Morgengrau

“being alone you decided, was a
magnificent miracle.
nothing else made any
sense at all.

—escape”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“So tired you want to quit, then you get more tired, and forget to quit.”
― Charles Bukowski, South of No North

“anyhow, I’m now using the knife the reader sent me to clean my fingernails.
better this than ripping it deep into somebody’s guts.
I prefer to do that with the poem.”
― Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

“burning in hell
this piece of me fits in nowhere as other people find things
to do
with their time
places to go
with one another
things to say
to each other.
Iam
burning in hell
some place north of Mexico. flowers don’t grow here.
I am not like
other people
other people are like other people.
they are all alike: joining grouping huddling
they are both gleeful and content andIam
burning in hell.
my heart is a thousand years old.
I am not like other people.
I’d die on their picnic grounds smothered by their flags slugged by their songs unloved by their soldiers gored by their humor murdered by their concern.
I am not like other people. Iam
burning in hell.
the hell of myself.”
― Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems