a series of small victories

so you want to be a writer?

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:33:24 -0500

if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.

if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.

don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

-Charles Bukowski

The Genius Of The Crowd

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:49:25 -0500

hellovagina:

by: Charles Bukowski

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 peace 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 who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
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
they 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

Paris

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:14:23 -0500

pedrosanchez:

by Charles Bukowski

never
even in calmer times
have I ever
dreamed of
bicycling through that
city
wearing a
beret

and
Camus
always
pissed
me
off.

sometimes when you get the blues there might be a damn good...

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:14:43 -0500

sometimes when you get the blues there might be a damn good reason

the elephant dreams with you now. the curve of space bends and laughs. Charles BukowskiSplash [ via...

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:11:59 -0500

the elephant dreams
with you
now.
the curve of space
bends and
laughs.

Charles Bukowski
Splash

[ via partyhats / neverneverland / dirtyskydub ]

nomoreundead: (via slaughterhouse90210) “That’s the problem...

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:22:58 -0400

nomoreundead: (via slaughterhouse90210)

“That’s the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen.”
— Charles Bukowski, Women

lotusmodern: Charles Motherfucking Bukowski

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 23:23:09 -0400

lotusmodern:

Charles Motherfucking Bukowski

madeofglass: faggotxtronn: tsupii: (via fecklesss)

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:52:34 -0400

madeofglass:

faggotxtronn:

tsupii:

(via fecklesss)

Charles Bukowski Giving a Tour of Hollywood (1985)

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 15:51:45 -0400

Charles Bukowski Giving a Tour of Hollywood (1985)

Dinosauria, We

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:39:26 -0400

Born like this
Into this
As the chalk faces smile
As Mrs. Death laughs
As the elevators break
As political landscapes dissolve
As the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree
As the oily fish spit out their oily prey
As the sun is masked
We are
Born like this
Into this
Into these carefully mad wars
Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
Into bars where people no longer speak to each other
Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings
Born into this
Into hospitals which are so expensive that it’s cheaper to die
Into lawyers who charge so much it’s cheaper to plead guilty
Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes
Born into this
Walking and living through this
Dying because of this
Muted because of this
Castrated
Debauched
Disinherited
Because of this
Fooled by this
Used by this
Pissed on by this
Made crazy and sick by this
Made violent
Made inhuman
By this
The heart is blackened
The fingers reach for the throat
The gun
The knife
The bomb
The fingers reach toward an unresponsive god
The fingers reach for the bottle
The pill
The powder
We are born into this sorrowful deadliness
We are born into a government 60 years in debt
That soon will be unable to even pay the interest on that debt
And the banks will burn
Money will be useless
There will be open and unpunished murder in the streets
It will be guns and roving mobs
Land will be useless
Food will become a diminishing return
Nuclear power will be taken over by the many
Explosions will continually shake the earth
Radiated robot men will stalk each other
The rich and the chosen will watch from space platforms
Dante’s Inferno will be made to look like a children’s playground
The sun will not be seen and it will always be night
Trees will die
All vegetation will die
Radiated men will eat the flesh of radiated men
The sea will be poisoned
The lakes and rivers will vanish
Rain will be the new gold
The rotting bodies of men and animals will stink in the dark wind
The last few survivors will be overtaken by new and hideous diseases
And the space platforms will be destroyed by attrition
The petering out of supplies
The natural effect of general decay
And there will be the most beautiful silence never heard
Born out of that.
The sun still hidden there
Awaiting the next chapter.

MF Doom Talks Bukowski Influence

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 14:36:58 -0400

twentyfourbit:

MF Doom was so taken with the Charles Bukowski documentary Born Into This, he used it as a jumping off point for his new record and named the album Born Like This, the first line in Bukowski’s “Dinosauria, We.” In an interview with HipHopDX, Doom talks about how reading inspires his music and that he identifies with Bukowski as someone who is born to be a writer.

“I always read a book when I’m doing a record,” he said. “When I get stuck it gets my stuff going. Bukowski was for this record. I’m reading the Bukowski shit and getting into that dude and his plight and his whole mission as a writer… He really inspired me, just from how he just did his craft without worrying about [standards]. There’s no standards to what we do, we just do it.”

It’s a brilliant move for MF Doom to evoke Bukowski’s “Dinosauria, We” amid the current political and economic climate. I hadn’t read that poem in years, but looking at it now I realize how prescient it was:

We are born into a government 60 years in debt
That soon will be unable to even pay the interest on that debt
And the banks will burn

Bukowski’s foreboding talk about the doom (no pun intended) of human civilization isn’t really a harbinger of the actual events we’re faced with currently, but it eerily contains all the tone and substance we’ve come to expect from cable news. I can’t wait to hear MF Doom’s new record.

For his full interview with HipHopDX, click here.

hellovagina: He tells us that his heart is drowning in vomit. Hell, all our hearts are drowning in...

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 16:47:16 -0400

hellovagina:

He tells us that his heart is drowning in vomit. Hell, all our hearts are drowning in vomit, in pork salt, in bad verse, in soggy love.

— Charles Bukowski, O, We Are The Outcasts

No Title by Charles Bukowski

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 16:58:20 -0400

hellovagina:

babywolf:

digitalbath:

devface:

all theories
like clichés
shot to hell,
all these small faces
looking up
beautiful and believing;
I wish to weep
but sorrow is
stupid.
I wish to believe
but belief is a
graveyard.
we have narrowed it down to
the butcherknife and the
mockingbird.
wish us
luck.

"You’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can..."

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:21:52 -0400

“You’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.””

- bukowski (via fecklesss) (via carlbgood) (via scapegoat)

"We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it..."

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:50:55 -0400

“We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.”

- Charles Bukowski (via smut-to-go) (via obsessivecompulsive)

"Well, people got attached. Once you cut the umbilical cord they attached to the other things. Sight,..."

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 12:11:03 -0400

“Well, people got attached. Once you cut the umbilical cord they attached to the other things. Sight, sound, sex, money, mirages, mothers, masturbation, murder, and Monday morning hangovers.”

- Charles Bukowski (via simko)

thomaswheatley: cvxn:nedhepburn:nosleeptillbrooklyn: so you want to be a writer? by Charles...

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:04:14 -0400

thomaswheatley:

cvxn:nedhepburn:nosleeptillbrooklyn:

so you want to be a writer? by Charles Bukowski

if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.


if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

via

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 13:46:37 -0500

via

Cause And Effect

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 16:37:00 -0500

the best often die by their own hand
just to get away,
and those left behind
can never quite understand
why anybody
would ever want to
get away
from
them

Charles Bukowski

"We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it..."

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 20:22:32 -0500

“We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.”

- Charles Bukowski (via reckon) (via hangmanblues) (via warlust) (via laura9)