t
type all the time,
*
I light up and smoke a cigarette,
then get up and begin the long
walk, a walk I know will
entail at least a couple of
hours
to find my car (past experience)
but I know that when I
find it, the rush of
happiness will be
all I need
and that I will then be able to
begin my life all over
again.
---
inverted love song:
and we have not been fooled,
it was only that we wanted to believe.
-----
brainless eyes:
pain is the joy of knowing
the unkindest truth
that arrives without
warning.
---
war and peace
to experience
real agony
is
something
hard
to write about,
impossible
to understand
while it
grips you;
you’re
frightened
out of
your
wits,
can’t sit
still,
move
or even
go
decently
insane.
and then
when your
composure
finally
returns
and you are
able to
evaluate
the
experience
it’s almost as
if it
had happened
to
somebody
else
because
look at
you
now:
calm
detached
say
cleaning your
fingernails
looking through
a
drawer
for
stamps
applying
polish
to your
shoes
or
paying the
electric
bill.
life is
and is not
a
gentle
bore.
---
the harder you try:
those constipated minds that seek
larger meaning
will be dispatched with the other
garbage.
back off.
if there is light
it will find
you.
----
beware women grown
old
who were never
anything but
young.
----
no Cagney, me:
what a woman wants is a
reaction.
-----
kissing me away:
it was like any other
relationship, there was
jealousy on both sides,
there were split-ups and
reconciliations.
there were also fragmented moments of
great peace and beauty.
I often tried to get away from her and
she tried to get away from me
but it was difficult:
Cupid, in his strange way, was really
there.
*
we finally got free of
one another.
it’s sad but it’s
standard operating procedure
(I am constantly confused by
the lack of durability in human
affairs).
------
a plausible finish
there ought to be a place to go
when you can’t sleep
or you’re tired of getting drunk
and the grass doesn’t work anymore,
and I don’t mean to go
to hash or cocaine,
I mean a place to go to besides
the death that’s waiting
or to a love that doesn’t work
anymore.
there ought to be a place to go
when you can’t sleep
besides to a tv set or to a movie
or to buy a newspaper
or to read a novel.
it’s not having that place to go to
that creates the people now in madhouses
and the suicides.
I suppose what most people do
when there isn’t any place to go
is to go to some place or to something
that hardly satisfies them,
and this ritual tends to sandpaper them
down to where they can somehow continue even
without hope.
those faces you see every day on the streets
were not created
entirely without
hope: be kind to them:
like you
they have not
escaped.
-----
the creation coffin
the ability to suffer and endure,
that’s nobility, friend.
the ability to suffer and endure
for an idea, a feeling, a way,
that’s art, my friend.
the ability to suffer and endure
when love fails,
that’s hell, old friend.
nobility, art and hell,
let’s talk about art for a while.
destiny is my crippled daughter.
look here, it’s difficult,
me against them,
with them.
Kafka, let me in!
Hemingway beware!
Hegel, you’re funny!
Cervantes, you mean you wrote that
novel at the age of
80?
great writers are indecent people
they live unfairly
saving the best part for paper.
good human beings save the world
so that bastards like me can keep creating art,
become immortal.
if you read this after I am long dead
it means I made it.
so writers of the world
it’s your turn now
to misuse your wife
abuse your children
love thyself
live off the funds of others
dislike all art created before and
during your time,
and dislike or even hate humanity
singly or en masse.
bastards, even if you read this
after I am long dead
forget about me. I
probably wasn’t that
good.
---
the 7 horse:
like most others in the world
they believe that failure
is caused by some factor
besides themselves.
-----
the hog in the hedge:
but people also quit when they shouldn’t
------
the great debate
he sent me his latest book.
I had once liked his writing
very much.
he had been wonderfully crude, simple,
troubled.
now he had learned how to gracefully
arrange his words and thoughts
on paper.
now he taught courses at the
universities.
but I wondered about
what?
his words were now
very pale.
they spread across the page
like a mist
filling it
but saying
very little.
he didn’t seem to be the
same man.
where had he gone?
why do
such deaths seem
mysterious?
it’s well that
new poets come along
new quarterbacks
new matadors
new dictators
new revolutionaries
new butchers
new pawnbrokers.
because spiritual death arrives
much more quickly and unexpectedly than
physical demise.
