Background Image

...

I Can't Think Of Any Poet-recluses Outside Of One Dead Jeffers. [robinson Jeffers] The Rest Of Them Want To Slobber Over Each Other And Hug Each Other. It Appears To Me That I Am The Last Of The Poet-recluses.

-Charles Bukowski

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

I Can't Think Of

Charles Bukowski

...

I Can't Think Of Any Poet-recluses Outside Of One Dead Jeffers. [robinson Jeffers] The Rest Of Them Want To Slobber Over Each Other And Hug Each Other. It Appears To Me That I Am The Last Of The Poet-recluses.

Views: 4

Topic

More From Charles Bukowski

Goodness Can Be Found Sometimes In The Middle Of Hell.

There Was Something About That City, Though It Didn't Let Me Feel Guilty That I Had No Feeling For The Things So Many Others Needed. It Let Me Alone.

Her Violence Frightened Me. She Always Claimed That I Was The Jealous One, And I Was Often Jealous, But When I Saw Things Working Against Me I Simply Became Disgusted And Withdrew. Lydia Was Different. She Reacted. She Was The Head Cheerleader At The Game Of Violence.

When A Hot Woman Meets A Hermit One Of Them Is Going To Change.

The Street To My Left Was Backed Up With Traffic And I Watched The People Waiting Patiently In The Cars. There Was Almost Always A Man And A Women, Staring Straight Ahead, Not Talking. It Was, Finally, For Everyone, A Matter Of Waiting. You Waited And You Waited- For The Hospital, The Doctor, The Plumber, The Madhouse, The Jail, Papa Death Himself. First The Signal Red, Then The Signal Was Green. The Citizens Of The World Ate Food And Watched T.v. And Worried About Their Jobs Or Lack Of The Same, While They Waited.

We Are Hardly Ever As Strong As That Which We Create.

I Walked Around The Block Twice, Passed 200 People And Failed To See A Human Being.

I'm Going, She Said. I Love You But You're Crazy, You're Doomed.

The World Is Full Of Boring, Identical And Mindless People.

When I Am Feeling Low All I Have To Do Is Watch My Cats And My Courage Returns

Alcohol Is Probably One Of The Greatest Things To Arrive Upon The Earth - Alongside Of Me.

Style Is The Answer To Everything. A Fresh Way To Approach A Dull Or Dangerous Thing. To Do A Dull Thing With Style Is Preferable To Doing A Dangerous Thing Without It. To Do A Dangerous Thing With Style Is What I Call Art.

I'm Very Clever At Hiding Poems Perhaps More Clever Than I Am At Writing Them.

How Are His Poems?" "he's Not As Good As He Thinks He Is, But Then Most Of Us Feel That Way.

After Dinner Or Lunch Or Whatever It Was -- With My Crazy 12-hour Night I Was No Longer Sure What Was What -- I Said, "look, Baby, I'm Sorry, But Don't You Realize That This Job Is Driving Me Crazy? Look, Let's Give It Up. Let's Just Lay Around And Make Love And Take Walks And Talk A Little. Let's Go To The Zoo. Let's Look At Animals. Let's Drive Down And Look At The Ocean. It's Only 45 Minutes. Let's Play Games In The Arcades. Let's Go To The Races, The Art Museum, The Boxing Matches. Let's Have Friends. Let's Laugh. This Kind Of Life Like Everybody Else's Kind Of Life: It's Killing Us.

Death Meant Little To Me. It Was The Last Joke In A Series Of Bad Jokes.

I Have No Time For Things That Have No Soul.

Was I The Only Person Who Was Distracted By This Future Without A Chance?

I Made Practice Runs Down To Skid Row To Get Ready For My Future.

Find What You Love And Let It Kill You. For All Things Will Kill You, Both Slowly And Fastly, But It’s Much Better To Be Killed By A Lover.

Invent Yourself And Then Reinvent Yourself.

Reinventing Yourself

My Heart Is A Thousand Years Old. I Am Not Like Other People.

There's A Bluebird In My Heart That Wants To Get Out.

I Had No Interests. I Had No Interest In Anything. I Had No Idea How I Was Going To Escape. At Least The Others Had Some Taste For Life. They Seemed To Understand Something That I Didn’t Understand. Maybe I Was Lacking. It Was Possible. I Often Felt Inferior. I Just Wanted To Get Away From Them. But There Was No Place To Go. Suicide? Jesus Christ, Just More Work. I Felt Like Sleeping For Five Years But They Wouldn’t Let Me.

