Jeri > Jeri's Quotes

“there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in the slow movement of
the hands of a clock.

people so tired
mutilated
either by love or no love.

people just are not good to each other
one on one.

the rich are not good to the rich
the poor are not good to the poor.

we are afraid.

our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big-ass winners.

it hasn't told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.

or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone

untouched
unspoken to

watering a plant.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“you boys can keep your virgins
give me hot old women in high heels
with asses that forgot to get old.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“I drive around the streets
an inch away from weeping,
ashamed of my sentimentality and
possible love.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“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 . . .

— PULL A STRING, A PUPPET MOVES . . .”
― Charles Bukowski, Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame

“out of the arms...


out of the arms of one love
and into the arms of another

I have been saved from dying on the cross
by a lady who smokes pot
writes songs and stories,
and is much kinder than the last,
much much kinder,
and the sex is just as good or better.

it isn't pleasant to be put on the cross and left there,
it is much more pleasant to forget a love which didn't
work
as all love
finally
doesn't work...

it is much more pleasant to make love
along the shore in Del Mar
in room 42, and afterwards
sitting up in bed
drinking good wine, talking and touching
smoking

listening to the waves...

I have died too many times
believing and waiting, waiting
in a room
staring at a cracked ceiling
waiting for the phone, a letter, a knock, a sound...
going wild inside
while she danced with strangers in nightclubs...

out of the arms of one love
and into the arms of another

it's not pleasant to die on the cross,
it's much more pleasant to hear your name whispered in the dark.”
― Charles Bukowski, Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame

“nerves


twitching in the sheets --
to face the sunlight again,
that's clearly
trouble.
I like the city better when the
neon lights are going and
the nudies dance on top of the
bar
to the mauling music.

I'm under this sheet
thinking.
me nerves are hampered by
history --
the most memorable concern of mankind
is the guys it takes to
face the sunlight again.

love begins at the meeting of two
strangers. love for the world is
impossible. I'd rather stay in bed
and sleep.

dizzied by the days and the streets and the years
I pull the sheets to my neck.
I turn my ass to the wall.
I hate the mornings more than
any man.”
― Charles Bukowski, Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame

“fuck


she pulled her dress off
over her head
and I saw the panties
indented somewhat into the
crotch.

it's only human.
now we've got to do it.
I've got to do it
after all that bluff.
it's like a party--
two trapped
idiots.

under the sheets
after I have snapped
off the light
her panties are still
on. she expects an
opening performance.
I can't blame her. but
wonder why she's here with
me? where are the other
guys? how can you be
lucky? having someone the
others have abandoned?

we didn't have to do it
yet we had to do it.
it was something like
establishing new credibility
with the income tax
man. I get the panties
off. I decide not to tongue her. even then
I'm thinking about
after it's over.

we'll sleep together
tonight
trying to fit ourselves
inside the wallpaper.

I try, fail,
notice the hair on her
head
mostly notice the hair
on her
head
and a glimpse of
nostrils
piglike

I try it again.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“If you go home with somebody, and they don't have books, don't fuck 'em!”
― John Waters

“alone with everybody


the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and them men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but they keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.

nobody ever finds
the one.

the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“They are not unattractive in the sense that I am drunk and they likely have female genitalia.”
― Lance Carbuncle, Smashed, Squashed, Splattered, Chewed, Chunked and Spewed

“Love is quivering happiness.”
― Khalil Gibran, Love Letters in the Sand: The Love Poems of Khalil Gibran

“Darkness may hide the trees
and the flowers from the eyes
but it cannot hide
love from the soul.”
― Khalil Gibran, Love Letters in the Sand: The Love Poems of Khalil Gibran

“True beauty is a ray
That springs from the sacred depths of the soul,
and illuminates the body, just as life
springs from the kernel of a stone and
gives colour and scent to a flower.”
― Khalil Gibran, Love Letters in the Sand: The Love Poems of Khalil Gibran

“The feelings we live through
in love and in loneliness
are simply, for us,
what high tide
and low tide are to the sea.”
― Khalil Gibran, Love Letters in the Sand: The Love Poems of Khalil Gibran

“When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as
the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.”
― Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

“Love is the only freedom in the world because it so elevates the spirit that the laws of humanity and the phenomena of nature do not alter its course.”
― Kahlil Gibran, Broken Wings

“My dear soul, flee from the worthless,
stay close only to those with a pure heart.
Like attracts like.
A crow will lead you to the graveyard,
a parrot to a lump of sugar.”
― Rumi

“Although the road is never ending
take a step and keep walking,
do not look fearfully into the distance...
On this path let the heart be your guide
for the body is hesitant and full of fear.”
― Rumi

“Your body is woven
from the light of heaven.
Are you aware
that its purity and swiftness
is the envy of angels
and its courage
keeps even devils away.”
― Rumi

“My heart rushes into the garden,
joyfully tasting all the delights.
But reason frowns, disapproving
of the heart's bad manners.”
― Rumi

“Do not leave me,
hide in my heart like a secret,
wind around my head like a turban.
"I come and go as I please,"
you say, "swift as a heartbeat."
You can tease me as much as you like
but never leave me.”
― Rumi

“If I gaze at my beloved
she may feel embarrassed
and if I do not,
she will feel neglected.
I can see the stars reflecting
in the calm water of her face
but if I look away
I lose my clarity.”
― Rumi

“To live without you
is to be robbed of love
and what is life without it?
To live without you
is death to me, my love
but some call it life.”
― Rumi

“Put your thoughts to sleep,
do not let them cast a shadow
over the moon of your heart.
Let go of thinking.”
― Rumi

“Is your face a beautiful blossom
or a sweet torture?
I have no complaints
but my heart is tempted
to let you
hear of its sorrows.”
― Rumi

“Angels dance only with You, Beloved
and only before You do I bow in adoration.
You may accept me or not but I will be at your feet forever.”
― Rumi

“There is another language beyond language,
another place beyond heaven and hell.
Precious gems come from another mine,
the heart draws light from another source.”
― Rumi

“The rose's rarest essence lives in the thorns.”
― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi