You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense

by Charles Bukowski

right, he said, one thing I do like to get involved with is the fucking bottle.

it was one of those times where nothing was lost because nothing had ever been found

will i ever find anything at all? :’)

it was sad for him not because of him and the lady but because of all the millions like him and the lady

the lights blinked out there, everything so eff...

he still couldn’t write or what he wrote didn’t work

that tremendous brave optimism that buoyed everybody up so well during the depression just turned to sugar water

he died a dwindling legend with a huge handlebar mustache just like his father

in a world that could no longer use William.

sit in a flourish of color

Wc

while pieces of people fall over the edge like pebbles like rocks

as the junkies junk as the alkies drink as the whores whore as the killers kill the albatross blinks its eyes

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the weather stays mostly the same.

NOTHING. sitting in a cafe having breakfast. NOTHING. the waitress, and the people eating. the traffic runs by.

we are worn- down, hope stamped out. we reach for coffee cups like the robots about to replace us.

bloodbaths on the Eastern front didn’t matter. we know that we are beaten. NOTHING. now it’s just a matter of continuing

Bleak

anyhow— chew the food and read the paper. we read about ourselves. the news is bad. something about NOTHING.

bleaker

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.

and like most people who worked in banks he had a non-committal yet self-important personality.

and I thought, hey, break loose, man, jail is a long time. but he just stood there being held.

people don’t really want to be free!!!

sometimes when everything seems at its worst when all conspires and gnaws and the hours, days, weeks years seem wasted

I get what many will consider an obnoxious thought: it’s still nice to be Bukowski.

it’s still nice to be caro

I was cool and mean in those days and when the guys asked me, “you banged Mary Lou yet?” I answered them with the truth: “she bores me.”

“I thought you cared for me,” said Mary Lou, “don’t you realize he kissed me, stuck his tongue down my throat and had his hand up my behind?” “well,” I said, “we saw Mrs. Lattimore’s pussy the other day, in English.”

I was cool and mean in those days and I went on to high school,

anyhow, then I went on to city college where the only molesting I could see going on was what they did to your mind.

“nothing matters and we know nothing matters and that matters…”

“come on, baby, let’s get along, it’s easy…” “not for me!” she screamed,

she slammed the door and was gone. I looked at the closed door and at the doorknob and strangely I didn’t feel alone.

Huh

I have just listened to this symphony which Mozart dashed off in one day and it had enough wild and crazy joy to last forever, whatever forever is Mozart came as close as possible to that.

I found the best thing I could do was just to type away at my own work and let the dying die as they always have.

but I must say she did match me drink for drink,

and I realized that her life her feelings for things had been ruined along the way and that I was no more than a temporary companion;

and then she opened her eyes and saw me: “I knew it would be you,”

I drank alone for two years after that.

yeah

thinking, they are more terrorized than I am: if I go, those nearby might go also.

the impermanence is on my mind right now

and then the necessity of being a proper citizen and waiting for opportunity vanished and I made my move

s h i t… I turned the key, hit the gas but the car STARTED and I drove off with the dangling wires against my leg thinking do these things happen to other people or am I just the chosen one?

Big fucking mood

the courage it took to get out of bed each morning to face the same things over and over was enormous.

I went into the kitchen and poured a drink. life in America was a curious thing. well, I could let the interest build that’s what the government did but after a while they would come for me or whatever I had left.

I don’t know how he does it but every woman he meets is crazy.

It got so bad that Al thought maybe it was him so he went to a shrink and asked and the shrink said, “you’re one of the sanest men I’ve ever met.” poor Al.

that made him feel worse than ever.

but you should have seen them back then: raggedy-ass, wild-eyed, raving against the order now they have been ingested, digested, rested they write reviews for the journals they write well-worked, quiet, inoffensive poesy

well you know the old saying: it’s all a matter of taste and either they’re right and I’m wrong or I’m right and they’re all wrong or maybe it’s some place in between.

Noice

most of the people in the world could care less and I often feel the same way.

cOULD NOT****

he didn’t speak, he just smiled at me. then he turned forward. I stood behind him waiting my turn.

Ah, age!

Alabam was a sneak and a thief and he came to my room when I was drunk and each time I got up he shoved me back down.

well, Alabam, I fucked your woman and now I’m going to kick you all the way to hell!

Story Of my life

we were all alkies and none of us had jobs, all we had was each other.

Oooof

starving in a Philadelphia winter trying to be a writer I wrote and wrote and drank and drank and drank and then stopped writing and concentrated on the drinking.

My English degree awaits