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Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski

guru

big black beard
tells me
that I don’t feel
terror
 
I look at him
my gut rattles
gravel
 
I see his eyes
look upward
 
he’s strong
 
has dirty fingernails
 
and upon the walls:
scabbards.
 
he knows things:
 
books
the odds
the best road
home
 
I like him
but I think he
lies
 
(I’m not sure
he lies)
 
his wife sits
in a dark
corner
 
when I first met
her she was the
most beautiful
woman
I had ever
seen
 
now she has
become
his twin
 
perhaps not his
fault:
 
perhaps the thing
does us all
like that
 
yet after I leave
their house
I feel terror
 
the moon looks
diseased
 
my hands slip
on the
steering wheel
 
I get my car
out
and down the
hill
 
almost crash it
into a
blue-green
parked car
clod me forever,
Beatrice
 
wavering poet, ha
haha
 
dinky dog of
terror.

#AmericanWriters #1977 #LoveIsADogFromHell

Other works by Charles Bukowski...
love is a dog from hell

feet of cheese coffeepot soul hands that hate poolsticks eyes like paperclips I prefer red wine
Women: 97

I got a letter in the mail. It was addressed from Hollywood. Dear Chinaski: I’ve just read almost all your books. I work as a typist in a place on Cherokee Ave. I’ve hung your picture i...
The Night I Was Going to Die

the night I was going to die I was sweating on the bed and I could hear the crickets and there was a cat fight outside and I could feel my soul dropping…
 2
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...
the great escape

listen, he said, you ever seen a b… bucket? no, I told him. well, what happens is that now and… will climb up on top of the others
Study for Reclining Female Nude, by Vincent van Gogh
a man's woman

the dream of a man is a whore with a gold tooth and a garter belt, perfumed with false eyebrows
 2
 8
coupons

cigarettes wetted with beer from the night before you light one gag open the door for air
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....
Note to a Lady Who Expected Rupert Brooke

wha’, what did you expect? a schoo… some more practical lover filling… I’m a fool and no gentleman: I wa… with Crane in pajamas, but suicide… there’s less and less to kill.
Ham on Rye: 41

R.O.T.C. kept me away from sports while the other guys practiced every day. They made the school teams, won their letters and got the girls. My days were spent mostly marching around in...
Women: 9

Lydia and I were always fighting. She was a flirt and it irritated me. When we ate out I was sure she was eyeballing some man across the room. When my male friends came by to visit and ...
Ham on Rye: 50

Everybody had gym period at the same time. Baldy’s locker was about four or five down from mine in the same row. I went to my locker early. Baldy and I had a similar problem. We hated w...
Goldfish

my goldfish stares with watery eye… into the hemisphere of my sorrow; upon the thinnest of threads we hang together, hang hang hang
Post Office. Chapter II: 9

There was a gang of us down there. 150 or 200. There were tedious papers to fill out. Then we all stood up and faced the flag. The guy who swore us in was the same guy who had sworn me ...
the elephants of Vietnam

first they used to, he told me, gun and bomb the elephants, you could hear their screams over… but you flew high to bomb the peop… you never saw it,



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