Bukowski Archives

I missed Bukowski's birthday (again) earlier this week. Here's a poem to make up for it.

Eat

talking of death
is like talking of
money -
we neither know the
price or the
worth,
yet looking down at my hands
I can guess
a little.

man's made for guessing and for
failure
and women
for the rest.

when the time comes
I hope I can remember
eating a pear.

we are sick now
with so many dead
dogs
skulls
armies
flowers
continents.

there is a fight -

this is it:
against the mechanics
of the thing.

eat a good pear today
so tomorrow
you can
remember
it.

-- Charles Bukowski

I'm ashamed to say that I didn't even realize that today was the fourth birthday in the life and time of information leafblower dot com slash blog until Peabs reminded me of this yesterday. He knows because it's also his birthday. So hey, have a happy one and do it up bro!

Since it's the weekend, here's some Buk to celebrate.

writing

often it is the only
thing
between you and
impossibility.
no drink,
no woman's love,
no wealth
can
match it.

nothing can save
you
except
writing.

it keeps the walls
from falling.
the hordes from
closing
in.

it blasts the
darkness.

writing is the
ultimate
psychiatrist,
the kindliest
god of all the
gods.

writing stalks
death.
it knows no
quit.

and writing
laughs
at itself,
at pain.

it is the last
expectation,
the last
explanation.

that's
what it
is.

-- Written by Charles Bukowski, taken from his book Betting On The Muse.

4/16/92 12:39 a.m.

...Anyway, a particularly bad day. The system that usually worked didn't work. The gods shuffle the deck.Time is mutilated and you are a fool. But time is made to be wasted. What are you going to do about it? You can't always be roaring full steam. You stop and you go. You hit a high and then you fall into a black pit. Do you have a cat? Or cats? They sleep baby. They can sleep 20 hours a day and they look beautiful. They know there's nothing to get excited about. The next meal. And a little something to kill now and then. When I'm being torn by forces, I just look at one or more of my cats. There are 9 of them. I just look at one of them sleeping or half-sleeping and I relax. It chills me out. For a while anyhow. Then my wires get crossed and I have to do it all over again. I can't understand writers that stop writing. How do they chill out?

-- Written by Charles Bukowski, taken from his book The Captain Is Out To Lunch And The Sailors Have Taken Over The Ship

More Bukowski here.

like in a chair the color of the sun
as you listen to lazy piano music
and the aircraft overhead are not
at war.
where the last drink is as good as
the first
and you realized that the promises
you made yourself were
kept.
that's plenty.
that last: about the promises:
what's not so good is that the few
friends you had are
dead and they seem
irreplaceable.
as for women, you didn't know enough
early enough
and you knew enough
too late.
and if more self analysis is allowed: it's
nice that you turned out well-
honed,
that you arrived late
and remained generally
capable.
outside of that, not much to say
except you can leave without
regret.
until then, a bit more amusement,
a bit more endurance,
leaning back into it.

like the dog who got across
the busy street:
not all of it was good
luck.

-- written by Charles Bukowski, taken from the book what matters most is how well you walk through the fire.

DCeiver just pointed out that I missed Bukowski's birthday yesterday. And right he is. Apparently I did the same thing last year.

Oops.

Well, that's the bad news. The good news is that Factotum (caution:audio) opens this weekend in some markets. It hits DC next Friday. E Street Cinema anyone? Beers beforehand, obvs.

The movie has been panned in pretty much every review that I've read, but it's not like that will stop me from seeing it.

Since I don't have a poem for you, check out some quotes over at Wikiquote.

Of course you can always check out my Bukowski archives.