from a wine-stained notebook

could I but wash away meaning like a sore, and would that the animal in my wisdom eat and disgorge my tender brain

what the hell, I had it for a
while. that beats the
other.

what they want

(..) a God damned show
a lit billboard
in the middle of hell.
that's what they want,
that bunch of
dull
inarticulate
safe
dreary
admirers of
carnivals.

the frozen boy / notes of a dirty old man

[..] I stared at the bathroom tiles. the tears came but I made no sound. he stopped beating. he usually gave me fifteen or twenty lashes. he stopped at a mere seven or eight. he ran out of the bathroom, "Mama, Mama, I think our boy is CRAZY, he don't cry when I whip him!" "you think he's crazy, Henry?" "yes, mama." "ah, too bad!"
it was only the first RECOGNIZABLE appearance of The Frozen Boy. I knew that there was something wrong with me but I did not consider myself insane. it was just that I could not understand how other people could become so easily angry, then just as easily forget their anger and become joyful, and how they could be so interested in EVERYTHING when everything was so dull.

white dog / bukowski

I went for a walk on Hollywood Boulevard.
I looked down and there was a large white dog
walking beside me.
his pace was exactly the same as mine,
we stopped at traffic signals together.
a woman smiled at us.
he must have walked 8 blocks with me.
then I went into a grocery store and
when I came out he was gone.
or she was gone.
the wonderful white dog
with a trace of yellow in its fur.
the large blue eyes were gone.
the grinning mouth was gone.
the lolling tongue was gone.

things are so easily lost.
things just can't be kept forever.

I got the blues.
I got the blues.
that dog loved and
trusted me and
I let it walk away.

dog / Charles Bukowski

a single dog
walking alone on hot sidewalk of
summer
appears to have the power
of ten thousand gods.

why is this?