Background Image

...

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.

-Charles Bukowski

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

I Lapsed Into My

Charles Bukowski

...

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.

Views: 6

Topic

More From Charles Bukowski

I Am With The Roots Of Flowers Entwined, Entombed Sending Up My Passionate Blossoms As A Flight Of Rockets And Argument; Wine Churls My Throat, Above Me Feet Walk Upon My Brain, Monkies Fall From The Sky Clutching Photographs Of The Planets, But I Seek Only Music And The Leisure Of My Pain

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.

Your Writing", She Said To Me, "it's So Raw. It's Like A Sledgehammer, And Yet It Has Humor And Tenderness. . . .

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.

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.

Terror Finally Becomes Almost Bearable But Never Quite Terror Creeps Like A Cat Crawls Like A Cat Across My Mind

Magic Persists Without Us No Matter What We May Do To Try To Spoil It

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.

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

One Can Never Be Sure Whether It's Good Poetry Or Bad Acid

Purple Does Something Strange To Me

I Am Ashamed To Be A Member Of The Human Race But I Don't Want To Add Any More To That Shame, I Want To Scrape A Little Of It Off.

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

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

The Night Kept Coming On In And There Was Nothing I Could Do.

The Dog Approached Again, Cautiously. I Found The Bologna Sandwich, Ripped Off A Chunk, Wiped The Cheap Watery Mustard Off, Then Placed It On The Sidewalk. The Dog Walked Up To The Bit Of Sandwich, Put His Nose To It, Sniffed, Then Turned And Walked Off. This Time He Didn't Look Back. He Accelerated Down The Street. No Wonder I Had Been Depressed All My Life. I Wasn't Getting Proper Nourishment.

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

Hemingway And Saroyan Had The Line, The Magic Of It. The Problem Was That Hemingway Didn't Know How To Laugh And Saroyan Was Filled With Sugar.

Her One Drink Had Cecelia Giggling And Talking And She Was Explaining That Animals Had Souls Too. Nobody Challenged Her Opinion. It Was Possible, We Knew. What We Weren't Sure Of Was If We Had Any.

We’ve Died So Many Times Now That We Can Only Wonder Why We Still Care.

Great Books Are The Ones We Need

They Say That Nothing Is Wasted: Either That Or It Al Is

I Always Started A Job With The Feeling That I'd Soon Quit Or Be Fired, And This Gave Ma A Relaxex Manner That Was Mistaken For Intelligence Or Some Secret Power.

I Drive Around The Streets An Inch Away From Weeping, Ashamed Of My Sentimentality And Possible Love.

I Loved You Like A Man Loves A Woman He Never Touches, Only Writes To, Keeps Little Photographs Of.

Young Or Old, Good Or Bad, I Don't Think Anything Dies As Slow And As Hard As A Writer.

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

I Thought You Were Sane," I Said, "but You're Just As Crazy As The Rest Of Them.

With Me, My Main Vision For Life Was To Avoid As Many People As Possible. The Less People I Saw The Better I Felt.

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.

Sometimes There's Nothing To Say About Death.

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.

There May Not Be A Hell, But Those Who Judge May Create One. I Think People Are Over-taught. They Are Over-taught Everything. You Have To Find Out By What Happens To You, How You Will React. I'll Have To Use A Strange Term Here... "good." I Don't Know Where It Comes From, But I Feel That There's An Ultimate Strain Of Goodness Born In Each Of Us. I Don't Believe In God, But I Believe In This "goodness" Like A Tube Running Through Our Bodies. It Can Be Nurtured. It's Always Magic, When On A Freeway Packed With Traffic, A Stranger Makes Room For You To Change Lanes... It Gives You Hope.

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

But Right Now It's Bob Dylan Bob Dylan Bob Dylan All The Way.

Lawyers, Doctors, Plumbers, They All Made The Money. Writers? Writers Starved. Writers Suicided. Writers Went Mad.

Four Days Alone With Nothing. Emerge Empowered. The First Human Face You See Will Knock You Back 50%.