Success Is Always Dangerous. It Can Make An Asshole Out Of Anybody.

Bullfighting Can Be An Art Boxing Can Be An Art Loving Can Be An Art Opening A Can Of Sardines Can Be An Art

Finally There Is Nothing Here For Death To Take Away.

And I Said To Myself That He Was The First Thing That I Had Ever Missed In My Life.

There's Nothing Else As Pleasant As Being Unpleasant When There's Nothing Else To Do, And There's Usually Nothing Else To Do.

There Are Worse Things Than Being Alone But It Often Takes Decades To Realize This And Most Often When You Do It's Too Late And There's Nothing Worse Than Too Late

Where Did All The Women Come From? The Supply Was Endless. Each One Of Them Was Individual, Different. Their Pussies Were Different, Their Kisses Were Different, Their Breasts Were Different, But No Man Could Drink Them All, There Were Too Many Of Them, Crossing Their Legs, Driving Men Mad. What A Feast!

That's The Way It Ends. The Thin Edge Of The Wedge.

I Was Naturally A Loner, Content Just To Live With A Woman, Eat With Her, Sleep With Her, Walk Down The Street With Her. I Didn't Want Conversation, Or To Go Anywhere Except The Racetrack Or The Boxing Matches. I Didn't Understand T.v. I Felt Foolish Paying Money To Go Into A Movie Theatre And Sit With Other People To Share Their Emotions. Parties Sickened Me. I Hated The Game-playing, The Dirty Play, The Flirting, The Amateur Drunks, The Bores.

And Love Was Lightning And Remembrance

I Have A Face Like A Washrag. I Sing Love Songs And Carry Steel. I Would Rather Die Than Cry. I Can't Stand Hounds Can't Live Without Them. I Hang My Head Against The White Refrigerator And Want To Scream Like The Last Weeping Of Life Forever But I Am Bigger Than The Mountains.

It Was Like A Church In There As Only The Truly Lost Sit In Bars On Tuesday Mornings At 8:00 A.m.

I Was Fighting A Small Fight Of My Own Which Wasn't Leading Anywhere-but Like A Man With A Bent Spoon Trying To Dig Through A Cement Wall I Knew That A Small Fight Was Better Than Quitting: It Kept The Heart Alive.

…he Was Always High On Drugs. I Was Not A Drug Man, But In Case I Wanted To Hide From Myself For A Few Days, I Knew I Could Get Anything I Wanted From Him.

It Will Rain All This Night And We Will Sleep Transfixed By The Dark Water As Our Blood Runs Through Our Fragile Life.

I Think A Man Can Keep On Drinking For Centuries, He'll Never Die; Especially Wine Or Beer...i Like Drunkards, Man, Because Drunkards, They Come Out Of It, And They're Sick And They Spring Back, They Spring Back And Forth...if I Hadn't Been A Drunkard, I Probably Would Have Committed Suicide Long Ago.

Early Evening Traffic Was Beginning To Clog The Avenue With Cars. The Sun Slanted Down Behind Him. Harry Glanced At The Drivers Of The Cars. They Seemed Unhappy. The World Was Unhappy. People Were In The Dark. People Were Terrified And Disappointed. People Were Caught In Traps. People Were Defensive And Frantic. They Felt As If Their Lives Were Being Wasted. And They Were Right.

Learn, He Says, That There Will Be Hours, Days And Months Ahead Of Feeling Absolutely Terrible And Nothing Can Change That; Neither New Girlfriends, Health Professionals, Changes Of Diet, Dope, Humility, Or God.

There Are Policemen In The Street And Angels In The Clouds

I'll Use The Knives For Spreading Jam, And The Gas To Warm My Greying Love.

You've Got To Know When To Let A Woman Go If You Want To Keep Her,and If You Don't Want To Keep Her You Let Her Go Anyhow So It's Always A Process Of Letting Go, One Way Or The Other.

The Masses Are Always Wrong...wisdom Is Doing Everything The Crowd Does Not Do. All You Do Is Reverse The Totality Of Their Learning And You Have The Heaven They're Looking For.

Never Trust A Man In A Jumpsuit

Never Trust A Man

I Have Been Treated Better Than I Should Have Been---not By Life In General Nor By The Machinery Of Things But By Women.

..few Writers Like Other Writers' Works. The Only Time They Like Them Is When They Are Dead Or If They Have Been For A Long Time. Writers Only Like To Sniff Their Own Turds. I Am One Of Those. I Don't Even Like To Talk To Writers, Look At Them Or Worse, Listen To Them. And The Worst Is To Drink With Them, They Slobber All Over Themselves, Really Look Piteous, Look Like They Are Searching For The Wing Of The Mother. I'd Rather Think About Death Than About Other Writers. Far More Pleasant.

