I watch the jocks come out in the post parade
and one will win the race, the others will lose
but each jock must win sometime in some race
on some day, and he must do it often enough
or he is no longer a jockey.
it’s like each of us sitting over a typewriter
tonight or tomorrow or next week or next month.
it’s like the girls on the street trying to score
for their pimps
and they have to do it often enough
or they are no longer whores
and we have to do it often enough
or we’re whores who can’t score.
I would like a little more kindness and warmth
in the structure of things.
I became a writer but when I was a boy
I used to dream of becoming the village idiot,
I used to lie in bed and imagine myself that careless idiot,
a planned confusion of not too much love or
effort.
some would claim that I have succeeded
in this.
— Charles Bukowski, in #4, “twisting the cap off the tube of night,” in Bone Palace Ballet: New Poems, ECCO, 2002, p. 189.
one of those
Sartre was some fellow, oh yes,
he showed us the bone of
Nowhere and shook it in
our face.
the choice
is yours,
he said,
morals died with God,
you’re on your
own.
every now and then,
during the passing centuries,
some giant among men
arises,
shakes us truly,
shocks us out of our
sleep,
so that, at least for a
time, we become aware,
renewed
as we put our shoes on in
the morning,
as we trundle through our
tasks,
as we eat, defecate,
imagine love,
mail letters,
drive and walk the
city,
things and thoughts
assume different shapes.
Sartre was one of those
giants.
Paris, France, much of the
world
rumbled and bounced
because of
him.
without some like him,
putting your shoes on in
the morning
would become so difficult
as to be almost
impossible.
Jean Paul,
thanks
for everything.
— Charles Bukowski, in #4, “twisting the cap off the tube of night,” in Bone Palace Ballet: New Poems, ECCO, 2002, pp. 207-208.
a model
I want to be like that
man who entered the
restaurant
tonight,
he parked right in
front
of the front
door.
blocking off a good many
parked cars,
then slammed his car
door shut,
walked in,
his shirt hanging out
over his big
gut.
when he saw the
maitre d’, he
said, “hey, Frank,
get me a fucking
table by the
window!”
and Frank smiled and followed
him
along.
I want to be like
that man.
this way’s not
working.
for over 70 years
now.
— Charles Bukowski, in #5, “the big guy doesn’t have me out of here yet,” in Bone Palace Ballet: New Poems, ECCO, 2002, p. 273.