Writing Is Like Going To Bed With A Beautiful Woman And Afterwards She Gets Up, Goes To Her Purse And Gives Me A Handful Of Money.

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.

A Day Of Minor Profit Or Prophet Led To A Night Of Drunkenness.

If It Doesn't Come Bursting Out Of You In Spite Of Everything, Don't Do It. Unless It Comes Unasked Out Of Your Heart And Your Mind And Your Mouth And Your Gut, Don't Do It.

Things Will Be Far Worse Than They Are Now. And Far Better. I Wait.

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

This Is Very Important -- To Take Leisure Time. Pace Is The Essence. Without Stopping Entirely And Doing Nothing At All For Great Periods, You're Gonna Lose Everything...just To Do Nothing At All, Very, Very Important. And How Many People Do This In Modern Society? Very Few. That's Why They're All Totally Mad, Frustrated, Angry And Hateful.

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.

People Do Too Much. They Say Too Much.

The Laughing Heart Your Life Is Your Life Don’t Let It Be Clubbed Into Dank Submission. Be On The Watch. There Are Ways Out. There Is A Light Somewhere. It May Not Be Much Light But It Beats The Darkness. Be On The Watch. The Gods Will Offer You Chances. Know Them. Take Them. You Can’t Beat Death But You Can Beat Death In Life, Sometimes. And The More Often You Learn To Do It, The More Light There Will Be. Your Life Is Your Life. Know It While You Have It. You Are Marvelous The Gods Wait To Delight In You.

I Grow Tired Of 18th Century Moralities In A 20th Century Space-atomic Age

That's What Friendship Means: Sharing The Prejudice Of Experience.

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

What A Woman Wants Is A Reaction. What A Man Wants Is A Woman.

In The Morning It Was Morning And I Was Still Alive.

A Spark Can Set A Whole Forest On Fire. Just A Spark. Save It.

Wherever The Crowd Goes Run In The Other Direction. They're Always Wrong.

If I Hadn't Been A Drunkard, I Probably Would Have Committed Suicide Long Ago.

Thanksgiving. It Proved You Had Survived Another Year With Its Wars, Inflation, Unemployment, Smog, Presidents. It Was A Grand Neurotic Gathering Of Clans: Loud Drunks, Grandmothers, Sisters, Aunts, Screaming Children, Would-be Suicides. And Don't Forget Indigestion. I Wasn't Different From Anyone Else: There Sat The 18-pound Bird On My Sink, Dead, Plucked, Totally Disemboweled. Iris Would Roast It For Me.

Bad Writing's Like Bad Women: There's Just Not Much You Can Do About It

Great Writers Are Indecent People They Live Unfairly Saving The Best Part For Paper. Good Human Beings Save The World So That Bastards Like Me Can Keep Creating Art, Become Immortal. If You Read This After I Am Dead It Means I Made It.

I Didn't Like Parties.i Didn't Know How To Dance And People Frightened Me, Especially People At Parties. They Attempted To Be Sexy And Gay And Witty And Although They Hoped They Were Good At It, They Weren 't. They Were Bad At It. Their Trying So Hard Only Made It Worse.

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 Do Not Like To Work And Have No Trade But I Do Like To Eat, So This Is Basic, The Basic Training Of Slaves To Fear.

If You Want To Know Where God Is, Ask A Drunk.

He Asked, "what Makes A Man A Writer?" "well," I Said, "it's Simple, It's Either You Get It Down On Paper Or You Jump Off A Bridge. Writers Are Desperate People And When They Stop Being Desperate They Stop Being Writers." "are You Desperate?" "i Don't Know.

I Stopped Looking For A Dream Girl, I Just Wanted One That Wasn't A Nightmare.

The Beautiful Are Found In The Edge Of A Room Crumpled Into Spiders And Needles And Silence And We Can Never Understand Why They Left,they Were So Beautiful. They Dont Make It, The Beautiful Die Young And Leave The Ugly To Their Ugly Lives.