How Can You Be True And Kind At The Same Time? How?

Sundays Kill More People Than Bombs.

I Want To Let Her Know Though That All The Nights Sleeping Beside Her Even The Useless Arguments Were Things Ever Splendid And The Hard Words I Ever Feared To Say Can Now Be Said: I Love You.

The Writing's Easy, It's The Living That Is Sometimes Difficult.

Yes?’ He Asked, Looking At Me Over The Sheet. ‘i’m A Writer Temporarily Down On My Inspirations.’ ‘oh, A Writer, Eh?’ ‘yes.’ ‘are You Sure?’ ‘no, I’m Not.’ ‘what Do You Write?’ ‘short Stories Mostly. And I’m Halfway Through A Novel.’ ‘a Novel, Eh?’ ‘yes.’ ‘what’s The Name Of It?’ ‘”the Leaky Faucet Of My Doom.”‘ ‘oh, I Like That. What’s It About?’ ‘everything.’ ‘everything? You Mean, For Instance, It’s About Cancer?’ ‘yes.’ ‘how About My Wife?’ ‘she’s In There Too.

The Wisdom To Quit Is All We Have Left.

I Don’t Understand People, Never Will. It Looks Like I Got To Travel Pretty Much Alone.

There Is Light Somewhere.

To Do A Dull Thing With Style-now That's What I Call Art.

Thought Provoking

I Didn't Like Anybody In That School. I Think They Knew That. I Think That's Why They Disliked Me. I Didn't Like The Way They Walked Or Looked Or Talked, But I Didn't Like My Mother Or Father Either. I Still Had The Feeling Of Being Surrounded By White Empty Space. There Was Always A Slight Nausea In My Stomach.

What A Weary Time Those Years Were -- To Have The Desire And The Need To Live But Not The Ability.

The Worst Thing For A Writer Is To Know Another Writer, And Worse Than That, To Know A Number Of Other Writers. Like Flies On The Same Turd.

I Went Over To See Marina Two Or Three Or Four Times A Week. I Knew As Long As I Could See The Girl I Would Be All Right…. Soon After, I Got A Letter From Fay. She And The Child Were Living In A Hippie Commune In New Mexico. It Was A Nice Place, She Said. Marina Would Be Able To Breathe There. She Enclosed A Little Drawing The Girl Had Made For Me.

Dying In A A War Never Stopped Wars From Happening.

It Seems I Make A Lot Of Mistakes And It Seems That I Am Not Allowed Any.

I Am Too Sick To Lay Down The Sidewalks Frighten Me The Whole Damned City Frightens Me, What I Will Become What I Have Become Frightens Me.

There's Nothing Like Privacy. You Know, I Like People. It's Nice That They Might Like My Books And All That...but I'm Not The Book, See? I'm The Guy Who Wrote It, But I Don't Want Them To Come Up And Throw Roses On Me Or Anything. I Want Them To Let Me Breathe.

There Must Be A Way. Surely There Must Be A Way That We Have Not Yet Thought Of. Who Put This Brain Inside Of Me? It Cries It Demands It Says That There Is A Chance. It Will Not Say "no.

They Laughed. Things Were Funny. They Weren't Afraid To Care. There Was No Sense To Life, To The Structure Of Things.

The Crazy Ones Only Laugh When There Is No Reason To Laugh.

I Could Read The Great Books But The Great Books Don't Interest Me.

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?

A Good Book Can Make An Almost Impossible Existence, Liveable ( From 'the Luck Of The Word' )

There Is Nothing That Teaches You More Than Regrouping After Failure And Moving On.

I Once Lay In A White Hospital For The Dying And The Dying Self, Where Some God Pissed A Rain Of Reason To Make Things Grow Only To Die, Where On My Knees I Prayed For Light, I Prayed For L*i*g*h*t, And Praying Crawled Like A Blind Slug Into The Web Where Threads Of Wind Stuck Against My Mind And I Died Of Pity For Man, For Myself, On A Cross Without Nails, Watching In Fear As The Pig Belches In His Sty, Farts, Blinks And Eats.

I Was Laying In Bed One Night And I Thought 'i'll Just Quit - To Hell With It.' And Another Little Voice Inside Me Said 'don't Quit - Save That Tiny Little Ember Of Spark.' And Never Give Them That Spark Because As Long As You Have That Spark, You Can Start The Greatest Fire Again.

