you’re sick? you should jog, jog
along the water. watch for the
dolphins. you need vitamin E, cigarettes, and a
new typewriter ribbon.
I hang up.
I go over and sit down in front of the
typewriter.
little do they know, those suffering
bastards, that no man is completely
sane. I am sweating behind the ears.
the phone rings again. I
listen. I listen until it stops
then I lean over the
keys…
another great book in the works
for
Barnes and Noble.
in this cage some songs are born
I write poetry, worry, smile,
laugh
sleep
continue for a while
just like most of us
just like all of us;
sometimes I want to hug all
Mankind on earth
and say,
god damn all this that they’ve brought down
upon us,
we are brave and good
even though we are selfish
and kill each other and
kill ourselves,
we are the people
born to kill and die and weep in dark rooms
and love in dark rooms,
and wait, and
wait and wait and wait.
we are the people.
we are nothing
more.
my movie
my movies are getting better finally.
but I remember this one old movie I starred in.
I worked as a janitor in a tall office building
at night, with other men and
women who cleaned up the shit
left behind by other people.
those men and women had a very tired and dark and
useless feeling about them.
this one old man and I
we used to work very fast together
and then sit in an office on the top
floor
at the Big Man’s desk
our feet up there as
we looked out over the city and
watched the sun come up while
drinking whiskey
from the Big Man’s wet bar.
the old man talked and I listened to the
years of his life
not much
he was just another tired guy who cleaned up
other people’s shit
and did a good job of it.
I didn’t.
they canned me.
then I got a job as a dishwasher
and they also canned me there because
I wasn’t a good dishwasher.
this was a seemingly endless low-budget movie
it ran for years and years
it didn’t cost 50 million to make
it didn’t have an anti-war message
it really didn’t have much to say about anything
but you still ought to read my poems
and see it.
a new war
a different fight now, warding off the weariness of
age,
retreating to your room, stretching out upon the bed,
there’s not much will to move,
it’s near midnight now.
not so long ago your night would be just
beginning, but don’t lament lost youth:
youth was no wonder
either.
but now it’s the waiting on death.
it’s not death that’s the problem, it’s the waiting.
you should have been dead decades ago.
the abuse you wreaked upon yourself was
enormous and non-ending.
a different fight now, yes, but nothing to
mourn, only to
note.
frankly, it’s even a bit dull waiting on the
blade.
and to think, after I’m gone,
there will be more days for others, other days,
other nights.
dogs walking, trees shaking in
the wind.
I won’t be leaving much.
something to read, maybe.
a wild onion in the gutted
road.
Paris in the dark.
roll the dice
if you’re going to try, go all the
way.
otherwise, don’t even start.
if you’re going to try, go all the
way.
this could mean losing girlfriends,
wives, relatives, jobs and
maybe your mind.
go all the way.
it could mean not eating for 3 or
4 days.
it could mean freezing on a
park bench.
it could mean jail,
it could mean derision,
mockery,
isolation.
isolation is the gift,
all the others are a test of your
endurance, of
how much you really want to
do it.
and you’ll do it
despite rejection and the
worst odds
and it will be better than
anything else
you can imagine.
if you’re going to try,
go all the way.
there is no other feeling like
that.
you will be alone with the
gods
and the nights will flame with
fire.
do it, do it, do it.
do it.
all the way
all the way.
you will ride life straight to
perfect laughter, it’s
the only good fight
there is.
About the Author
CHARLES BUKOWSKI is one of America’s best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in Andernach, Germany, to an American soldier father and a German mother in 1920, and brought to the United States at the age of three. He was raised in Los Angeles and lived there for fifty years. He published his first story in 1944 when he was twenty-four and began writing poetry at the age of thirty-five. He died in San Pedro, California, on March 9, 1994, at the age of seventy-three, shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp (1994).
During his lifetime he published more than forty-five books of poetry and prose, including the novels Post Office (1971), Factotum (1975), Women (1978), Ham on Rye (1982), and Hollywood (1989). Among his most recent books are the posthumous editions of What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire (1999), Open All Night: New Poems (2000), Beerspit Night and Cursing: The Correspondence of Charles Bukowski and Sheri Martinelli 1960-1967 (2001), and The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps: New Poems (2001).
All of his books have now been published in translation in over a dozen languages and his worldwide popularity remains undiminished. In the years to come, Ecco will publish additional volumes of previously uncollected poetry and letters.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
BY CHARLES BUKOWSKI
The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills (1969)
Post Office (1971)
Mockingbird Wish Me Luck (1972)
South of No North (1973)
Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame: Selected Poems 1955-1973 (1974)
Factotum (1975)
Love Is a Dog from Hell: Poems 1974-1977 (1977)
Women (1978)
Play the Piano Drunk /Like a Percussion Instrument/Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit (1979)
Shakespeare Never Did This (1979)
Dangling in the Tournefortia (1981)
Ham on Rye (1982)
&nb
sp; Bring Me Your Love (1983)
Hot Water Music (1983)
There’s No Business (1984)
War All the Time: Poems 1981-1984 (1984)
You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense (1986)
The Movie: “Barfly” (1987)
The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems 1946-1966 (1988)
Hollywood (1989)
Septuagenarian Stew: Stories & Poems (1990)
The Last Night of the Earth Poems (1992)
Screams from the Balcony: Selected Letters 1960-1970 (1993)
Pulp (1994)
Living on Luck: Selected Letters 1960s-1970s (Volume 2) (1995)
Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories (1996)
Bone Palace Ballet: New Poems (1997)
The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship (1998)
Reach for the Sun: Selected Letters 1978-1994 (Volume 3) (1999)
What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire: New Poems (1999)
Open All Night: New Poems (2000)
The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps: New Poems (2001)
Beerspit Night and Cursing: The Correspondence of Charles Bukowski & Sheri Martinelli 1960-1967 (2001)
Copyright
WHAT MATTERS MOST IS HOW WELL YOU WALK THROUGH THE FIRE. Copyright © 2007 by Linda Lee Bukowski. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2007 ISBN: 9780061873317
Version 08092013
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Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire
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