You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense - Charles Bukowski [5]
and all that mattered
was the next
bottle
and we drank and sang
and
fought
were in and out
of drunk
tanks
car crashes
hospitals
we barricaded ourselves
against the
police
and the other roomers
hated
us
and the desk clerk
of the hotel
feared
us
and it went on
and
on
and it was one of the
most wonderful times
of my
life.
darkness
darkness falls upon Humanity
and faces become terrible
things
that wanted more than there
was.
all our days are marked with
unexpected
affronts—some
disastrous, others
less so
but the process is
wearing and
continuous.
attrition rules.
most give
way
leaving
empty spaces
where people should
be.
our progenitors, our
educational systems, the
land, the media, the
way
have
deluded and misled the
masses: they have been
defeated
by the aridity of
the actual
dream.
they were
unaware that
achievement or victory or
luck or
whatever the hell you
want to call
it
must have
its defeats.
it’s only the re-gathering and
going on
which lends substance
to whatever magic
might possibly
evolve.
and now
as we ready to self-destruct
there is very little left to
kill
which makes the tragedy
less and more
much much
more.
termites of the page
the problem that I’ve found with
most poets that I have known is that
they’ve never had an 8 hour job
and there is nothing
that will put a person
more in touch
with the realities
than
an 8 hour job.
most of these poets
that I have known
have
seemingly existed on
air alone
but
it hasn’t been truly
so:
behind them has been
a family member
usually a wife or mother
supporting these
souls
and
so it’s no wonder
they have written so
poorly:
they have been protected
against the actualities
from the
beginning
and they
understand nothing
but the ends of their
fingernails
and
their delicate
hairlines
and
their lymph
nodes.
their words are
unlived, unfurnished, un-
true, and worse—so
fashionably
dull.
soft and safe
they gather together to
plot, hate,
gossip, most of these
American poets
pushing and hustling their
talents
playing at
greatness.
poet (?):
that word needs re-
defining.
when I hear that
word
I get a rising in the
gut
as if I were about to
puke.
let them have the
stage
so long
as I need not be
in the
audience.
a good time
now look, she said, stretched out on the bed, I don’t want anything
personal, let’s just do it, I don’t want to get involved, got
it?
she kicked off her high-heeled shoes…
sure, he said, standing there, let’s just pretend that we’ve
already done it, there’s nothing less involved than that, is
there?
what the hell do you mean? she asked.
I mean, he said, I’d rather drink
anyhow.
and he poured himself one.
it was a lousy night in Vegas and he walked to the window and
looked out at the dumb lights.
you a fag? she asked, you a god damned
fag?
no, he said.
you don’t have to get shitty, she said, just because you lost at
the tables—we drove all the way here to have a good time and
now look at you: sucking at that booze, you coulda done that in
L.A.!
right, he said, one thing I do like to get involved with is the
fucking bottle.
I want you to take me home, she said.
my pleasure, he said, let’s
go.
it was one of those times where nothing was lost because nothing
had ever been found and as she got dressed it was sad for
him
not because of him and the lady but because of all the millions
like him and the lady
as the lights blinked out there, everything so effortlessly
false.
she was ready, fast: let’s get the hell out of here, she
said.
right, he said, and they walked out the door together.
the still trapeze
Saroyan told his wife, “I’ve got to
gamble in order to
write.” she told him to
go ahead.
he lost $350,000.00
mostly at the racetrack
but still couldn’t write or
pay his taxes.
he ran from the govt. and exiled himself
in Paris.
he later came back, sweated it
out
in hock up to his
ass—
royalties dropping
off.
he still couldn’t write or
what