Erections, Ejaculations,exhibitions And General Tales Of Ordinary Madness.

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

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

Her Eyes Always Had A Frantic, Lost Look. He Could Never Cure Her Eyes Of That.

Yes, Wagner And The Storm Intermix With The Wine As Nights Like This Run Up My Wrists And Up Into My Head And Back Down Into The Gut

I Was Only Kidding About The Hundred," She Says. Oh," I Say, "what Will It Cost Me?" She Lights Her Cigarette With My Lighter And Looks At Me Through The Flame: Her Eyes Tell Me. Look," I Say, "i Don't Think I Can Ever Pay That Price Again.

If You Want To Create, You'll Create.

The Artist," An Ancient Sage Had Once Said, "is Always Sitting On The Doorsteps Of The Rich.

We Use Such Big Words To Move Nowhere.

You Boys Can Keep Your Virgins Give Me Hot Old Women In High Heels With Asses That Forgot To Get Old.

I Wish To Weep But Sorrow Is Stupid. I Wish To Believe But Belief Is A Graveyard.

What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through The Fire

Pretty Words, As Pretty Women, Wrinkle Up And Die.

There Is A Loneliness In This World So Great That You Can See It In The Slow Movement Of The Hands Of A Clock

I Dunno," I Said, "but I Have An Idea That People Who Don't Think Too Much Tend To Look Younger Longer

I Went Home Each Night Dizzy And Sick. He Was Murdering Me With The Sound Of His Voice.

Many A Good Man Has Been Put Under The Bridge By A Woman.

There Is Moss On The Walls And The Stain Of Thought And Failure And Waiting

That Was All A Man Needed: Hope. It Was Lack Of Hope That Discouraged A Man.

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

The Human Body Is Mostly Blood And Mystery And Sadness.

We're All Going To Die, All Of Us, What A Circus!

The Blankets Had Fallen Off And I Stared Down At Her White Back, The Shoulder Blades Sticking Out As If They Wanted To Grow Into Wings, Poke Through That Skin. Little Blades. She Was Helpless.

The Shortest Distance Between Two Points Is Often Unbearable.

Genius Might Be The Ability To Say A Profound Thing In A Simple Way.

I Am Not A Snob; It Is Simply That I Am Not Interested With What Most People Have To Say, Or What They Want To Do — Mostly With My Time.

Things Get Bad For All Of Us, Almost Continually, And What We Do Under The Constant Stress Reveals Who/what We Are.

Before My Death I Hope To Obtain My Life.

I Never Met Another Man I'd Rather Be. And Even If That's A Delusion, It's A Lucky One.

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.

Getting Drunk Was Good. I Decided That I Would Always Like Getting Drunk. It Took Away The Obvious And Maybe If You Could Get Away From The Obvious Often Enough, You Wouldn't Become So Obvious Yourself.

Capitalism Has Survived Communism. Now, It Eats Away At Itself.

I Think I Need A Drink.' 'almost Everybody Does Only They Don't Know It.

Finally There Is Nothing Here For Death To Take Away.

I Wasn’t Lonely. I Experienced No Self-pity. I Was Just Caught Up In A Life In Which I Could ﬁnd No Meaning.

I Don't Think I'll Travel Anymore. Travel Is Nothing But An Inconvenience. There Is Always Enough Trouble Where You Are.

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

The Whole World Is Caught In Her Glance And At Last The Universe Is Magnificent.

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.

As We Live We All Get Caught And Torn By Various Traps. Nobody Escapes Them. Some Even Live With Them. The Idea Is To Realize That A Trap Is A Trap. If You Are In One And You Don't Realize It, Then You're Finished.

"baby," I Said. "i'm A Genius But Nobody Knows It But Me."