I Have One Problem, I Don’t Hate People. They Disgust Me And I Want To Get Away From Them. I Do Not Have Hatred. I Have An Escape Mechanism.

Love Is A Dog From Hell.

Simplicity Is Always The Secret, To A Profound Truth, To Doing Things, To Writing, To Painting. Life Is Profound In Its Simplicity

For Each Joan Of Arc There Is A Hitler Perched At The Other End Of The Teeter-totter.

Fay Had A Spot Of Blood On The Left Side Of Her Mouth And I Took A Wet Cloth And Wiped It Off. Women Were Meant To Suffer; No Wonder They Asked For Constant Declarations Of Love.

That's The Problem With Drinking, I Thought, As I Poured Myself A Drink. If Something Bad Happens You Drink In An Attempt To Forget; If Something Good Happens You Drink In Order To Celebrate; And If Nothing Happens You Drink To Make Something Happen.

To Create Art Means To Be Crazy Alone Forever.

If You're Going To Try, Go All The Way. Otherwise, Don't Even Start.

I Pretend To Understand Because I Don't Want Anybody To Be Hurt

Drink From The Well Of Yourself And Begin Again.

As A Recluse I Couldn't Bear Traffic. It Had Nothing To Do With Jealousy, I Simply Disliked People, Crowds, Anywhere, Except At My Readings. People Diminished Me, They Sucked Me Dry.

And Our Few Good Times Will Be Rare Because We Have The Critical Sense And Are Not Easy To Fool With Laughter

It Didn't Pay To Trust Another Human Being. Humans Didn't Have It, Whatever It Took.

The Writer Has No Responsibility Other Than To Jack Off In Bed Alone And Write A Good Page.

People Who Believe In Politics Are Like People Who Believe In God: They Are Sucking Wind Through Bent Straws.

To Me Art (poetry) Is A Continuous And Continuing Process And That When A Man Fails To Write Good Poetry He Fails To Live Fully Or Well.

There Are Only Two Things Wrong With Money: Too Much Or Too Little.

When You Leave Your Typewriter You Leave Your Machine Gun And The Rats Come Pouring Through.

The Public Takes From A Writer, Or A Writing, What It Needs And Lets The Remainder Go. But What They Take Is Usually What They Need Least And What They Let Go Is What They Need Most.

I Will Remember The Kisses Our Lips Raw With Love And How You Gave Me Everything You Had And How I Offered You What Was Left Of Me, And I Will Remember Your Small Room The Feel Of You The Light In The Window Your Records Your Books Our Morning Coffee Our Noons Our Nights Our Bodies Spilled Together Sleeping The Tiny Flowing Currents Immediate And Forever Your Leg My Leg Your Arm My Arm Your Smile And The Warmth Of You Who Made Me Laugh Again.

Inspirational Love

I Sit On The Couch Watching Her Arrange Her Long Red Hair Before My Bedroom Mirror. She Pulls Her Hair Up And Piles It On Top Of Her Head- She Lets Her Eyes Look At My Eyes- Then She Drops Her Hair And Lets It Fall Down In Front Of Her Face. We Go To Bed And I Hold Her Speechlessly From The Back My Arm Around Her Neck I Touch Her Wrists And Hands Feel Up To Her Elbows No Further.

Some Lose All Mind And Become Soul,insane. Some Lose All Soul And Become Mind, Intellectual. Some Lose Both And Become Accepted

I Couldn't Get Myself To Read The Want Ads. The Thought Of Sitting In Front Of A Man Behind A Desk And Telling Him That I Wanted A Job, That I Was Qualified For A Job, Was Too Much For Me. Frankly, I Was Horrified By Life, At What A Man Had To Do Simply In Order To Eat, Sleep, And Keep Himself Clothed. So I Stayed In Bed And Drank. When You Drank The World Was Still Out There, But For The Moment It Didn't Have You By The Throat.

Morals Were Restrictive, But They Were Grounded On Human Experience.

Human Experience

I Had Decided Against Religion A Couple Of Years Back. If It Were True, It Made Fools Out Of People, Or It Drew Fools. And If It Weren't True, The Fools Were All The More Foolish. What I Need Is A Good Doctor, I Thought. You Either Lived Or Died.