I drop his new book
into the wastebasket.
I don’t want it
around.
he was now a
successful writer
which meant
that his work
no longer made
anybody
angry
disgusted
or sad.
never made
anybody
laugh
never made
anybody
feel that rush of wonder
while reading
it.
but in a world
where even
the disappearance
of the dinosaur
remains a mystery
we should accept
the mysterious fact of
the vanishing poet.
and when we accept
that
we are simply
making way for
our own final
invisibility.
----
law
look, he told me,
all those little children dying in the trees,
and I said, what?
and he said, look,
and I went to the window
and sure enough, there they were hanging in the trees,
dead and dying,
and I said, what does it mean?
and he said, I don’t know but it’s been authorized.
the next day when I got up
they had dogs in the trees
dead and hanging and dying,
and I turned to my friend and said,
what does it mean?
and he said, don’t worry about it,
it’s the way of things, they took a vote,
it was decided,
and the next day it was cats,
I don’t see how they caught all those cats so fast
and hung them in the trees
but they did,
and the next day it was horses and that wasn’t so good
because many branches broke,
and after bacon and eggs the next day
my friend pulled the pistol on me
over the coffee and said,
let’s go,
and we went outside
and there were all these men and women in the
trees, most of them dead or
dying, and he got the rope ready, and I said,
what does it mean? and he said, don’t worry,
286
it’s been authorized, it’s constitutional, it passed by
majority vote, and he tied my hands behind my back,
then opened the noose.
I don’t know who’s going to hang me, he said,
when I get done with you. I suppose, finally,
there’ll be just one of us left
and he’ll have to hang
himself.
suppose he doesn’t? I asked.
he has to, he said, it’s been authorized.
o, I said, well, let’s get on
with it
then.
the strongest men are the fewest
and the strongest women die alone
too
---
purple glow:
you would
like to hand your heart to her
and say
touch it
but then
give it back.
*
well, my mind has never been the same
since and the typing helps but you can’t
type all the time,
*
I light up and smoke a cigarette,
then get up and begin the long
walk, a walk I know will
entail at least a couple of
hours
to find my car (past experience)
but I know that when I
find it, the rush of
happiness will be
all I need
and that I will then be able to
begin my life all over
again.
---
inverted love song:
and we have not been fooled,
it was only that we wanted to believe.
-----
brainless eyes:
pain is the joy of knowing
the unkindest truth
that arrives without
warning.
---
war and peace
to experience
real agony
is
something
hard
to write about,
impossible
to understand
while it
grips you;
you’re
frightened
out of
your
wits,
can’t sit
still,
move
or even
go
decently
insane.
and then
when your
composure
finally
returns
and you are
able to
evaluate
the
experience
it’s almost as
if it
had happened
to
somebody
else
because
look at
you
now:
calm
detached
say
cleaning your
fingernails
looking through
a
drawer
for
stamps
applying
polish
to your
shoes
or
paying the
electric
bill.
life is
and is not
a
gentle
bore.
---
the harder you try:
those constipated minds that seek
larger meaning
will be dispatched with the other
garbage.
back off.
if there is light
it will find
you.
----
beware women grown
old
who were never
anything but
young.
----
no Cagney, me:
what a woman wants is a
reaction.
-----
kissing me away:
it was like any other
relationship, there was
jealousy on both sides,
there were split-ups and
reconciliations.
there were also fragmented moments of
great peace and beauty.
I often tried to get away from her and
she tried to get away from me
but it was difficult:
Cupid, in his strange way, was really
there.
*
we finally got free of
one another.
it’s sad but it’s
standard operating procedure
(I am constantly confused by
the lack of durability in human
affairs).