Pull A String, A Puppet Moves ... Each Man Must Realize That It Can All Disappear Very Quickly: The Cat, The Woman, The Job, The Front Tire, The Bed, The Walls, The Room; All Our Necessities Including Love, Rest On Foundations Of Sand - And Any Given Cause, No Matter How Unrelated: The Death Of A Boy In Hong Kong Or A Blizzard In Omaha ... Can Serve As Your Undoing. All Your Chinaware Crashing To The Kitchen Floor, Your Girl Will Enter And You'll Be Standing, Drunk, In The Center Of It And She'll Ask: My God, What's The Matter? And You'll Answer: I Don't Know, I Don't Know.

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 If There Is Anybody Out There Who Is Crazy Enough To Want To Become A Writer, I'd Say Go Ahead, Spit In The Eye Of The Sun, Hit Those Keys, It's The Best Madness Going, The Centuries Need Help, The Species Cry For Light And Gamble And Laughter. Give It To Them. There Are Enough Words For All Of Us.

If It Doesn't Come Bursting Out Of You In Spite Of Everything, Don’t Do It.

True Revolution Comes From True Revulsion; When Things Get Bad Enough The Kitten Will Kill The Lion.

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

My 6 Foot Goddess Makes Me Laugh The Laughter Of The Mutilated Who Still Need Love... She Has Saved Me From Everything That Is Not Here

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

The More Cats You Have, The Longer You Live. If You Have A Hundred Cats, You'll Live Ten Times Longer Than If You Have Ten. Someday This Will Be Discovered, And People Will Have A Thousand Cats And Live Forever.

Most Of The World Was Mad. And The Part That Wasn't Mad Was Angry. And The Part That Wasn't Mad Or Angry Was Just Stupid. I Had No Chance. I Had No Choice. Just Hang On And Wait For The End. It Was Hard Work. It Was The Hardest Work Imaginable.

Of Course, There Would Always Be Arguments. That Is The Nature Of Woman. They Like The Mutual Exchange Of Dirty Laundry, A Bit Of Screaming, A Bit Of Dramatics. Then An Exchange Of Vows.

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

There's Nothing To Mourn About Death Any More Than There Is To Mourn About The Growing Of A Flower. What Is Terrible Is Not Death But The Lives People Live Or Don't Live Up Until Their Death.

She Is No Longer The Beautiful Woman She Was. She Sends Photos Of Herself Sitting Upon A Rock By The Ocean Alone And Damned. I Could Have Had Her Once. I Wonder If She Thinks I Could Have Saved Her?

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

I Took No Pride In My Solitude; But I Was Dependent On It. The Darkness Of The Room Was Like Sunlight To Me.

You Have My Soul And I Have Your Money

I Was Their Bar Freak, They Needed Me To Make Themselves Feel Better. Just Like, At Times, I Needed That Graveyard.

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.

The Less I Needed, The Better I Felt.

…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.

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!

A Man Needed Somebody. There Wasn't Anybody Around, So You Had To Make Up Somebody, Make Him Up To Be Like A Man Should Be. It Wasn't Make-believe Or Cheating. The Other Way Was Make-believe And Cheating: Living Your Life Without A Man Like Him Around.

If You're Going To Try, Go All The Way. There Is No Other Feeling Like That. You Will Be Alone With The Gods, And The Nights Will Flame With Fire. You Will Ride Life Straight To Perfect Laughter. It's The Only Good Fight There Is.

Hey, Hank, I Notice All The Women Around Your Place Lately ... Good Looking Stuff; You're Doing All Right." "sam," I Say, "that's Not True; I Am One Of God's Most Lonely Men.

Writers Are Nothing But Beggars With A Good Line.

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

Agony Sometimes Changes Form But It Never Ceases For Anybody.

Cautiously, I Allowed Myself To Feel Good At Times. I Found Moments Of Peace In Cheap Rooms Just Staring At The Knobs Of Some Dresser Or Listening To The Rain In The Dark. The Less I Needed The Better I Felt.

Love Is A Form Of Prejudice. I Have Too Many Other Prejudices.

I Went To The Bathroom And Threw Some Water On My Face, Combed My Hair. If I Could Only Comb That Face, I Thought, But I Can't.