My Mother, Poor Fish, Wanting To Be Happy, Beaten Two Or Three Times A Week, Telling Me To Be Happy: "henry, Smile! Why Don't You Ever Smile?" And Then She Would Smile, To Show Me How, And It Was The Saddest Smile I Ever Saw

American Women Drove Hard Bargains And The Ended Up Looking The Worst For It. The Few Natural American Women Left Were Mostly In Texas And Louisiana.

The World Had Somehow Gone Too Far, And Spontaneous Kindness Could Never Be So Easy.

I’ve Had So Many Knives Stuck Into Me, When They Hand Me A Flower I Can’t Quite Make Out What It Is. It Takes Time.

The Masses Are Everywhere They Know How To Do Things: They Have Sane And Deadly Angers For Sane And Deadly Things.

I Heard An Airplane Passing Overhead. I Wished I Was On It.

Animals Never Worry About Heaven Or Hell. Neither Do I. Maybe That's Why We Get Along.

Well, Death Says, As He Walks By, I'm Going To Get You Anyhow No Matter What You've Been: Writer, Cab-driver, Pimp, Butcher, Sky-diver, I'm Going To Get You

That Your Power Of Command With Simple Language Was One Of The Magnificent Things Of Our Century. (from The Poem: Result)

I've Never Been Lonely. I Like Myself. I'm The Best Form Of Entertainment I Have. Let's Drink More Wine!

It Was Only The Matter Of A New Voice. Nobody Listened To An Old Voice Anymore. Old Voices Became A Part Of One's Self, Like A Fingernail.

I Was Only Photographing In Words The Reality Of It All.

I Hated You When It Would Have Taken Less Courage To Love.

Courage To Love

You Are Yesterday's Bouquet So Sadly Raided

There Is Nothing That Teaches You More Than Regrouping After Failure And Moving On. Yet Most People Are Stricken With Fear. They Fear Failure So Much That They Fail. They Are Too Conditioned, Too Used To Being Told What To Do. It Begins With The Family, Runs Through School And Goes Into The Business World.

The Courage It Took To Get Out Of Bed Each Morning To Face The Same Things Over And Over Was Enormous.

People Need Me. I Fill Them. If They Can't See Me For A While They Get Desperate, They Get Sick. But If I See Them Too Often I Get Sick. It's Hard To Feed Without Getting Fed.

People Are Not Good To Each Other. Perhaps If They Were Our Deaths Would Not Be So Sad.

Sometimes I Feel As If We Are All Trapped In A Movie. We Know Our Lines, Where To Walk, How To Act, Only There Is No Camera. Yet, We Can't Break Out Of The Movie. And It's A Bad One.

The Way To Create Art Is To Burn And Destroy Ordinary Concepts And To Substitute Them With New Truths That Run Down From The Top Of The Head And Out Of The Heart

That Was The Trouble With Being A Writer, That Was The Main Trouble—leisure Time, Excessive Leisure Time. You Had To Wait Around For The Buildup Until You Could Write And While You Were Waiting You Went Crazy, And While You Were Going Crazy You Drank And The More You Drank The Crazier You Got.

From The Beginning, Through The Middle Years And Up To The End: Too Bad, Too Bad, Too Bad.

They Never Pay The Slaves Enough So They Can Get Free, Just Enough So They Can Stay Alive And Come Back To Work.

If You Can Only Remain Pure In Your Stupidity, Someday You May Get A Phone Call From Hell.

You Have To Die A Few Times Before You Can Really Live.

I Was Born To Hustle Roses Down The Avenue Of The Dead.

Don't Fight Your Demons. Your Demons Are Here To Teach You Lessons. Sit Down With Your Demons And Have A Drink And A Chat And Learn Their Names And Talk About The Burns On Their Fingers And Scratches On Their Ankles. Some Of Them Are Very Nice.

It Seemed To Me That I Had Never Met Another Person On Earth As Discouraging To My Happiness As My Father. And It Appeared That I Had The Same Effect Upon Him.

Take A Writer Away From His Typewriter And All You Have Left Is The Sickness Which Started Him Typing In The Beginning

I Have Seen Too Many Men Wilt And Go Silly Under A Little Light, And Then They Continue To Write And Get Published, Turning Out Pure Crap Under A Name That Has Become A Bad Habit. The Next Poem Is All That Counts. You Can't Stand On Past Poems.

The Whole Lsd, Stp, Marijuana, Heroin, Hashish, Prescription Cough Medicine Crowd Suffers From The "watchtower" Itch: You Gotta Be With Us, Man, Or You're Out, You're Dead. This Pitch Is A Continual And Seeming Must With Those Who Use The Stuff. It's No Wonder They Keep Getting Busted.

