grandchild-of-bukowski-blog

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Finish, II

we all falter, give way, want to toss it in. the bad days come. the bad days come more often. we sit and wait, thinking, it will pass. but the day will come when it will not pass.  it will stay. you will sit in a garden chair breathing the thick air.  and an old cat will come and lay at your feet.  he will wait with you. death comes slowly some times. sometimes much too slowly. you will reach down and pet the cat.  thinking again of the mad and drunken years.

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The Strongest of the Strange

you won’t see them often for wherever the crowd is they are not. those odd ones, not many but from them come the few good paintings the few good symphonies the few good books and other works. and from the best of the strange ones perhaps nothing. they are their own paintings their own books their own music their own work. sometimes I think I see them – say a certain old man sitting on a certain bench in a certain way or a quick face going the other way in a passing automobile or there’s a certain motion of the hands of a bag-boy or a bag- girl while packing supermarket groceries. sometimes it is even somebody you have been living with for some time - you will notice a lightning quick glance never seen from them before. sometimes you will only note their existance suddenly in vivid recall some months some years after they are gone. I remember such a one - he was about 20 years old drunk at 10 a.m. staring into a cracked New Orleans mirror facing dreaming against the walls of the world where did I go?

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Charles Bukowski - The Strongest Of The Strange

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The Miracle is the Shortest Time

you know it was very good it was better than anything it was like something we could pick up hold look at and then laugh about. we were on the moon we were in the god damned moon, we had it we were in the garden we were in the endless pit never such a place as that it was deep and it was light and it was high it got so near to insanity we laughed so hard your laughter and mine I remember when your eyes said love loudly now as these walls so quietly shift.

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We Ain't Got No Money, Honey, But We Got Rain

call it the greenhouse effect or whatever but it just doesn't rain like it used to. I particularly remember the rains of the depression era. there wasn't any money but there was plenty of rain. it wouldn't rain for just a night or a day, it would RAIN for 7 days and 7 nights and in Los Angeles the storm drains weren't built to carry off taht much water and the rain came down THICK and MEAN and STEADY and you HEARD it banging against the roofs and into the ground waterfalls of it came down from roofs and there was HAIL big ROCKS OF ICE bombing exploding smashing into things and the rain just wouldn't STOP and all the roofs leaked- dishpans, cooking pots were placed all about; they dripped loudly and had to be emptied again and again. the rain came up over the street curbings, across the lawns, climbed up the steps and entered the houses. there were mops and bathroom towels, and the rain often came up through the toilets:bubbling, brown, crazy,whirling, and all the old cars stood in the streets, cars that had problems starting on a sunny day, and the jobless men stood looking out the windows at the old machines dying like living things out there. the jobless men, failures in a failing time were imprisoned in their houses with their wives and children and their pets. the pets refused to go out and left their waste in strange places. the jobless men went mad confined with their once beautiful wives. there were terrible arguments as notices of foreclosure fell into the mailbox. rain and hail, cans of beans, bread without butter;fried eggs, boiled eggs, poached eggs; peanut butter sandwiches, and an invisible chicken in every pot. my father, never a good man at best, beat my mother when it rained as I threw myself between them, the legs, the knees, the screams until they seperated. "I'll kill you," I screamed at him. "You hit her again and I'll kill you!" "Get that son-of-a-bitching kid out of here!" "no, Henry, you stay with your mother!" all the households were under seige but I believe that ours held more terror than the average. and at night as we attempted to sleep the rains still came down and it was in bed in the dark watching the moon against the scarred window so bravely holding out most of the rain, I thought of Noah and the Ark and I thought, it has come again. we all thought that. and then, at once, it would stop. and it always seemed to stop around 5 or 6 a.m., peaceful then, but not an exact silence because things continued to drip   drip     drip and there was no smog then and by 8 a.m. there was a blazing yellow sunlight, Van Gogh yellow- crazy, blinding! and then the roof drains relieved of the rush of water began to expand in the warmth: PANG!PANG!PANG! and everybody got up and looked outside and there were all the lawns still soaked greener than green will ever be and there were birds on the lawn CHIRPING like mad, they hadn't eaten decently for 7 days and 7 nights and they were weary of berries and they waited as the worms rose to the top, half drowned worms. the birds plucked them up and gobbled them down;there were blackbirds and sparrows. the blackbirds tried to drive the sparrows off but the sparrows, maddened with hunger, smaller and quicker, got their due. the men stood on their porches smoking cigarettes, now knowing they'd have to go out there to look for that job that probably wasn't there, to start that car that probably wouldn't start. and the once beautiful wives stood in their bathrooms combing their hair, applying makeup, trying to put their world back together again, trying to forget that awful sadness that gripped them, wondering what they could fix for breakfast. and on the radio we were told that school was now open. and soon there I was on the way to school, massive puddles in the street, the sun like a new world, my parents back in that house, I arrived at my classroom on time. Mrs. Sorenson greeted us with, "we won't have our usual recess, the grounds are too wet." "AW!" most of the boys went. "but we are going to do something special at recess," she went on, "and it will be fun!" well, we all wondered what that would be and the two hour wait seemed a long time as Mrs.Sorenson went about teaching her lessons. I looked at the little girls, they looked so pretty and clean and alert, they sat still and straight and their hair was beautiful in the California sunshine. the the recess bells rang and we all waited for the fun. then Mrs. Sorenson told us: "now, what we are going to do is we are going to tell each other what we did during the rainstorm! we'll begin in the front row and go right around! now, Michael, you're first!. . ." well, we all began to tell our stories, Michael began and it went on and on, and soon we realized that we were all lying, not exactly lying but mostly lying and some of the boys began to snicker and some of the girls began to give them dirty looks and Mrs.Sorenson said, "all right! I demand a modicum of silence here! I am interested in what you did during the rainstorm even if you aren't!" so we had to tell our stories and they were stories. one girl said that when the rainbow first came she saw God's face at the end of it. only she didn't say which end. one boy said he stuck his fishing pole out the window and caught a little fish and fed it to his cat. almost everybody told a lie. the truth was just too awful and embarassing to tell. then the bell rang and recess was over. "thank you," said Mrs. Sorenson, "that was very nice. and tomorrow the grounds will be dry and we will put them to use again." most of the boys cheered and the little girls sat very straight and still, looking so pretty and clean and alert, their hair beautiful in a sunshine that the world might never see again. and

