Charles Bukowski, “People as Flowers”

such singing’s going on in the
streets -
the people look like flowers
at last

the police have turned in their
badges
the army has shredded its uniforms and
weapons. there isn’t any need for
jails or newspapers or madhouses or
locks on the doors.

a woman rushes through my door
TAKE ME! LOVE ME!
she screams.

she’s as beautiful as as a cigar
after a steak dinner. I
taker her.

but after she leaves
I feel odd
I lock the door
go to the desk and take the pistol
from the drawer. it has its own sense of
love.
LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! the crowd sings in the
streets.

I fire through the window
glass cutting my face and
arms. I get a 12-year-old-boy
an old man with a beard
and a lovely girl something like a
lilac.

the crowd stops singing to
look at me.
I stand in the broken window
the blood on my
face.

“this,” I yell at them, “is in defense of the
poverty of self and in the defense of the freedom
not to love!”

“leave him alone,” somebody says,
“he is insane, he has lived the bad life for
too long.”

I walk into the kitchen
sit down and pour a
glass of whiskey.

I decide that the only definition of
Truth (which changes)
is that it is that thing or act or
belief which the crowd
rejects.

there is a pounding at my
door. it is the same woman again.
she is as beautiful as finding a
fat green frog in the
garden.

I have 2 bullets left and
use them
both.

nothing in the air but
clouds. nothing in the air but
rain. each man’s life too short to
find meaning and
all the books almost a
waste.

I sit and listen to them
singing
I sit and listen to
them.

(submitted by ewcertain)

Charles Bukowski, “As the Sparrow”

To give life you must take life,
and as our grief falls flat and hollow
upon the billion-blooded sea
I pass upon serious inward-breaking shoals rimmed
with white-legged, white-bellied rotting creatures
lengthily dead and rioting against surrounding scenes.
Dear child, I only did to you what the sparrow
did to you; I am old when it is fashionable to be
young; I cry when it is fashionable to laugh.
I hated you when it would have taken less courage
to love.

(submitted by justanotherayesha)

Charles Bukowski, “The Laughing Heart”

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

(submitted by tommyh7390)

Charles Bukowski, “8 count”

from my bed
I watch
3 birds
on a telephone
wire.

one flies
off.
then
another.

one is left,
then
it too
is gone.

my typewriter is
tombstone
still.

and I am
reduced to bird
watching.

just thought I’d
let you
know,
fucker. 

(submitted by undecidedname) 

Charles Bukowski, “dark night poem”

they say that
nothing is wasted:
either that
or
it all is.

(submitted by lademarche) 

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
failing.
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. —Charles Bukowski, “Writing” (via holdonmagnolia)

(Source: theoryoflostthings)