What's Genius? I Don't Know But I Do Know That The Difference Between A Madman And A Professional Is That A Pro Does As Well As He Can Within What He Has Set Out To Do And A Madman Does Exceptionally Well At What He Can't Help Doing.

The People Are The Biggest Horror Show On Earth, Have Been For Centuries.

I Kept Telling Myself That All The Women In The World Weren´t Whores, Just Mine.

I Seldom Know What I'm Going To Write When I Sit Down. There Isn't Much Agony And Sweat Of The Human Spirit Involved In Doing It. The Writing's Easy, It's The Living That Is Sometimes Difficult.

You Know The Typical Crowd, Wow, It’s Friday Night, What Are You Going To Do? Just Sit There? Well, Yeah. Because There’s Nothing Out There. It’s Stupidity. Stupid People Mingling With Stupid People. Let Them Stupidify Themselves. I’ve Never Been Bothered With The Need To Rush Out Into The Night. That’s All. Sorry For All The Millions, But I’ve Never Been Lonely. I Like Myself. I’m The Best Form Of Entertainment I Have.

A Yet Women -good Women- Frightened Me Because They Eventually Wanted Your Soul, And What Was Left Of Mine, I Wanted To Keep. Basically I Craved Prostitutes, Base Women, Because They Were Deadly And Hard And Made No Personal Demands. Nothing Was Lost When They Left. Yet At The Same Time I Yearned For A Gentle, Good Woman, Despite The Overwhelming Price.

Of One Hundred Movies There's One That Is Fair, One That's Good And Ninety Eight That Are Very Bad. Most Movies Start Badly And Steadily Get Worse

Why Don't We Go Back Out There And Tell Them What Happened? Because Nothing Happened Except That Everybody Has Been Driven Insane And Stupid By Life. In This Society There Are Only Two Things That Count: Don't Be Caught Without Money And Don't Get Caught High On Any Kind Of High. (night Streets Of Madness)

Before My Death I Hope To Obtain My Life.

If There Are Junk Yards In Hell, Love Is The Dog That Guards The Gates.

I Don't Carry Notebooks And I Don't Consciously Store Ideas. I Try Not To Think That I Am A Writer And I Am Pretty Good At Doing That. I Don't Like Writers, But Then I Don't Like Insurance Salesmen Either.

A Woman Must Be Nursed Into Subsistence By Love, Where A Man Can Become Stronger By Being Hated." - From 'cows In Art Class

I Often Carry Things To Read So That I Will Not Have To Look At The People.

Unless It Comes Out Of Your Soul Like A Rocket, Unless Being Still Would Drive You To Madness Or Suicide Or Murder, Don't Do It. Unless The Sun Inside You Is Burning Your Gut, Don't Do It. When It Is Truly Time, And If You Have Been Chosen, It Will Do It By Itself And It Will Keep On Doing It Until You Die Or It Dies In You. There Is No Other Way. And There Never Was.

When You Play The Field Selfishly Everything Works Against You: One Can’t Insist On Love Or Demand Affection. You’re Finally Left With Whatever You Have Been Willing To Give Which Often Is: Nothing.

… And We Are In Bed Together Laughing And We Don’t Care About Anything.

My Dear, Find What You Love And Let It Kill You. Let It Drain You Of Your All. Let It Cling Onto Your Back And Weigh You Down Into Eventual Nothingness. Let It Kill You And Let It Devour Your Remains. For All Things Will Kill You, Both Slowly And Fastly, But It’s Much Better To Be Killed By A Lover. ~ Falsely Yours

I Write As A Function. Without It I Would Fall Ill And Die. It's As Much A Part Of One As The Liver Or Intestine, And Just About As Glamorous.

It Was Better For Me When I Could Imagine Greatness In Others, Even If It Wasn't Always There.

I Will Remember The Kisses, Our Lips Raw With Love, And How You Gave Me Everything You Had And How I Offered You What Was Left Of Me.

Homosexuals Are Delicate And Bad Poetry Is Delicate And [allen] Ginsberg Turned The Tables By Making Homosexual Poetry Strong Poetry, Almost Manly Poetry; But In The Long Run, The Homo Will Remain The Homo And Not The Poet.

And There I Was, 225 Pounds, Perpetually Lost And Confused, Short Legs, Ape-like Upper Body, All Chest, No Neck, Head Too Large, Blurred Eyes, Hair Uncombed, 6 Feet Of Geek, Waiting For Her.