One More Drink And You're Dead. This Is No Way To Talk To A Suicide Head.

I Am Aware That A Computer Can’t Create A Poem, But Neither Can A Typewriter.

Some Men Never Die And Some Men Never Live But We're All Alive Tonight.

I Guess The Only Time Most People Think About Injustice Is When It Happens To Them.

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.

The Apartment Was Built At The Edge Of A High Cliff So That When You Looked Out The Back Window It Seemed As If You Were Twelve Floors Up Instead Of Four. It Was Very Much Like Living On The Edge Of The World - A Last Resting Place Before The Final Big Drop.

Those Who Escape Hell However Never Talk About It And Nothing Much Bothers Them After That

The Wisest Thing To Do If You’re Living In Hell Is To Make Yourself Comfortable.

We Are Like Roses That Have Never Bothered To Bloom When We Should Have Bloomed And It Is As If The Sun Has Become Disgusted With Waiting

Well, We Lost It, And That’s All There Is To That.

Never Bring A Lot Of Money To Where A Poor Man Lives. He Can Only Lose What Little He Has. On The Other Hand It Is Mathematically Possible That He Might Win Whatever You Bring With You. What You Must Do, With Money And The Poor, Is Never Let Them Get Too Close To One Another.

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.

I Should Think That Many Of Our Poets, The Honest Ones, Will Confess To Having No Manifesto. It Is A Painful Confession But The Art Of Poetry Carries Its Own Powers Without Having To Break Them Down Into Critical Listings. I Do Not Mean That Poetry Should Be Raffish And Irresponsible Clown Tossing Off Words Into The Void. But The Very Feeling Of A Good Poem Carries Its Own Reason For Being... Art Is Its Own Excuse, And It’s Either Art Or It’s Something Else. It’s Either A Poem Or A Piece Of Cheese.

Well, People Got Attatched. Once You Cut The Umbilical Cord They Attatched To The Other Things. Sight, Sound, Sex, Money, Mirages, Mothers, Masturbation, Murder, And Monday Morning Hangovers.

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

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

Some Of My Poems Indicate That I Am Writing While Living Alone After A Split With A Woman, And I've Had Many Splits With Women. I Need Solitude More Often When I'm Not Writing Than When I Am.

Those Who Preach God, Need God Those Who Preach Peace Do Not Have Peace Those Who Preach Love Do Not Have Love

Without Literature, Life Is Hell.

But Then If You Lied To A Man About His Talent Just Because He Was Sitting Across From You, That Was The Most Unforgivable Lie Of Them All, Because That Was Telling Him To Go On, To Continue Which Was The Worst Way For A Man Without Real Talent To Waste His Life, Finally. But Many People Did Just That, Friends And Relatives Mostly.

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

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.

In The Cupboard Sits My Bottle Like A Dwarf Waiting To Scratch Out My Prayers. I Drink And Cough Like Some Idiot At A Symphony, Sunlight And Maddened Birds Are Everywhere, The Phone Rings Gamboling Its Sound Against The Odds Of The Crooked Sea; I Drink Deeply And Evenly Now, I Drink To Paradise And Death And The Lie Of Love.

When The Phone Rings I Too Would Like To Hear Words That Might Ease Some Of This.

The Writing Of Some Men Is Like A Vast Bridge That Carries You Over The Many Things That Claw And Tear. The Wine Of Forever

There Still Might Be A Place For Us Somewhere.

The Crowd Is The Gathering Place Of The Weakest; True Creation Is A Solitary Act.

Escape From The Black Widow Spider Is A Miracle As Great As Art. What A Web She Can Weave Slowly Drawing You To Her She'll Embrace You Then When She's Satisfied She'll Kill You Still In Her Embrace And Suck The Blood From You.

I Remembered My New Orleans Days, Living On Two Five-cent Candy Bars A Day For Weeks At A Time In Order To Have Leisure To Write. But Starvation, Unfortunately, Didn't Improve Art. It Only Hindered It. A Man's Soul Was Rooted In His Stomach. A Man Could Write Much Better After Eating A Porterhouse Steak And Drinking A Pint Of Whiskey Than He Could Ever Write After Eating A Nickel Candy Bar. The Myth Of The Starving Artist Was A Hoax.

