Bukowski Archives

$180 gone

lost my ass at the races
now sitting with the flu
listening to Wagner on the radio
I've got this small heater humming.

I'm not dead yet
yet not dead
I want to see more kneecaps under
tight nylon hose.

I'm re-grouping,
I'm dreaming up the counter-attack.

lost my ass at the races
the Sierra Madre smiling at me
lost my ass at the races
walked through a wall of defeat.

I saw a dead cat this morning
both front legs sheared off
he was lying by the garbage can
as I walked by.

this is the hardest game
defeat grows like flowers
the whores sit in chairs before their doorways
Attila the Hun sleeps in a rubber mask at night.

Wagner dies, Rimbaud quit writing, Christ spit it out.

I lost my ass at the races today
and was reminded of history
of waste and error
and of strangled dreams.

we want it too easy
and this is the hardest game.

the small heater hums
as I smoke
looking at the walls.

- Charles Bukowski, from his book
What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

Bach, I said, he had 20 children.
he played the horses during the day.
he fucked at night
and drank in the mornings.
he wrote music in between.

at least that's what I told her
when she asked me,
when do you do your writing?

artisitic slefishness

what's genius?
I don't know
but I do know that
the difference between a madman and a
professional is
that
a pro does as well as he can within what
he has set out to do
and a madman
does exceptionally well at what
he can't help
doing.

now I am looking
into this unshaded lightbulb
at 11:37 p.m. on a Monday night
thinking
tiny names
like
Van Gogh
Chatterson
Plath
Crane
Artaud

Chinaski

both selections written by Charles Bukowski and taken from his book
What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

the dog jumps up on the bed
crawls over me.
"are you the Word?" I ask him
he doesn't answer.
"are you the Word?" I'm looking for the Word."
he has brown and solemn eyes.
"I'm waiting for the Word," I tell him,
"I'm walking around like a man
in a large hot
frying pan."
he wags his tail and tries to
lick my face.

"listen," she says from the bedroom,
"why don't you get out of bed
and stop talking to that dog?"

my parents didn't understand me
either.

- Charles Bukowski, from his book
what matters most is how well you walk through the fire

the lid to the great jar
opens
and out tumbles a
Christ Child.
I throw it to my cat
who bats it around in the
air
but soon tires of
the lack of
response.
it is near the end of
February in a so far
banal year.
not a damn good war
in sight anywhere.
I light an Italian cigar,
it's slim, tastes bitter.
I inhale the space between
continents
stretch my legs.
it's moments like
this - you can feel it
happening - that you grow
transformed
partly into something
else strange and
unimaginable -
so when death comes
it can only take
part of
you

I exhale a perfect
smoke ring
as a soprano sings to me
through the radio

each night counts for something
or else we'd all
go mad.

- Charles Bukowski, from his book
what matters most is how well you walk through the fire

That's the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink.

If something happens, you drink in an attempt to forget;

if something good happens, you drink in order to celebrate;

and if nothing happens, you drink to make something happen.

- Charles Bukowski 1978



Wise words from the master. Respect.