Happy Birthday True Man!

Happy Birthday Bukowski. You are the one man besides my dead grandfather that I wish I could have had a beer with. My father had his night in the 70s with Hunter Thompson in Houston when their night out drinking turned into a fight after Hunter threw a beer bottle at my father. You are a truuu man Buk and you will always live in my heart and be an inspiration to my work. I have found a friend in your writing for 14 years and there will be many many many more.





oh yes

there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realize this
and most often
when you do
its’s too late
and there’s nothing worse
than
too late.



Beware the average man, the average woman, beware their love. Their love is average, seeks average. But there is genius in their hatred, there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you, to kill anybody. Not wanting solitude not understanding solitude they will attempt to destroy anything that differs from their own. Not being able to create art they will not understand art. They will consider their failure as creators only as a failure of the world. Not being able to love fully they will believe your love incomplete and then they will hate you. And their hatred will be perfect like shinning diamond, like a knife, like a mountain, like a tiger, like hemlock their finest art.




blue collar solitude

picking up two six-packs
after work
to hell with dinner
going to the apartment
and stripping down
to your shorts
throwing your clothes
on the floor
climbing onto the bed
no shower
no bath
sitting up against
the pillow
and cracking open
the first tall beer can
lighting a cigarette
nothing to do
nobody to talk to
looking at the wallpaper
yesterday's dishes
stacked in the sink
look out the window
the room getting darker
open the second can
of beer
no wife
no tv
no children
sitting in your
underwear
drinking beer
alone
everything's gone
the foreman
the time clock
the grocery store clerks
the newspaper
the coffee shops
the phone rings
you listen
and listen and
listen
until it stops
another beer
hearing the breath
whistle up your
nostrils
wiggling the right
toe
watching it.




well, that's just the way it is...

sometimes when everything seems at
its worst
when all conspires
and gnaws
and the hours, days, weeks
years
seem wasted-
stretched there upon my bed
in the dark
looking upward at the ceiling
I get what many will consider an
obnoxious thought:
it's nice to be
Bukowski.