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Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski

the girls at the green hotel
are more beautiful than
movie stars
and they lounge on the
lawn
sunbathing
and one sits in a short
dress and high
heels, legs crossed
exposing miraculous
thighs.
she has a bandanna
on her head
and smokes a
long cigarette.
traffic slows
almost stops.
 
the girls ignore
the traffic.
they are half
asleep in the afternoon
they are whores
they are whores without
souls
and they are magic
because they lie
about nothing.
 
I get in my car
wait for traffic to
clear,
drive across the street
to the green hotel
to my favorite:
she is
sun-bathing on the
lawn nearest the
curb.
 
“hello,” I say.
she turns eyes like
imitation diamonds
up at me.
her face has no
expression.
 
I drop my latest
book of poems
out the car
window.
it falls
by her side.
 
I shift into
low,
drive off.
 
there’ll be some
laughs
tonight.

#AmericanWriters #1977 #LoveIsADogFromHell #ThePleasuresOfTheDamned

Other works by Charles Bukowski...
I Wanted To Overthrow The Government But All I Brought Down Was Somebody’s Wife

30 dogs, 20 men on 20 horses and o… and look here, they write, you are a dupe for the state, the… you are in the ego-dream, read your history, study the monet…
A Report Upon the Consumption of Myself

I am a panther shut up and bellowi… cement walls, and I am angry at bl… evenings without ventilation and I am angry with you, and it wi… like a rose
 2
a plate glass window

dogs and angels are not very different. I often go to this place to eat about 2:30 in the afternoon
scene in a tent outside the cotton fields of Bakersfield:

we fought for 17 days inside that… thrusting and counter-thrusting but finally she got away and I walked outside and spit
The rent’s high too

there are beasts in the salt shake… and airdromes in the coffeepot. my mother’s hand is in the bag dra… and from the backs of spoons come the cries of tiny tortured animals…
Post Office. Chapter III: 8

Then there were only 6 or 7 of us.… “How you doing on your scheme, Ch… “No trouble at all,” I said. “O.… “Yes, Woodburn.” “Listen, I don’t like to be bothe…
Post Office. Chapter II: 8

I met an old drunk on the street one afternoon. I used to know him from the days with Betty when we made the rounds of the bars. He told me that he was now a postal clerk and that there...
hell is a lonely place

he was 65, his wife was 66, had Alzheimer’s disease. he had cancer of the mouth. there were
 3
Post Office. Chapter IV: 2

The track had moved down the coast a hundred miles or so. I kept paying the rent on my apartment in town, got in my car and drove down. Once or twice a week I would drive back to the ap...
Side of the Sun

the bulls are grand as the side of… and although they kill them for th… it is the bull that burns the fire… and although there are cowardly bu… there are cowardly matadors and co…
Man in the Sun

she reads to me from the New York… which I don’t buy, don’t know how they get in here, but it’s something about the Mafia one of the heads of the Mafia
Palm leaves

at exactly 12:00 midnight 1973-74 Los Angeles it began to rain on the palm leaves outside my window
Post Office. Chapter III: 18

Soon after that I made regular and that gave me an 8 hour night, which beat 12, and pay for holidays. Of the 150 or 200 that had come in, there were only two of us left. Then I met Davi...
Women: 23

I blacked out after that. I guess I had consumed more whiskey than I thought. I don’t remember arriving at Nicole’s. I awakened in the morning with my back to somebody in a strange bed....
Father, who art in heaven—

my father was a practical man. he had an idea. you see, my son, he said, I can pay for this house in my lif… then it’s mine.



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