Charles Bukowski – a smile to remember

we had goldfish and they circled around and around in the bowl on the table near the heavy drapes covering the picture window and my mother, always smiling, wanting us all to be happy, told me, "be happy Henry!" and she was right: it's better to be happy if you can but my father...

Charles Bukowski – A Following

the phone rang at 1:30 a.m. and it was a man from Denver: "Chinaski, you got a following in Denver..." "yeah?" "yeah, I got a magazine and I want some poems from you..." "FUCK YOU, CHINASKI!" I heard a voice in the background... "I see you have a friend," I said. "yeah," he...

Charles Bukowski – 40,000

at the track today, Father's Day, each paid admission was entitled to a wallet and each contained a little surprise. most of the men seemed between 30 and 55, going to fat, many of them in walking shorts, they had gone stale in life, flattened out.... in fact, damn it, they aren't...

Charles Bukowski – Young In New Orleans

starving there, sitting around the bars, and at night walking the streets for hours, the moonlight always seemed fake to me, maybe it was, and in the French Quarter I watched the horses and buggies going by, everybody sitting high in the open carriages, the black driver, and...

Charles Bukowski – This

self-congratulatory nonsense as the famous gather to applaud their seeming greatness you wonder where the real ones are what giant cave hides them as the deathly talentless bow to accolades as the fools are fooled again you wonder where the real ones are if there are real ones. this...