The Post Office was my first Charles Bukowski book, I remember being caught in a confusing whirlwind of emotions at the time,it was blunt,honest and at times crass even. I felt a mixture of awe at the refreshing honesty in his writing and somewhere this underlying sense of macabre and ghoulishness it left me with when i done with the book.It was one of those book i read through the night from start to finish.I've been hooked ever since.
Here's are a few of my all time favourite poems [if it sounds familiar its probably because you seen it in the Levis-Go forth campaign,a brilliantly shot ad that capture his words so beautifully]
THE LAUGHING HEART
Your life is your life
Don't let it be clubbed into dank submission.
Here's are a few of my all time favourite poems [if it sounds familiar its probably because you seen it in the Levis-Go forth campaign,a brilliantly shot ad that capture his words so beautifully]
THE LAUGHING HEART
Your life is your life
Don't let it be clubbed into dank submission.
Be on the watch.
There are ways out.
There is a light somewhere.
It may not be much light but
It beats the darkness.
Be on the watch.
The gods will offer you chances.
Know them.
Take them.
You can't beat death but
You can beat death in life, sometimes.
And the more often you learn to do it,
The more light there will be.
Your life is your life.
Know it while you have it.
You are marvelous
The gods wait to delight
in you.
-Charles Bukowski
This is another one that struck a chord,
SO YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER
If it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
Unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
Don't do it.
If you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
Don't do it.
If you're doing it for money or
fame,
Don't do it.
If you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
Don't do it.
If you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
Don't do it.
If it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
Don't do it.
If you're trying to write like somebody
else,
Forget about it.
If you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
Then wait patiently.
If it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
If you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.
Don't be like so many writers,
Don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
Don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
The libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
Don't do it.
Unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
Unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
Don't do it.
Unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
Don't do it.
When it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
It will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
There is no other way.
and there never was.
-Charles Bukowski
NO HELP FOR THAT
There are ways out.
There is a light somewhere.
It may not be much light but
It beats the darkness.
Be on the watch.
The gods will offer you chances.
Know them.
Take them.
You can't beat death but
You can beat death in life, sometimes.
And the more often you learn to do it,
The more light there will be.
Your life is your life.
Know it while you have it.
You are marvelous
The gods wait to delight
in you.
-Charles Bukowski
This is another one that struck a chord,
SO YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER
If it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
Unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
Don't do it.
If you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
Don't do it.
If you're doing it for money or
fame,
Don't do it.
If you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
Don't do it.
If you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
Don't do it.
If it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
Don't do it.
If you're trying to write like somebody
else,
Forget about it.
If you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
Then wait patiently.
If it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
If you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.
Don't be like so many writers,
Don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
Don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
The libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
Don't do it.
Unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
Unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
Don't do it.
Unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
Don't do it.
When it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
It will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
There is no other way.
and there never was.
-Charles Bukowski
NO HELP FOR THAT
There is a place in the heart that
will never be filled
A space
and even during the
best moments
and
the greatest times
times
We will know it
We will know it
more than
ever
There is a place in the heart that
will never be filled
and
we will wait
and
wait
in that space.
will never be filled
A space
and even during the
best moments
and
the greatest times
times
We will know it
We will know it
more than
ever
There is a place in the heart that
will never be filled
and
we will wait
and
wait
in that space.
-Charles Bukowski
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