Come on In! - Charles Bukowski [34]
stumbling in this the
darkest
hour
the last gamble has been
lost
as I
reach
for
bone
silence.
blue
blue fish, the blue night, a blue knife—
everything is blue.
and my cats are blue: blue fur, blue claws,
blue whiskers, blue eyes.
my bed lamp shines
blue.
inside, my blue heart pumps blue blood.
my fingernails, my toenails are
blue
and around my bed floats a
blue ghost.
even the taste inside my mouth is
blue.
and I am alone and dying and
blue.
twilight musings
the drifting of the mind.
the slow loss, the leaking away.
one’s demise is not very interesting.
from my bed I watch 3 birds through the east window:
one coal black, one dark brown, the
other yellow.
as night falls I watch the red lights on the bridge blink on and off.
I am stretched out in bed with the covers up to my chin.
I have no idea who won at the racetrack today.
I must go back into the hospital tomorrow.
why me?
why not?
mind and heart
unaccountably we are alone
forever alone
and it was meant to be
that way,
it was never meant
to be any other way—
and when the death struggle
begins
the last thing I wish to see
is
a ring of human faces
hovering over me—
better just my old friends,
the walls of my self,
let only them be there.
I have been alone but seldom
lonely.
I have satisfied my thirst
at the well
of my self
and that wine was good,
the best I ever had,
and tonight
sitting
staring into the dark
I now finally understand
the dark and the
light and everything
in between.
peace of mind and heart
arrives
when we accept what
is:
having been
born into this
strange life
we must accept
the wasted gamble of our
days
and take some satisfaction in
the pleasure of
leaving it all
behind.
cry not for me.
grieve not for me.
read
what I’ve written
then
forget it
all.
drink from the well
of your self
and begin
again.
EXTRACT
FROM CHARLES BUKOWSKI’S
HOLLYWOOD
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM CANONGATE
Bukowski’s alter ego, Henry Chinaski, returns, revelling in his eternal penchant for booze, women and horse-racing as he makes the precarious journey from poet to screenwriter. Based on Bukowski’s experiences when working on the film Barfly, Hollywood is an irreverent roman à clef serving up the beating heart of La-la land with razor-sharp humour.
‘As always there is an unerring accuracy to his insight, and no other book gets as
close to the corrupt heart of American movie-making.’ Guardian
‘Charles Bukowski has written a classic in the take-the-money-and-don’t-run
category of Hollywood fiction. This is the genre wherein Real Writers who have
been seduced into screenwriting (than which nothing is more lowercase) live to tell
all shamelessly.’ New York Times Book Review
£7.99
ISBN 978 1 84195 996 2
CHAPTER ONE
A COUPLE OF days later Pinchot phoned. He said he wanted to go ahead with the screenplay. We should come down and see him?
So we got the directions and were in the Volks and heading for Marina del Rey. Strange territory.
Then we were down at the harbor, driving past the boats. Most of them were sailboats and people were fiddling about on deck. They were dressed in their special sailing clothes, caps, dark shades. Somehow, most of them had apparently escaped the daily grind of living. They had never been caught up in that grind and never would be. Such were the rewards of the Chosen in the land of the free. After a fashion, those people looked silly to me. And, of course, I wasn’t even in their thoughts.
We turned right, down from the docks and went past streets laid out in alphabetical order, with fancy names. We found the street, turned left, found the number, pulled into the driveway. The sand came right up to us and the ocean was close enough to be seen and far enough away to be safe. The sand seemed cleaner than other sand and the water seemed bluer and the breeze seemed kinder.
‘Look,’ I said to Sarah, ‘we have just landed upon the outpost of death. My soul is puking.’
‘Will you stop worrying about your soul?’ Sarah responded.