You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense - Charles Bukowski [14]
starting fast
we each
at times
should
remember
the most
elevated
and
lucky
moment
of
our
lives.
for me
it
was
being
a
very young
man
and
sleeping
penniless
and
friendless
upon a
park
bench
in a
strange
city
which
doesn’t say
much
for all
those
many
decades
which
followed.
the crazy truth
the nut in the red outfit
came walking down the street
talking to himself
when a hotshot in a sports car
cut into an alley
in front of the nut
who hollered, “HEY, DOG DRIP!
SWINE SHIT! YOU GOT PEANUTS FOR
BRAINS?”
the hotshot braked his sports
car, backed toward the nut,
stopped,
said: “WHAT’S THAT YOU SAID,
BUDDY?”
“I said, YOU BETTER
DRIVE OFF WHILE YOU CAN,
ASSHOLE!”
the hotshot had his girl in the
car with him and started to
open the door.
“YOU BETTER NOT GET OUT OF THAT
CAR, PEANUT BRAIN!”
the door closed and the sports car
roared
off.
the nut in the red outfit then
continued to walk down the
street.
“THERE AIN’T NOTHIN’ NOWHERE,”
he said, “AND IT’S GETTING TO BE
LESS THAN NOTHING ALL THE
TIME!”
it was a great day
there on 7th Street just off
Weymouth
Drive.
drive through hell
the people are weary, unhappy and frustrated, the people are
bitter and vengeful, the people are deluded and fearful, the
people are angry and uninventive
and I drive among them on the freeway and they project
what is left of themselves in their manner of driving—
some more hateful, more thwarted than others—
some don’t like to be passed, some attempt to keep others
from passing
—some attempt to block lane changes
—some hate cars of a newer, more expensive model
—others in these cars hate the older cars.
the freeway is a circus of cheap and petty emotions, it’s
humanity on the move, most of them coming from some place they
hated and going to another they hate just as much or
more.
the freeways are a lesson in what we have become and
most of the crashes and deaths are the collision
of incomplete beings, of pitiful and demented
lives.
when I drive the freeways I see the soul of humanity of
my city and it’s ugly, ugly, ugly: the living have choked the
heart
away.
for the concerned:
if you get married they think you’re
finished
and if you are without a woman they think you’re
incomplete.
a large portion of my readers want me to
keep writing about bedding down with madwomen and
streetwalkers—
also, about being in jails and hospitals, or
starving or
puking my guts
out.
I agree that complacency hardly engenders an
immortal literature
but neither does
repetition.
for those readers now
sick at heart
believing that I’m a contented
man—
please have some
cheer: agony sometimes changes
form
but
it never ceases for
anybody.
a funny guy
Schopenhauer couldn’t abide the masses,
they drove him mad
but he was able to say,
“at least, I am not them.”
and this consoled him to some
extent
and I think one of his most humorous writings
was when he expostulated against some man who
uselessly cracked his whip
over his horse
completely destroying a thought process
Arthur was involved
in.
but the man with the whip was a part of the
whole
no matter how seemingly useless and
stupid
and once great thoughts
often with time
become useless and
stupid.
but Schopenhauer’s rage was so
beautiful
so well placed that I laughed
out loud
then
put him down
next to Nietzsche
who was also
all too
human.
shoes
when you’re young
a pair of
female
high-heeled shoes
just sitting
alone
in the closet
can fire your
bones;
when you’re old
it’s just
a pair of shoes
without
anybody
in them
and
just as
well.
coffee
I was having a coffee at the
counter
when a man
3 or 4 stools down
asked me,
“listen, weren’t you the
guy who was
hanging from his
heels
from that 4th floor
hotel room
the other
night?”
“yes,” I answered, “that
was me.”
“what made you do
that?” he asked.
“well, it’s pretty
involved.”
he looked away
then.
the waitress
who had been
standing there
asked me,