Good Company

Charles Bukowski

at seventeen i was a Marxist and an idiot.

i read the Beat generation because

everywhere i looked were rules

and the only alternatives I’d seen

were hobos.

then i found the literary misfits

the bad boys

burroughs kerouac whoever

they got it right

and they got right to it

for better or worse

usually worse,

like me

they had no patience

and didn’t love themselves.

reading them is a bit like drinking tasteless beer.

there’s no reason for it.

besides that it’s cheap

and once you’ve gone through two or three

there’s no reason to stop;

two or three just leave you tired.

so you burn through it all,

like the author

and come to the end of a living body

of work

unsatisfied.

so i took a chance

and tried my luck with a different crowd.

i started with Joyce

only to see what i was up against

then went to Baldwin because he reminded me of my mother

and finally settled on Hemingway, the father

i never had, who showed me

that great feat, the novel, could be done.

it became clear that the writers i'd sat around with

the poets

the bad boys

breaking silly little rules

were just like teenagers

who never stopped wearing silly shit.

they wanted desperately to do what the masters did

but never had the patience or bravery

to see if they had the gift.

i feel sorry for them,

but not too much.

sure, sometimes

i worry that i'm drifting to the right,

i'm drifting to the right.

so what?

i wonder how much farther i'll go.

anyway, i'm not afraid of living

any more.

because i met Bukowski.

thank god for Bukowski.

crude dirty old Bukowski.

i met him at the wrong time

and found him sort of juvenile.

i pictured Hemingway saying,

“Just capitalize the letters, Hank. If you have something to say, say it.”

and someone else, who never, God bless them, ever

wrote nearly as much as Bukowski saying,

“Acknowledging the authority of the oppressor in order to subvert their authority

is itself an act of subservience.”

which is

very good

horseshit.

Bukowski was unkempt

and like my old friends he broke the rules.

he began all his sentences with lower-cased letters.

but, what’s different about Bukowski, and what matters,

is that he wrote one hundred poems a night for fifty years

on a typewriter

perhaps if an ordinary man is to accomplish anything

he must cut corners.

so you feel like crying when an amateur mexican boxer goes down.

and you feel like murder when management changes the odds

at the last second of the 8th race

at the Santa Anita racetrack.

feel like cheering when the gamblers climb the gates

and management directs the jockeys to start the race

and a small moan comes from the crowd

as the men

who have nothing but their bodies

lay themselves down on the track

and glance over their shoulders

as the jockeys kick the horses into a gallop

and plunge the animals into them.

for once all the bodies are touching.

there is an exhale

then it's over.

writing thousands of poems

dozens of books

burning like oil

eighty years

whoring

and

gambling

and

pumping the iron.

Bukowski showed up.

if Hemingway’s metaphysic was the bullfight.

Bukowski’s was the horserace.

there were one hundred bad ones for every good one.

and every good one came at the price of ninety nine.

but unlike bullfights or horse races  

you never see Bukowski’s bad poems.

after his death they published three books of his poetry

and they’re all good.

one is called

"girl in a mini-skirt reading the bible outside my window."

you can imagine what it's about,

but you'd be wrong.

another is called "art."

here it is:

as the

spirit

wanes

the

form

appears.

Bukowski was cheap

but he wasn’t tasteless.

sit with him.

fifty years at a typewriter

is as good company

as wine.

The Next Step

You fucking pig

You loser

You have no idea

What you’re doing.

This young police officer

finally laced on the handcuffs.

“The first step...” they told me.

They were incredibly white

and kind,
but it was obvious 

that the first step was getting out

of the handcuffs.
And I did.

I took them up on their advice,

went back and found the people

I had hurt by simply being present
in their lives
and I said:

I’m sorry I’m a pig fucker.

I’m a loser.

I have no idea what I’m doing.

And they smiled and let someone else

lead me away;

they wanted to see if I'd figured out the next step;

they wouldn't be the ones flying through the air 

if I hadn't learned a damned thing—you can count on that!

Well, I never took that step,

but I haven't fallen over either.

As they float away to marriage land
I look up the wedding dresses

and yell:

"If you’re going to heaven, you owe me one! 

Show me those panties! Just one last time!"

And they do,
but in a medical way,

and I see handcuffs stashed in the lace.

That's smart, I figure.
but sadder than hell too.

Mental Health

There is no such thing as mental health

(Though it can be a hell of a friend)

There is only what you do.

You walk from one place to another

punch a person in the face

and wake up.

The couch has been peed on.

Your neighbor’s tortilla press

is sitting in the sink

and the workday is half over.

The phone rings and rings.

You turn it on.

Worried little voices

come out of it.

They tell you:
i'm here for you

i understand
i understand
we'll get to the bottom of this.

you understand. 
Don't you?

to water.

Serving

you take your first job

and you’re on time the first day

and then you start to show up late

and your boss,

a bad man who’s going bald,

begins asking

why you’re always touching your face

and corners you

asking why your hands are always dry

when you leave the bathroom.

but after a few months

the coworker with the ass

has ridden in your car

and you’re relaxed

and smooth while taking orders.

the job has become second nature

and at the end of your shift

you begin taking boxes of beer

out the back.
because when you’re serving,
you're always a few pegs removed

from the bigger things,
the responsibility

the top

so it makes good sense 
to get fired

and get the hell out of there.

it’s not logical,

once you’ve been a server,

ever to be one again.

but if you're the type that's accustomed 

to pretending to wash your hands

and taking boxes of beer 

out the back, 
you'll find

it’s not exactly logical 
doing anything else 
either.

On Being Tiny

after a sleepless night of sin

i watched this fellow

named

neal degrasse tyson

break open the universe and lay it out square.

he wasn’t like the dapper and spectacled atom bombers

who shouldn’t even have been allowed to die,

or the big, genial, contemporary geniuses,

the Hawkings and Dawkins,

who write books.

nothing could be worse.

with neal it was simple. 
he said

the three most abundant elements in the universe

are the three most abundant elements in the human body.

they exist in the same proportions.

carbon, which is number three
can make more molecules and chemicals 
than all the other elements combined.

numbers two and one are

oxygen and hydrogen.

blah blah blah, but you have to know

where the elements come from. 
it's those giant melting pots: the stars.

as the commercials came on
i started thinking differently about space
and ever since
night has been distressing

not because we are so far away from everything else,

but because we are already everywhere.

this, neal said, 
should give us a sense of belonging.

well fuck me, i thought, and turned off the tv.

In the End

“What’s the end of the Old Testament?”

“What do you mean?”

The woman brought her leg up onto the couch. “I mean I haven’t read it.”

The man nodded seriously.

“I know the New Testament is all Jesus,” she said. “The Old Testament is Moses and Genesis. But what comes at the end of the Old Testament?"

The man’s eyes went up to the ceiling and sat still. The woman leaned forward, drank some wine, and then placed the glass back on a see-though coffee table. “I don’t know!” the man blurted out and they both laughed.

Then he talked about his upbringing as a Unitarian Universalist. It was a very liberal upbringing with a focus on social justice and tangible human values. He liked black people. He was totally comfortable with anything. And on and on. And then she said the same things back to him in a different way so he would see that he that wasn’t any smarter than her. There was lots of enthusiastic head nodding.

The woman thanked the man for dinner. They both said goodnight. The door closed and the man’s apartment became normal again. It was still too early to sleep. He tried to read. He poured a glass of wine. He wished he’d kissed her. But nothing matters.

Thank You

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.