What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire by Charles Bukowski Read Free Book Online

good one
    to be writing poetry at the age of 50
    like a schoolboy,
    surely, I must be crazy;
    racetracks and booze and arguments
    with the landlord;
    watercolor paintings under the bed
    with dirty socks;
    a bathtub full of trash
    and a garbage can lined with
    underground newspapers;
    a record player that doesn’t work,
    a radio that doesn’t work,
    and I don’t work—
    I sit between 2 lamps,
    bottle on the floor
    begging a 20-year-old typewriter
    to say something, in a way and
    well enough
    so they won’t confuse me
    with the more comfortable
    practitioners;
    this is certainly not a game for
    flyweights or Ping-Pong players—
    all arguments to the contrary.
    â€”but once you get the taste, it’s good to get your
    teeth into
    words. I forgive those who
    can’t quit.
    I forgive myself.
    this is where the action is,
    this is the hot horse that
    comes in.
    there’s no grander fort
    no better flag
    no better woman
    no better way; yet there’s much else to say—
    there seems as much hell in it as
    magic; death gets as close as any lover has,
    closer,
    you know it like your right hand
    like a mark on the wall
    like your daughter’s name,
    you know it like the face on the corner
    newsboy,
    and you sit there with flowers and houses
    with dogs and death and a boil on the neck,
    you sit down and do it again and again
    the machinegun chattering by the window
    as the people walk by
    as you sit in your undershirt,
    50, on an indelicate March evening,
    as their faces look in and help you write the next 5
    lines,
    as they walk by and say,
    â€œthe old man in the window, what’s the deal with
    him?”
    â€”fucked by the muse, friends,
    thank you—
    and I roll a cigarette with one hand
    like the old bum
    I am, and then thank and curse the gods
    alike,
    lean forward
    drag on the cigarette
    think of the good fighters
    like poor Hem, poor Beau Jack, poor Sugar Ray,
    poor Kid Gavilan, poor Villon, poor Babe, poor
    Hart Crane, poor
    me, hahaha.
    I lean forward,
    redhot ash
    falling on my wrists,
    teeth into the word.
    crazy at the age of 50,
    I send it
    home.

2
love
iz
a
big
fat
turkey
and
every
day
iz
thanksgiving

you do it while you’re killing flies
    Bach, I said, he had 20 children.
    he played the horses during the day.
    he fucked at night
    and drank in the mornings.
    he wrote music in between.
    at least that’s what I told her
    when she asked me,
    when do you do your
    writing?

the 12 hour night
    I found myself in middle age
    working a 12 hour night,
    night after night,
    year after year
    and somehow there seemed to be
    no way out.
    I was drained, empty and so
    were my co-workers.
    we huddled together
    under the whip,
    under intolerable conditions,
    and many of us were
    fearful of being
    fired
    for there was nothing left
    for us.
    our bodies were worn,
    our spirits whipped.
    there was a sense
    of unreality.
    one becomes so tired one
    becomes so dazed,
    that there is confusion and
    anguish mixed in with the
    deadliness.
    I think that, too,
    kept some of us working there.
    I wasted over a decade of
    12 hour nights.
    I can’t explain why I
    remained.
    cowardice, probably.
    then one night I stood up
    and said,
    â€œI’m finished, I’m leaving
    this job now!”
    â€œwhat? what? what?”
    asked my comrades.
    â€œdo you know what the
    hell you’re doing?”
    â€œwhere will you go?”
    â€œcome back!”
    â€œyou’re crazy! what will
    you do?”
    I walked down the rows
    of them, all those faces.
    I walked down the aisle
    past rows and rows of
    them,
    all the faces looking.
    â€œhe’s crazy!”
    then I was in the elevator
    riding down.
    first floor and out.
    I walked into the street,
    I walked along the street,
    then I turned and looked
    at the towering
    building, four stories high,
    I saw the lights in the
    windows,
    I felt the presence of
    those 3,000 people
    in there.
    then I turned and walked away
    into the night.
    and