Poetries by Charles Bukowski

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Are You Drinking?

Washed-up, on shore, the old yellow notebook
out again
I write from the bed
as I did last
year.
Will see the doctor,
Monday.
"Yes, doctor, weak legs, vertigo, head-
aches and my back
hurts."
"Are you drinking?" He will ask.
"Are you getting your
exercise, your
vitamins?"
I think that I am just ill
with life, the same stale yet
fluctuating
factors.
Even at the track
I watch the horses run by
and it seems
meaningless.
I leave early after buying tickets on the
remaining races.
"Taking off?" Asks the motel
clerk.
"Yes, it's boring,"
I tell him.
"If you think it's boring
out there," he tells me, "you oughta be
back here."
So here I am
propped up against my pillows
again
just an old guy
just an old writer
with a yellow
notebook.
Something is
walking across the
floor
toward
me.
Oh, it's just
my cat
this
time.

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Beasts Bounding Through Time

Van Gogh writing his brother for paints
Hemingway testing his shotgun
Celine going broke as a doctor of medicine
the impossibility of being human
Villon expelled from Paris for being a thief
Faulkner drunk in the gutters of his town
the impossibility of being human
Burroughs killing his wife with a gun
Mailer stabbing his
the impossibility of being human
Maupassant going mad in a rowboat
Dostoyevsky lined up against a wall to be shot
Crane off the back of a boat into the propeller
the impossibility
Sylvia with her head in the oven like a baked potato
Harry Crosby leaping into that Black Sun
Lorca murdered in the road by Spanish troops
the impossibility
Artaud sitting on a madhouse bench
Chatterton drinking rat poison
Shakespeare a plagiarist
Beethoven with a horn stuck into his head against deafness
the impossibility the impossibility
Nietzsche gone totally mad
the impossibility of being human
all too human
this breathing
in and out
out and in
these punks
these cowards
these champions
these mad dogs of glory
moving this little bit of light toward us
impossibly.

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A Radio With Guts

It was on the 2nd floor on Coronado Street
I used to get drunk
and throw the radio through the window
while it was playing, and, of course,
it would break the glass in the window
and the radio would sit there on the roof
still playing
and I'd tell my woman,
"Ah, what a marvelous radio!"
The next morning I'd take the window
off the hinges
and carry it down the street
to the glass man
who would put in another pane.
I kept throwing that radio through the window
each time I got drunk
and it would sit there on the roof
still playing-
a magic radio
a radio with guts,
and each morning I'd take the window
back to the glass man.
I don't remember how it ended exactly
though I do remember
we finally moved out.
There was a woman downstairs who worked in
the garden in her bathing suit,
she really dug with that trowel
and she put her behind up in the air
and I used to sit in the window
and watch the sun shine all over that thing
while the music played.

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I was still proud of that moment
back then
when Jed handed me
that pint
and
I drained
a third of it
with all the disciples
watching.
Damn, there was no way
it seemed
we could ever
lose
but we did.

And it took me
3 or 4 decades to
move on just a
little.
And Jed,
if you are still here
tonight,
(I forgot to tell you
then)
here's a thanks
for that drink.

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Bluebird
a woman can
drop
out of your
life and
forget you
real fast.
A woman
can't go anywhere
but up
after
leaving you,
honey.

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There's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
There's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

There's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
You want to screw up the
works?
You want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
There's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
Then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

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We are always asked
to understand the other person's
viewpoint
no matter how
out-dated
foolish or
obnoxious.

One is asked
to view
their total error
their life-waste
with
kindliness,
especially if they are
aged.

But age is the total of
our doing.
They have aged
badly
because they have
lived
out of focus,
they have refused to
see.

Not their fault?

Whose fault?
Mine?

I am asked to hide
my viewpoint
from them
for fear of their
fear.

Age is no crime

but the shame
of a deliberately
wasted
life

among so many
deliberately
wasted
lives

is.

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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.