------
a plausible finish
there ought to be a place to go
when you can’t sleep
or you’re tired of getting drunk
and the grass doesn’t work anymore,
and I don’t mean to go
to hash or cocaine,
I mean a place to go to besides
the death that’s waiting
or to a love that doesn’t work
anymore.
there ought to be a place to go
when you can’t sleep
besides to a tv set or to a movie
or to buy a newspaper
or to read a novel.
it’s not having that place to go to
that creates the people now in madhouses
and the suicides.
I suppose what most people do
when there isn’t any place to go
is to go to some place or to something
that hardly satisfies them,
and this ritual tends to sandpaper them
down to where they can somehow continue even
without hope.
those faces you see every day on the streets
were not created
entirely without
hope: be kind to them:
like you
they have not
escaped.
-----
the creation coffin
the ability to suffer and endure,
that’s nobility, friend.
the ability to suffer and endure
for an idea, a feeling, a way,
that’s art, my friend.
the ability to suffer and endure
when love fails,
that’s hell, old friend.
nobility, art and hell,
let’s talk about art for a while.
destiny is my crippled daughter.
look here, it’s difficult,
me against them,
with them.
Kafka, let me in!
Hemingway beware!
Hegel, you’re funny!
Cervantes, you mean you wrote that
novel at the age of
80?
great writers are indecent people
they live unfairly
saving the best part for paper.
good human beings save the world
so that bastards like me can keep creating art,
become immortal.
if you read this after I am long dead
it means I made it.
so writers of the world
it’s your turn now
to misuse your wife
abuse your children
love thyself
live off the funds of others
dislike all art created before and
during your time,
and dislike or even hate humanity
singly or en masse.
bastards, even if you read this
after I am long dead
forget about me. I
probably wasn’t that
good.
---
the 7 horse:
like most others in the world
they believe that failure
is caused by some factor
besides themselves.
-----
the hog in the hedge:
but people also quit when they shouldn’t
------
the great debate
he sent me his latest book.
I had once liked his writing
very much.
he had been wonderfully crude, simple,
troubled.
now he had learned how to gracefully
arrange his words and thoughts
on paper.
now he taught courses at the
universities.
but I wondered about
what?
his words were now
very pale.
they spread across the page
like a mist
filling it
but saying
very little.
he didn’t seem to be the
same man.
where had he gone?
why do
such deaths seem
mysterious?
it’s well that
new poets come along
new quarterbacks
new matadors
new dictators
new revolutionaries
new butchers
new pawnbrokers.
because spiritual death arrives
much more quickly and unexpectedly than
physical demise.
I drop his new book
into the wastebasket.
I don’t want it
around.
he was now a
successful writer
which meant
that his work
no longer made
anybody
angry
disgusted
or sad.
never made
anybody
laugh
never made
anybody
feel that rush of wonder
while reading
it.
but in a world
where even
the disappearance
of the dinosaur
remains a mystery
we should accept
the mysterious fact of
the vanishing poet.
and when we accept
that
we are simply
making way for
our own final
invisibility.
----
law
look, he told me,
all those little children dying in the trees,
and I said, what?
and he said, look,
and I went to the window
and sure enough, there they were hanging in the trees,
dead and dying,
and I said, what does it mean?
and he said, I don’t know but it’s been authorized.
the next day when I got up
they had dogs in the trees
dead and hanging and dying,
and I turned to my friend and said,
what does it mean?
and he said, don’t worry about it,
it’s the way of things, they took a vote,
it was decided,
and the next day it was cats,
I don’t see how they caught all those cats so fast
and hung them in the trees
but they did,
and the next day it was horses and that wasn’t so good
because many branches broke,
and after bacon and eggs the next day
my friend pulled the pistol on me
over the coffee and said,
let’s go,
and we went outside
and there were all these men and women in the
trees, most of them dead or
dying, and he got the rope ready, and I said,
what does it mean? and he said, don’t worry,
286
it’s been authorized, it’s constitutional, it passed by
majority vote, and he tied my hands behind my back,
then opened the noose.
I don’t know who’s going to hang me, he said,
when I get done with you. I suppose, finally,
there’ll be just one of us left
and he’ll have to hang
himself.
suppose he doesn’t? I asked.
he has to, he said, it’s been authorized.
o, I said, well, let’s get on
with it
then.
