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 Jan 2017 N
Charles Bukowski
she's young, she said,
but look at me,
I have pretty ankles,
and look at my wrists, I have pretty
wrists
o my god,
I thought it was all working,
and now it's her again,
every time she phones you go crazy,
you told me it was over
you told me it was finished,
listen, I've lived long enough to become a
good woman,
why do you need a bad woman?
you need to be tortured, don't you?
you think life is rotten if somebody treats you
rotten it all fits,
doesn't it?
tell me, is that it? do you want to be treated like a
*******?
and my son, my son was going to meet you.
I told my son
and I dropped all my lovers.
I stood up in a cafe and screamed
I'M IN LOVE,
and now you've made a fool of me. . .
I'm sorry, I said, I'm really sorry.
hold me, she said, will you please hold me?
I've never been in one of these things before, I said,
these triangles. . .
she got up and lit a cigarette, she was trembling all
over.she paced up and down,wild and crazy.she had
a small body.her arms were thin,very thin and when
she screamed and started beating me I held her
wrists and then I got it through the eyes:hatred,
centuries deep and true.I was wrong and graceless and
sick.all the things I had learned had been wasted.
there was no creature living as foul as I
and all my poems were
false.
 Jan 2017 N
Charles Bukowski
It's never quite right, he said, the way people look,
the way the music sounds, the way the words are
written.
It's never quite right, he said, all the things we are
taught, all the loves we chase, all the deaths we
die, all the lives we live,
they are never quite right,
they are hardly close to right,
these lives we live
one after the other,
piled there as history,
the waste of the species,
the crushing of the light and the way,
it's not quite right,
it's hardly right at all
he said.

don't I know it? I
answered.

I walked away from the mirror.
it was morning, it was afternoon, it was
night

nothing changed
it was locked in place.
something flashed, something broke, something
remained.

I walked down the stairway and
into it.
 Jan 2017 N
Charles Bukowski
there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at ****** are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
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 **** you
to **** 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 a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock

their finest art
 Jan 2017 N
Charles Bukowski
don't feel sorry for me.
I am a competent,
satisfied human being.

be sorry for the others
who
fidget
complain

who
constantly
rearrange their
lives
like
furniture.

juggling mates
and
attitudes

their
confusion is
constant

and it will
touch
whoever they
deal with.

beware of them:
one of their
key words is
"love."

and beware those who
only take
instructions from their
God

for they have
failed completely to live their own
lives.

don't feel sorry for me
because I am alone

for even
at the most terrible
moments
humor
is my
companion.

I am a dog walking
backwards

I am a broken
banjo

I am a telephone wire
strung up in
Toledo, Ohio

I am a man
eating a meal
this night
in the month of
September.

put your sympathy
aside.
they say
water held up
Christ:
to come
through
you better be
nearly as
lucky.
 Jan 2017 N
Charles Bukowski
I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
it's not pretty.

it was the first time I'd
realized
that.
 Jan 2017 N
ahmo
mucus-head
 Jan 2017 N
ahmo
numbness, my old abusive life partner, trickle down my spine and gush outward like a broken levee.

stay up far past a reasonable bed time to think about a reality where purpose is more evident. work, work, work. learn the circuitry of computer programs that will never solve world hunger. listen to sad songs on the drive home. empathize with roadkill.

float above your body. smell the surroundings and mimic all of the textbooks you've read on active listening. grin and nod while your mind transforms more and more into pile of melted wax. become nauseated by the stench of your own life. let it seep into your bloodstream like a rotten batch of dope.

think about death. think about death during breakfast. think about death when the sun goes down on an uneventful Sunday afternoon. think about death during ***. think about death while getting drinks with friends. ponder why this earth decided to play the role of an impolite and overworked host. feel sorry for the sun for having so much responsibility.

cry until the faucets allowing your tear ducts to stop are broken. let your dinner become play-dough. be a gracious host to the parasites in your mind. swim with them like the dolphins. lose grasp of why waking up is so important. swallow whiskey like saliva. promise yourself that you won't drink four tall-boy Pabst Blue Ribbons on a Tuesday night. drink four tall-boy Pabst Blue Ribbons on a Tuesday night.

hold numbness while it cries in your lap and promises that it will change-that things will be different. allow it to feed you lies like someday you'll enjoy the sunrise and someone will realize that you're not too broken to love

rip skin off of limbs. try to make it another day.
 Jan 2017 N
b e mccomb
so what
 Jan 2017 N
b e mccomb
and so what
if i give up?

the world will
keep revolving
without me

everyone i
love will
someday

forget they
ever said they
loved me back

and they too
will someday

find their ashes
mixed with mine
floating on
the breeze

and the earth
will keep
hurdling through
time and space

and so what
if i give up?
Copyright 1/18/17 by B. E. McComb
 Jan 2017 N
E. E. Cummings
i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body.  i like what it does,
i like its hows.  i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones,and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the,shocking fuzz
of your electric furr,and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh….And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new
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