I Would Be Married, But I'd Have No Wife, I Would Be Married To A Single Life.

I Could See The Road Ahead Of Me. I Was Poor And I Was Going To Stay Poor. But I Didn't Particularly Want Money. I Didn't Know What I Wanted. Yes, I Did. I Wanted Someplace To Hide Out, Someplace Where One Didn't Have To Do Anything. The Thought Of Being Something Didn't Only Appall Me, It Sickened Me . . . To Do Things, To Be Part Of Family Picnics, Christmas, The 4th Of July, Labor Day, Mother's Day . . . Was A Man Born Just To Endure Those Things And Then Die? I Would Rather Be A Dishwasher, Return Alone To A Tiny Room And Drink Myself To Sleep.

When I'm Drinking Around People, I Tend To Get Silly Or Pugnacious Or Wild, Which Can Cause Problems.

This Time Has Finished Me.

I Suppose Like Others I Have Come Through Fire And Sword, Love Gone Wrong, Head-on Crashes, Drunk At Sea, And I Have Listened To The Simple Sound Of Water Running In Tubs And Wished To Drown

We Drove On And On, Past Little Villages And Both Good Things And Bad Things Were Happening To The People In Those Villages Too, But I Still Was Nothing But Arms And Ears And Eyes And Maybe There'd Be Either Some Good Luck For Me Or More Death Tomorrow.

I Don't Know If This Is True To You But For Me Sometimes It Gets So Bad That Anything Else Say Like Looking At A Bird On An Overhead Power Line Seems As Great As A Beethoven Symphony. Then You Forget It And You're Back Again.

I Used To Lay Drunk In Alleys And I Probably Will Again.bukowski, Who Is He? I Read About Bukowski And It Doesn't Seem Like Anything To Do With Me.

In My Next Life I Want To Be A Cat. To Sleep 20 Hours A Day And Wait To Be Fed. To Sit Around Licking My Ass.

It’s Hard To Drink When You Dance. And It’s Hard To Dance When You Drink.

I Lapsed Into My Pathetic Cut-off Period. Often With Humans, Both Good And Bad, My Senses Simply Shut Off, They Get Tired, I Give Up. I Am Polite. I Nod. I Pretend To Understand Because I Don’t Want Anybody To Be Hurt. That Is The One Weakness That Has Lead Me Into The Most Trouble. Trying To Be Kind To Others I Often Get My Soul Shredded Into A Kind Of Spiritual Pasta. No Matter. My Brain Shuts Off. I Listen. I Respond. And They Are Too Dumb To Know That I Am Not There.

We Don’t Even Ask Happiness, Just A Little Less Pain.

Dog Is Much Admired By Man Because He Believes In The Hand Which Feeds Him. A Perfect Set-up. For 13 Cents A Day You've Got A Hired Killer Who Thinks You Are God. A Dog Can't Tell A Nazi From A Republican From A Commie From A Democrat And, Many Times, Neither Can I.

And It Seems People Should Not Build Houses Anymore It Seems People Should Stop Working And Sit In Small Rooms On Second Floors Under Electric Lights Without Shades; It Seems There Is A Lot To Forget And A Lot Not To Do And In Drugstores, Markets, Bars, The People Are Tired, They Do Not Want To Move, And I Stand There At Night And Look Through This House And The House Does Not Want To Be Built

If You Want To Know Who Your Friends Are, Get Yourself A Jail Sentence.

Hate Contains Truth. Beauty Is A Facade.

There Would Never Be A Way For Me To Live Comfortably With People. Maybe I'd Become A Monk. I'd Pretend To Believe In God And Live In A Cubicle, Play An Organ And Stay Drunk On Wine.

And Love Is A Word Used Too Much And Much Too Soon.

I Like To Change Liquor Stores Frequently Because The Clerks Got To Know Your Habits If You Went In Night And Day And Bought Huge Quantities. I Could Feel Them Wondering Why I Wasn't Dead Yet And It Made Me Uncomfortable. They Probably Weren't Thinking Any Such Thing, But Then A Man Gets Paranoid When He Has 300 Hangovers A Year.

Mercy, I Think, Doesn't The Human Race Know Anything About Mercy?

In New York You've Got To Have All The Luck.

She Knew What She Wanted And It Wasn't / Me. / I Know More Women Like That Than Any / Other Kind.

It's Hot Tonight And Half The Neighborhood Is Drunk. The Other Half Is Dead. If I Have Any Advice About Writing Poetry It's - Don't. I'm Going To Send Out For Some Fried Chicken.

