Reading A Letter of Bukowski's
This letter spells it out:
Fear makes us eat shit.
Not a happy image.
But it explains
why you needed those
twenty-five jobs to retire early
and thrive as a beach bum.
Or a builder.
Or a bartender.
This letter spells it out:
Fear makes us eat shit.
Not a happy image.
But it explains
why you needed those
twenty-five jobs to retire early
and thrive as a beach bum.
Or a builder.
Or a bartender.
Or a barfly poet.
Or an English teacher
living on the foreign edge where
they only understand 40%
of what you're saying.
They tried to murder me.
Your days are different now.
Or an English teacher
living on the foreign edge where
they only understand 40%
of what you're saying.
They tried to murder me.
Your days are different now.
You write about the perfect moments.
Near the airport
your calico cat smirks
under the flightpath.
© 2014 Rob Schackne
Near the airport
your calico cat smirks
under the flightpath.
© 2014 Rob Schackne
Towards the end of the letter, Bukowski writes:
ReplyDelete"So, the luck I finally had in getting out of those places, no matter how long it took, has given me a kind of joy, the jolly joy of the miracle. I now write from an old mind and an old body, long beyond the time when most men would ever think of continuing such a thing, but since I started so late I owe it to myself to continue, and when the words begin to falter and I must be helped up stairways and I can no longer tell a bluebird from a paperclip, I still feel that something in me is going to remember (no matter how far I’m gone) how I’ve come through the murder and the mess and the moil, to at least a generous way to die."