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You Have To Lay Down In The Center Of The Action Lay Down And Wait Until It Charges Then You Must Get Up Face It Get It Before It Gets You The Whole Process Is More Shy Than Vulnerable So Lay Down And Wait Sometimes It's Ten Minutes Sometimes It's Years Sometimes It Never Arrives But You Can't Rush It Push It There's No Way To Cheat Or Get A Jump On It You Have To Lay Down Lay Down And Wait Like An Animal .

-Charles Bukowski

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You Have To Lay

Charles Bukowski

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You Have To Lay Down In The Center Of The Action Lay Down And Wait Until It Charges Then You Must Get Up Face It Get It Before It Gets You The Whole Process Is More Shy Than Vulnerable So Lay Down And Wait Sometimes It's Ten Minutes Sometimes It's Years Sometimes It Never Arrives But You Can't Rush It Push It There's No Way To Cheat Or Get A Jump On It You Have To Lay Down Lay Down And Wait Like An Animal .

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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.

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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

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

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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?

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

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

As The Shadows Assume Shapes I Fight The Slow Retreat Now My Once-promise Dwindling Dwindling Now Lighting New Cigarettes Pouring More Drinks It Has Been A Beautiful Fight Still Is.

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

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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.

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I Wasn't A Misanthrope And I Wasn't A Misogynist But I Liked Being Alone. It Felt Good To Sit Alone In A Small Space And Smoke And Drink. I Had Always Been Good Company For Myself.

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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.

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Humanity, You Never Had It To Begin With.

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

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Bad Poetry Is Caused By People Who Sit Down And Think, Now I Am Going To Write A Poem.

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It's Not The Large Things That Send A Man To The Madhouse... No, It's The Continuing Series Of Small Tragedies... Not The Death Of His Love But The Shoelace That Snaps With No Time Left.

And Love Was Lightning And Remembrance

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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.

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

And Don't Forget: Time Is Meant To Be Wasted, Love Fails And Death Is Useless.

In A Capitalistic Society The Losers Slaved For The Winners And You Have To Have More Losers Than Winners.

I Could Never Accept Life As It Was, I Could Never Gobble Down All Its Poisons Bu There Were Parts, Tenuous Magic Parts Open For The Asking.

I Got Up And Walked Back To My Roominghouse. The Moonlight Was Bright. My Footsteps Echoed In The Empty Street And It Sounded As If Somebody Was Following Me, I Looked Around. I Was Mistaken. I Was Quite Alone.

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.

I Went To The Worst Of Bars Hoping To Get Killed But All I Could Do Was To Get Drunk Again.

Parties Sickened Me. I Hated The Game-playing, The Dirty Play, The Flirting, The Amateurs Drunks, The Bores.

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.

People Run From Rain But Sit In Bathtubs Full Of Water.

Be It Peace Or Happiness Let It Enfold You

Life Itself Is Not The Miracle. That Pain Should Be So Constant, That's The Miracle -

Nobody Ever Finds The One

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

When I Begin To Doubt My Ability To Work The Word, I Simply Read Another Writer And Know I Have Nothing To Worry About. My Contest Is Only With Myself, To Do It Right, With Power, And Force, And Delight, And Gamble.

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

That Moment - To This ... May Be Years In The Way They Measure, But It's Only One Sentence Back In My Mind - There Are So Many Days When Living Stops And Pulls Up And Sits And Waits Like A Train On The Rails. I Pass The Hotel At 8 And At 5; There Are Cats In The Alleys And Bottles And Bums, And I Look Up At The Window And Think, I No Longer Know Where You Are, And I Walk On And Wonder Where The Living Goes When It Stops.

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

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

There's Nothing To Stop A Man From Writing Unless That Man Stops Himself. If A Man Truly Desires To Write, Then He Will. Rejection And Ridicule Will Only Strengthen Him. And The Longer He Is Held Back The Stronger He Will Become, Like A Mass Of Rising Water Against A Dam. There Is No Losing In Writing, It Will Make Your Toes Laugh As You Sleep, It Will Make You Stride Like A Tiger, It Will Fire The Eye And Put You Face To Face With Death. You Will Die A Fighter, You Will Be Honored In Hell. The Luck Of The Word. Go With It, Send It.

Insanity Is Relative. Who Sets The Norm?

In A More Universal Sense, We Only Get One Thing. You Know...a Head Stone If We're Lucky; If Not, Green Grass.

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.

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.

I See Men Assassinated Around Me Every Day. I Walk Through Rooms Of The Dead, Streets Of The Dead, Cities Of The Dead; Men Without Eyes, Men Without Voices; Men With Manufactured Feelings And Standard Reactions; Men With Newspaper Brains, Television Souls And High School Ideas.

Writing Is Something That You Don't Know How To Do. You Sit Down And It's Something That Happens, Or It May Not Happen. So, How Can You Teach Anybody How To Write? It's Beyond Me, Because You Yourself Don't Even Know If You're Going To Be Able To. I'm Always Worried, Well, You Know, Every Time I Go Upstairs With My Wine Bottle. Sometimes I'll Sit At That Typewriter For Fifteen Minutes, You Know. I Don't Go Up There To Write. The Typewriter's Up There. If It Doesn't Start Moving, I Say, Well This Could Be The Night That I Hit The Dust.

