Bukowski

"I know a woman
who keeps buying puzzles
chinese
puzzles
blocks
wires
pieces that finally fit
into some order.
she works it out
mathmatically
she solves all her
puzzles
lives down by the sea
puts sugar out for the ants
and believes
ultimately
in a better world.
her hair is white
she seldom combs it
her teeth are snaggled
and she wears loose shapeless
covers over a body most
women would wish they had.
for many years she irritated me
with what I considered her
eccentricities-
like soaking eggshells in water
(to feed the plants so that
they'd get calcium).
but finally when I think of her
life
and compare it to other lives
more dazzling, original
and beautiful
I realize that she has hurt fewer
people than anybody I know
(and by hurt I simply mean hurt).
she has had some terrible times,
times when maybe I should have
helped her more
for she is the mother of my only
child
and we were once great lovers,
but she has come through
like I said
she has hurt fewer people than
anybody I know,
and if you look at it like that,
well,
she has created a better world.
she has won.
Frances, this poem is for
you."


― Charles Bukowski, Love is a Dog from Hell

Bukowski

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

Bukowski

There must be a way

surely there must be a way that we have not yet
thought of.

who put this brain inside of me?

it cries
it demands
it says that there is a chance

it will not say
"no"



― Charles Bukowski, Love is a Dog from Hell

Chelsea Walls

I want to be a lost poem in a stranger’s coat pocket

That conveys the importance of you

To assure you of my desire

To assure you of my dreams

I want all the possibilitiesof you in writing

I want to give you your reflection

I want your eyes on me

I want to travel to the lightness with you and stay there

And I want everything before you to follow us and can trail behind me

I want to never say goodbye to you

Even on the street corner or the phone

I want…

I want so much I’m breatheless

I wanna put my power into a poem to burn a hole in your pocket, so I can sew it

I want my words to scream through you

I want the poem not to mean that much

I want to contradict myself by accident and for you to know what I mean

I want you to be distant and for me to feel you close

I want endless days when it’s day and nighttime never to end when it’s night

I want all the seasons in one day

I want the sun to set up before us and come up in front of us

I want to water up to our waists and I want to be drenched by rain up to our ankles with holes in our shoes

I want to think your thoughts becuase they are mine

I want only what is urgent with you

I want to get in the way of the barriers and I want you to be a tough guy when you’re suppose to be like you


are already


And I want you to be tender

And I wanna say we met for a reason

And I want that reason to be important

And I want it to be bigger than us, I want it to take over us

I want to forget, I want to remember us

And I want your smile always and your grimaces too

I want your scars on my lips

I want yor disappointments in my heart

I want your strength in my soul

And I want your soul in my eyes

I want to believe everything you say and I do

And I want you tell me what’s best when I don’t know

And when you’re lost I want to find you

When you’re weary I want to give you steeples, cathedral thoughts, and coliseum dream

I want to drag you from the darkness and kneel with you exhausted with the blinding light blaring on us…

And…

Från filmen Chelsea Walls