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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.

-Charles Bukowski

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The Apartment Was Built

Charles Bukowski

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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.

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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.

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There Are Times When Those Eyes Inside Your Brain Stare Back At You.

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

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

Style Is The Answer To Everything. A Fresh Way To Approach A Dull Or Dangerous Thing

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

Nobody Can Save You But Yourself And You’re Worth Saving. It’s A War Not Easily Won But If Anything Is Worth Winning Then This Is It.

…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.

Drinking Is Another Way Of Thinking, Another Way Of Living. It Gives You Two Lives Instead Of One.

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.

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

My Objection To War Was Not That I Had To Kill Somebody Or Be Killed Senselessly, That Hardly Mattered. What I Objected To Was To Be Denied The Right To Sit In A Small Room And Starve And Drink Cheap Wine And Go Crazy In My Own Way And At My Own Leisure.

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

Bad Taste Creates Many More Millionaires Than Good Taste.

Beauty Is Nothing, Beauty Won’t Stay. You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are To Be Ugly, Because If People Like You, You Know It’s For Something Else.

We Use Such Big Words To Move Nowhere.

Existence Was Not Only Absurd, It Was Plain Hard Work. Think Of How Many Times You Put On Your Underwear In A Lifetime. It Was Appalling, It Was Disgusting, It Was Stupid.

Some People Never Go Crazy, What Truly Horrible Lives They Must Live.

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

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

The Problem With The World Is That The Intelligent People Are Full Of Doubts, While The Stupid Ones Are Full Of Confidence.

T Was Almost Disappointing Because It Seemed When Stress And Madness Were Eliminated From My Daily Life There Wasn't Much Left You Could Depend 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.

We Do Not Abandon Ship. I Say, As Corny As It May Sound, Through The Strength And Spirit And Fire And Dare And Gamble Of A Few Men In A Few Ways We Can Save The Carcass Of Humanity From Drowning. No Light Goes Out Until It Goes Out. Let's Fight As Men, Not Rats. Period. No Further Addition.

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.

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

Find What You Love And Let It Kill You.

I Could Scream Down 90 Mountains To Less Than Dust If Only One Living Human Had Eyes In The Head And Heart In The Body, But There Is No Chance, My God, No Chance. Rat With Rat Dog With Dog Hog With Hog, Play The Piano Drunk Listen To The Drunk Piano, Realize The Myth Of Mercy Stand Still As Even A Child's Voice Snarls And We Have Not Been Fooled, It Was Only That We Wanted To Believe.

Sometimes I Get Too Exhausted To Even Feel Bad

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.

I Think That The World Should Be Full Of Cats And Full Of Rain, That's All, Just Cats And Rain, Rain And Cats, Very Nice, Good Night.

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.

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

Maybe When I Get In The Grave, Things Will Be Beautiful.

Almost Everybody Is Born A Genius And Buried An Idiot.

Thought Provoking

There Are No Good Wars Or Bad Wars. The Only Thing Bad About A War Is To Lose It. All Wars Have Been Fought For A So-called Good Cause On Both Sides. But Only The Victor's Cause Becomes History's Noble Cause. It's Not A Matter Of Who Is Right Or Who Is Wrong, It's A Matter Of Who Has The Best Generals And The Better Army!

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

I Wasn't Sleeping On The Streets At Night. Of Course, There Were A Lot Of Good People Sleeping In The Streets. They Weren't Fools, They Just Didn't Fit Into The Needed Machinery Of The Moment. And Those Needs Kept Altering.

I Am Not Like Other People. I Am Burning In Hell. The Hell Of Myself.

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

Some Moments Are Nice, Some Are Nicer, Some Are Even Worth Writing About.

Sexual Intercourse Is Kicking Death In The Ass While Singing.

People Were Usually Much Better In Their Letters Than In Reality. They Were Much Like Poets In This Way.

If You Can Hit A Guy Once, You Can Hit Him Twice.