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Yes Yes

when God created love he didn't help most when God created dogs He didn't help dogs when God created plants that was average when God created hate we had a standard utility when God created me He created me when God created the monkey He was asleep when He created the giraffe He was drunk when He created narcotics He was high and when He created suicide He was low when He created you lying in bed He knew what He was doing He was drunk and He was high and He created the mountains and the sea and fire at the same time He made some mistakes but when He created you lying in bed He came all over His Blessed Universe.

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Success is always dangerous. It can make an asshole out of anybody.

Charles Bukowski (via henrycharlesbukowski)

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B kind B a good listener B able to engage in physical combat B a lover of classical music B a tolerator of children B an agnostic B generous on the freeways of the world B a good sleeper B not fearful of death B unable to beg B able to love  B able to feel superior B able to understand that too much education is a fart in the dark B able to dislike poets and poetry B able to understand that the rich can be poor in spirit B able to understand the the poor live better than the rich B able to understand that shit is necessary B aware that in every life a little bit of shit must fall B aware that a hell of a lot more shit falls on some more than on others B aware that many dumb bastards crawl the earth B aware that the human heart cannot be broken B able to stay away from the movies B able to sit alone in a room and feel good B able to watch your cat cross the floor like a miracle B able to recognize bullshit even when you hear it from B ukowski.

B as in Bullshit

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Like A Flower In The Rain

I cut the middle fingernail of the middle finger right hand real short and I began rubbing along her cunt as she sat upright in bed spreading lotion over her arms face and breasts after bathing. then she lit a cigarette: "don't let this put you off," an smoked and continued to rub the lotion on. I continued to rub the cunt. "You want an apple?" I asked. "sure, she said, "you got one?" but I got to her- she began to twist then she rolled on her side, she was getting wet and open like a flower in the rain. then she rolled on her stomach and her most beautiful ass looked up at me and I reached under and got the cunt again. she reached around and got my cock, she rolled and twisted, I mounted my face falling into the mass of red hair that overflowed from her head and my flattened cock entered into the miracle. later we joked about the lotion and the cigarette and the apple. then I went out and got some chicken and shrimp and french fries and buns and mashed potatoes and gravy and cole slaw,and we ate.she told me how good she felt and I told her how good I felt and we ate the chicken and the shrimp and the french fries and the buns and the mashed potatoes and the gravy and the cole slaw too.

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I’m too careless. I don’t put out enough effort. I’m tired.

Charles Bukowski (via theoldludwigvan)

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Don't forget

there is always somebody or something waiting for you, something stronger, more intelligent, more evil, more kind, more durable, something bigger, something better, something worse, something with eyes like the tiger, jaws like the shark, something crazier than crazy, saner than sane, there is always something or somebody waiting for you as you put on your shoes or as you sleep or as you empty a garbage can or pet your cat or brush your teeth or celebrate a holiday there is always somebody or something waiting for you. keep this fully in mind so that when it happens you will be as ready as possible. meanwhile, a good day to you if you are still there. I think that I am— I just burnt my fingers on this cigarette.

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