There Is Enough Treachery, Hatred Violence Absurdity In The Average Human Being To Supply Any Given Army On Any Given Day And The Best At Murder Are Those Who Preach Against It And The Best At Hate Are Those Who Preach Love And The Best At War Finally Are Those Who Preach Peace

I Felt Like Crying But Nothing Came Out. It Was Just A Sort Of Sad Sickness, Sick Sad, When You Can't Feel Any Worse. I Think You Know It. I Think Everybody Knows It Now And Then. But I Think I Have Known It Pretty Often, Too Often.

There Was Something About That City, Though It Didn't Let Me Feel Guilty That I Had No Feeling For The Things So Many Others Needed. It Let Me Alone. Sitting Up In My Bed The Lights Out, Hearing The Outside Sounds, Lifting My Cheap Bottle Of Wine, Letting The Warmth Of The Grape Enter Me As I Heard The Rats Moving About The Room, I Preferred Them To Humans. Being Lost, Being Crazy Maybe Is Not So Bad If You Can Be That Way Undisturbed. New Orleans Gave Me That. Nobody Ever Called My Name.

And Even The Trees We Walked Under Seemed Less Than Trees And More Like Everything Else.

Are You Becoming What You've Always Hated?

A Woman Is A Full Time Job. You Have To Choose Your Profession.

Agony Sometimes Changes Form But It Never Ceases For Anybody.

It’s Never Quite Right, All The Things We Are Taught, All The Loves We Chase, All The Deaths We Die, All The Lives We Live.

I Wanted The Whole World Or Nothing.

Look, Let Me Put It This Way: With Me, You’re Number One And There Isn’t Even A Number Two.

What Were You Going To Do Tonight?" "i Was Going To Listen To The Songs Of Rachmaninoff." "who's That?" "a Dead Russian.

Eleven Months. Now She's Gone Gone As They Go.

If Something Burns Your Soul With Purpose And Desire, It’s Your Duty To Be Reduced To Ashes By It. Any Other Form Of Existence Will Be Yet Another Dull Book In The Library Of Life.

Do You Hate People? I Don't Hate Them...i Just Feel Better When They're Not Around.

Most People's Deaths Are A Sham. There's Nothing Left To Die.

Banion Wondered Which Was Worse - Being Sodomized By Aliens, Or Having To Sit Through Two Hours Of Charles Ives.

It Was Too Much. The Comfortable People Made Comfortable Jokes About Weather And Things But I Sat Mostly Silent Saying A Word Or So When Necessary A Word Or So Trying To Hide From Them The Fact That I Was A Fool And Feeling Terrible And I Was Numb, Numb Again, Numb Again Again And Again, Numbness And Pain Swelling In Me.

We Waste Days Like Mad Blackbirds And Pray For Alcoholic Nightsour Silk-sick Human Smiles Wrap Around Us Like Somebody Else's Confetti

People Empty Me. I Have To Get Away To Refill.

My Hands Dead My Heart Dead Silence Adagio Of Rocks The World Ablaze That's The Best For Me.

I Was Drawn To All The Wrong Things: I Liked To Drink, I Was Lazy, I Didn't Have A God, Politics, Ideas, Ideals. I Was Settled Into Nothingness; A Kind Of Non-being, And I Accepted It. I Didn't Make For An Interesting Person. I Didn't Want To Be Interesting, It Was Too Hard. What I Really Wanted Was Only A Soft, Hazy Space To Live In, And To Be Left Alone.

I Have Two Rules. One Is, Never Trust A Man Who Smokes A Pipe. The Other Is, Never Trust A Man With Shiny Shoes.

Nothing's News. It's The Same Old Thing In Disguise. Only One Thing Comes Without A Disguise And You Only See It Once, Or Maybe Never. Like Getting Hit By A Freight Train. Makes Us Realize That All Our Moaning About Long Lost Girls In Gingham Dresses Is Not So Important After All.

Are People Crazy? People Waited All Their Lives. They Waited To Live, They Waited To Die. They Waited In Line To Buy Toilet Paper. They Waited In Line For Money. And If They Didn't Have Any Money They Waited In Longer Lines. You Waited To Go To Sleep And Then You Waited To Awaken. You Waited To Get Married And You Waited To Get Divorced. You Waited For It To Rain, You Waited For It To Stop. You Waited To Eat And Then You Waited To Eat Again. You Waited In A Shrink's Office With A Bunch Of Psychos And You Wondered If You Were One.

Trending Author

Louisa May Alcott

Category