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

As The Spirit Wanes The Form Appears

My Flesh Looked Like It Wasn't Trying. It Looked Like It Hated Being Part Of Me.

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.

My Body Gnaws At Me From One Side And My Spirit Gnaws At Me From The Other.

It's Good To Have Things Done With When They Don't Work It's Also Good Not To Hate Or Even Forget The Person You've Failed With.

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

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

Morning Night And Noon The Traffic Moves Through And The Murder And Treachery Of Friends And Lovers And All The People Move Through You. Pain Is The Joy Of Knowing The Unkindest Truth That Arrives Without Warning. Life Is Being Alone Death Is Being Alone. Even The Fools Weep Morning Night And Noon.

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

News Travels Fast In Places Where Nothing Much Ever Happens.

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.

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.

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

...having Nothing To Struggle Against They Have Nothing To Struggle For.

You've Got To Rise From The Floor Alone Or Fall Back Alone.

There's Nothing Unusual About Love.

My Ambition Is Handicapped By Laziness

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.

Sweet Christ, You Must Know That A Man Will Go Further For Any Poem Than For Any Woman Ever Born.

I Guess For Me Hemingway Is A Lot Like It Is For Others: He Goes Down Well When We Are Young.

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

Life's As Kind As You Let It Be.

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

I Was A Bore And Didn't Know When To Smile Or Fake It. Or Rather Worse, I Did But Didn't.

When You Clean Up A City, You Destroy It.

I Never Understood Society. I Undersand That It Works Somehow And That It Functions As A Reality And That Its Realities Are Necessary To Keep Us From Worse Realities. But All I Sense Are That Are Plenty Of Police And Jails And Judges And Laws And That What Is Meant To Protect Me Is Breaking Me Down.

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.

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.

Meanwhile The 3 A.m. Drunks Of The World Would Lay In Their Beds, Trying In Vain To Sleep, And Deserving That Rest, If They Could Find It.

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

Being Alone Never Felt Right. Sometimes It Felt Good, But It Never Felt Right.

Loneliness And Solitude

Beware Those Who Are Always Reading Books

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

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

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

To Create Art Means To Be Crazy Alone Forever.

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

Dying Should Come Easy: Like A Freight Train You Don't Hear When Your Back Is Turned.

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.

Beware Those Quick To Praise For They Need Praise In Return Beware Those Who Are Quick To Censor They Are Afraid Of What They Do Not Know Beware Those Who Seek Constant Crowds For They Are Nothing Alone Beware The Average Man The Average Woman Beware Their Love, Their Love Is Average Seeks Average

You've Got To Burn Straight Up And Down And Then Maybe Sidewise For A While And Have Your Guts Scrambled By A Bully And The Demonic Ladies, You've Got To Run Along The Edge Of Madness Teetering, You've Got To Starve Like A Winter Alleycat, You've Go To Live With The Imbecility Of At Least A Dozen Cities, Then Maybe Maybe Maybe You Might Know Where You Are For A Tiny Blinking Moment.

Courts Are Places Where The Ending Is Written First And All That Precedes Is Simply Vaudeville.

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

It Doesn't Matter If Prince Charles Falls Off His Horse Or That The Hummingbird Is So Seldom Seen Or That We Are Too Senseless To Go Insane. Coffee. Give Us More Of That Nothing Coffee.

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

I Can Almost Understand Why People Leap From Bridges.

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

There's No Clarity. There Was Never Meant To Be Clarity.

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

Most People Are Much Better At Saying Things In Letters Than In Conversation, And Some People Can Write Artistic, Inventive Letters, But When They Try A Poem Or Story Or Novel They Become Pretentious.

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.

It’s Nice Enough To Make A Man Weep, But I Don’t Weep, Do You?

There Is Always One Woman To Save You From Another And As That Woman Saves You She Makes Ready To Destroy

Each Person Is Only Given So Many Evenings And Each Wasted Evening Is A Gross Violation Against The Natural Course Of Your Only Life.

It Seemed Better To Delay Thinking.

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

People In Love Often Become Edgy, Dangerous. They Lose Their Sense Of Perspective.

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

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

I Take Much Pleasure In Being Alone But There Is Also A Strange Warm Grace In Not Being Alone.

I Am This Fiery Snail Crawling Home.

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.

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'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.

They Looked As If Nothing Had Ever Touched Them--all Well-mothered, Protected, With A Soft Sheen Of Contentment. None Of Them Had Ever Been In Jail, Or Worked Hard With Their Hands, Or Even Gotten A Traffic Ticket. Skimmed-milk Jollies, The Whole Bunch.

I Didn't Feel That Way About It. I Had Been Playing With Death For Some Time. I Can't Say We Were The Best Of Friends But We Were Well Acquainted.

I'm Only Interested In Poetry.

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

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

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.

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