Bukowski

The Genius of the Crowd
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 Murder 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 LOVE
      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 Quick To Censure:
They Are Afraid Of What They Do
Not Know

Beware Those Who Seek Constant
Crowds; 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 Kill You, To Kill
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

The 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

--------------------

oh, yes

there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realize this
and most often
when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than
too late.

--------------------

secret laughter

the lair of the hunted is
hidden in the last place
you'd ever look
and even if you find it
you won't believe
it's really there
in much the same way
as the average person
will not believe a great painting.

----------------------

the crunch

too much
too little

too fat
too thin
or nobody.

laughter or
tears

haters
lovers

strangers with faces like
the backs of
thumb tacks

armies running through
streets of blood
waving winebottles
bayoneting and fucking
virgins.

or an old guy in a cheap room
with a photograph of M. Monroe.

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 are just 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.

people are not good to each other.
people are not good to each other.
people are not good to each other.

I suppose they never will be.
I don't ask them to be.

but sometimes I think about
it.

the beads will swing
the clouds will cloud
and the killer will behead the child
like taking a bite out of an ice cream cone.

too much
too little
too fat
too thin
or nobody

more haters than lovers.

people are not good to each other.
perhaps if they were
our deaths would not be so sad.

meanwhile I look at young girls
stems
flowers of chance.

there must be a way.

surely there must be a way 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."

------------------------

my fate

like the fox
I run with the hunted
and if I'm not
the happiest man
on earth
I'm surely the
luckiest man
alive.

_________________

starve, go mad, or kill yourself

I'm not going to die
easy;
I've sat on your suicide beds
in some of the worst
holes in America,
penniless and mad I've been,
I mean, insane, you know;
big tears, each one the size of your bastard hearts,
flowing down,
roaches crawling into my shoes,
one dirty 40-watt lightbulb overhead
and a room that smelled like piss;
while your rich
your falsely famous
laughed in safe stale places
far away,
you gave me a suicide bed and two choices,
no three:
starve, go mad, or kill yourself.

for now enjoy your trips to Paris where
you consort with great painters and dupes,
but I am getting ready for your eyes and your brain and
your dirty dishwasher souls;
you men who have created a pigpen for millions
to choke soundlessley in--
from India to Los Angeles
from Paris to the tits of the Nile--
you're fucked up
you rich you warty you insecure you pricky
damned imbecile pasty white
idiots with your startched shirts and your starched wives and, yes yes,
your starched lives,
get away get away
get away
go to Paris
while you can
while I let you.

the jolly damned man with the hoe (see Markham)
didn't answer the call,
but your children will be raped and your pigs will be eaten
and the skies will burn black with crows and your cries,
as you answer for centuries of
unbearable indignity and bullshit.
you will be dealt with
we know you now
we've known you forever;
the might of the timorous
the forth like a tremendous and ever beautiful swan,
no shit, friend
look up look up look up look up
the jolly damned man with the hoe
is now flying over Milwaukee
grinning
more lovely than the sun
more graceful than all the ugly wounds
more real than you
or I or anything.

_______________