bukowski : the crunch

dear lovers
in just one
week
i've mentioned the
beat
poet charles
bukowski on two
occasions

if you haven't
had
the pleasure
let me impart just
one
of his poems
today

---

Here is a part of "The Crunch" taken from LOVE IS A DOG FROM HELL 1977

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 wine
bottles
bayoneting and fucking
virgins.

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 just are not good to each other
one on one.

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