She Was Consumed By 3 Simple Things: Drink, Despair, Loneliness; And 2 More: Youth And Beauty

I Was Young I Was So Young It Hurt Like A Knife Inside Because There Was No Alternative Except To Hide As Long As Possible--- Not In Self-pity But With Dismay At My Limited Chance: Trying To Connect.

There's No Light At The End Of The Tunnel, There Isn't Even A Tunnel. The Best Thing I Can Do Is Get Drunk And Listen To Classical Music. Or Sleep And Wait For Death To Get Closer. Leaving This Will Not Be A Horrible Thing. Yet I'm Glad, Somehow, That I Threw My Words In The Air: Confetti, Celebrating Nothing.

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

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.

Places To Hunt Places To Hide Are Getting Harder To Find, And Pet Canaries And Goldfish Too, Did You Notice That?

We Must.. We Must Bring Our Own Light To The Darkness

If I Stop Writing I Am Dead. And That's The Only Way I'll Stop: Dead.

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

The Problem Was You Had To Keep Choosing Between One Evil Or Another, And No Matter What You Chose, They Sliced A Little Bit More Off You, Until There Was Nothing Left.

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

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

Some Nights I Knew That If I Slept I Would Die.

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

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.

Why Do You Insist Upon Destroying Yourself?

Destroying Yourself

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.

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

Little Sun Little Moon Little Dog And A Little To Eat And A Little To Love And A Little To Live For In A Little Room Filled With Little Mice Who Gnaw And Dance And Run While I Sleep Waiting For A Little Death In The Middle Of A Little Morning In A Little City In A Little State My Little Mother Dead My Little Father Dead In A Little Cemetery Somewhere. I Have Only A Little Time To Tell You This: Watch Out For Little Death When He Comes Running But Like All The Billions Of Little Deaths It Will Finally Mean Nothing And Everything: All Your Little Tears Burning Like The Dove, Wasted.

When A Writer Is Swayed With His Fame And His Fortune, You Can Float Him Down The River With The Turds.

There Was Nothing Glorious About The Life Of A Drinker Or The Life Of A Writer.

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.

We Had Such Tremendous Fun And Much Agony Together For Some Years

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.

Belane, Are You Nuts?" Who Knows? Insanity Is Comparative. Who Sets The Norm?

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

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

Thought Provoking

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.

Pain Is Strange. A Cat Killing A Bird, A Car Accident, A Fire.... Pain Arrives, Bang, And There It Is, It Sits On You. It's Real. And To Anybody Watching, You Look Foolish. Like You've Suddenly Become An Idiot. There's No Cure For It Unless You Know Somebody Who Understands How You Feel, And Knows How To Help.

The Free Soul Is Rare, But You Know It When You See It - Basically Because You Feel Good, Very Good, When You Are Near Or With Them.

I'm Going To Open Another Vottle. Not A Vottle, But A Bottle. You Open It And I'll Drink It. And You Try To Write As Much As I Did Without Falling Off Of Your Chair.

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

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.

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

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.

And Now Sometimes I'm Interviewed, They Want To Hear About Life And Literature And I Get Drunk And Hold Up My Cross-eyed, Shot, Runover De-tailed Cat And I Say,"look, Look At This!" But They Don't Understand, They Say Something Like,"you Say You've Been Influenced By Celine?" No," I Hold The Cat Up,"by What Happens, By Things Like This, By This, By This!

Too Often The People Complain That They Have Done Nothing With Their Lives And Then They Wait For Somebody To Tell Them That This Isn't So.

I Would Give Anything For A Female's Hand On Me Tonight. They Soften A Man And Then Leave Him Listening To The Rain.

There's Nothing Unusual About Love.

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

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

What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through The Fire

The Streets Were Full Of Insane & Dull People. Most Of Them Lived In Nice Houses And Didn't Seem To Work, And You Wondered How They Did It.

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Hesketh Pearson

George Smathers

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