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Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski

Destroying Beauty
rose
red sunlight;
take it apart
in the garage
like a puzzle:
the petals are as greasy
as old bacon
and fall
like the maidens of the world
backs to floor
and I look up
at the old calendar
hung from a nail
and touch
my wrinkled face
and smile
because
the secret
is beyond me.

#1993 #AmericanWriters #ThePleasuresOfTheDamned

Other works by Charles Bukowski...
Women: 22

Lydia’s sister Angela came to town from Utah to see Lydia’s new house. Lydia had made a down payment on a little place and the monthly payments were very low. It was a very good buy. Th...
 1
Layover

Making love in the sun, in the mor… in a hotel room above the alley where poor men poke for bottles; making love in the sun
 1
notes upon the flaxen aspect:

John F. Kennedy flower knocks upo… shot through the neck; the gladiolas gather by the dozens… India dripping into Ceylon;
Hooray Say the Roses

hooray say the roses, today is bla… and we are red as blood. hooray say the roses, today is Wed… and we bloom wher soldiers fell and lovers too,
marina:

majestic, magic infinite my little girl is sun on the carpet—
I like your books

In the betting line the other day man behind me asked, “are you Henry Chinaski?”
 3
The Body

I have been hanging here headless for so long that the body has forgotten
the screw-game

one of the terrible things is really being in bed night after night with a woman you no longer
Post Office. Chapter IV: 1

Then I developed a new system at the racetrack. I pulled in $3,000 in a month and a half while only going to the track two or three times a week. I began to dream. I saw a little house ...
the professors

sitting with the professors we talk about Allen Tate and John Crow Ransom the rugs are clean and the coffeetables shine
As the Sparrow

To give life you must take life, and as our grief falls flat and ho… upon the billion—blooded sea I pass upon serious inward—breakin… with white—legged, white—bellied r…
Ham on Rye: 13

I was in the 4th grade when I found out about it. I was probably one of the last to know, because I still didn’t talk to anybody. A boy walked up to “Your mother has a hole . . .”—he to...
you do it while you're killing flies

Bach, I said, he had 20 children. he played the horses during the da… he f—ed at night and drank in the mornings. he wrote music in between.
 2
Women: 8

I got back, made love to Lydia several times, got in a fight with her, and left L. A. International late one morning to give a reading in Arkansas. I was lucky enough to have a seat by ...
Are You Drinking?

washed—up, on shore, the old yello… out again I write from the bed as I did last year.
 1



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