I Held Her Wrists And Then I Got It Through The Eyes: Hatred, Centuries Deep And True. I Was Wrong And Graceless And Sick. All The Things I Had Learned Had Been Wasted. There Was No Creature Living As Foul As I And All My Poems Were False.

If I'm An Ass, I Should Say So. If I Don't, Somebody Else Will. If I Say It First, That Disarms Them.

Let It Die. Let There Be A New Beginning. It’s Awful. Goodnight.

I Didn't Have Any Friends At School, Didn't Want Any. I Felt Better Being Alone. I Sat On A Bench And Watched The Others Play And They Looked Foolish To Me.

Complaint Is Often The Result Of An Insufficient Ability To Live Within The Obvious Restrictions Of This God Damned Cage.

But Isn't There Always One Good Thing To Look Back On? Think Of How Many Cups Of Coffee We Drank Together.

Sometimes There's Luck, When There Is You Stock Up On It And Wait For The Other Times

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.

Art Is Its Own Excuse, And It's Either Art Or It's Something Else. It's Either A Poem Or A Piece Of Cheese.

Something That Never Happens Anywhere At Any Time.

No Matter How Little A Man Has He Will Find That He Will Always Settle For Less.

People Don't Do Me Much Good.

Dying In A A War Never Stopped Wars From Happening.

There Is Only One Place To Write And That Is Alone At A Typewriter. The Writer Who Has To Go Into The Streets Is A Writer Who Does Not Know The Streets. . . When You Leave Your Typewriter You Leave Your Machine Gun And The Rats Come Pouring Through.

I Carry Death In My Left Pocket. Sometimes I Take It Out And Talk To It: "hello, Baby, How You Doing? When You Coming For Me? I'll Be Ready.

I Tell You Such Fine Music Waits In The Shadows Of Hell.

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

Human Experience

Sometimes I Hate You," She Said.

Stay With The Beer. Beer Is Continuous Blood. A Continuous Lover.

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.

I Am For The Small Man Who Has Not Forgotten, For The Man Who Loves His Beer And His Women And His Sunlight

I Am A Dolt Of A Man, Easily Made Happy Or Even Stupidly Happy Almost Without Cause And Left Alone I Am Mostly Content.

I Have No Time For Things That Have No Soul.

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.

... To Die On A Kitchen Floor At 7 O'clock In The Morning While Other People Are Frying Eggs Is Not So Rough Unless It Happens To You.

I Give You Soul. I Give You Wisdom And Light And Music And A Bit Of Laughter. Also, I Am The World's Greatest Horseplayer.

I Want So Much That Is Not Here And Do Not Know Where To Go.

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.

I've Never Been Lonely. I've Been In A Room... I've Felt Suicidal, I've Been Depressed. I've Felt Awful ... Awful Beyond All , But I Never Felt That One Other Person Could Enter That Room And Cure What Was Bothering Me...or That Any Number Of People Could Enter That Room. In Other Words, Loneliness Is Something I've Never Been Bothered With Because I've Always Had This Terrible Itch For Solitude.

Once In A Dream I Saw A Snake Swallowing Its Own Tail, It Swallowed And Swallowed Until It Got Halfway Round, And There It Stopped And There It Stayed, It Was Stuffed With Its Own Self. Some Fix, That. We Only Have Ourselves To Go On, And It's Enough.

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.

It's Possible To Love A Human Being If You Don't Know Them Too Well.

Oh, I Don’t Mean You’re Handsome, Not The Way People Think Of Handsome. Your Face Seems Kind. But Your Eyes - They’re Beautiful. They’re Wild, Crazy, Like Some Animal Peering Out Of A Forest On Fire.

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.

Trending Author

Maria Edgeworth

Smokey Robinson

Category