now, if you were teaching creative writing, he asked, what would you tell them?

I’d tell them to have an unhappy love

affair, hemorrhoids, bad teeth

and to drink cheap wine,

avoid opera and golf and chess,

to keep switching the head of their

bed from wall to wall

and then I’d tell them to have

another unhappy love affair

and never to use a silk typewriter

ribbon,

avoid family picnics

or being photographed in a rose

garden ;

read Hemingway only once.

skip Faulkner

ignore Gogol

stare at photos of Gertrude Stein

and read Sherwood Anderson in bed

while eating Ritz crackers,

realize that people who keep

talking about sexual liberation

are more frightened than you are.

listen to E. Power Biggs work the

organ on your radio while you’re

rolling Bull Durham in the dark

in a strange town

with one day left on the rent

after having given up

friends, relatives and jobs.

never consider yourself superior and /

or fair

and never try to be.

have another unhappy love affair.

watch a fly on  a summer curtain.

never try to succeed.

don’t shoot pool.

be righteously angry when you

find your car has a flat tire.

take vitamins but don’t lift weights or jog.

then after all this

reverse the procedure.

have a good love affair.

and the thing

you might learn

is that nobody knows anything –

not the state, nor the mice

the garden hose of the North Star.

and if you ever catch me

teaching a creative writing class

and you read this back to me

I’ll give you a straight A

right up the pickle

barrel.

Bukowski, Charles. « now, if you were teaching creative writing, he asked, what would you tell them? », Love is a Dog From Hell, Poems 1974-1977, Harper Collins 1977, p. 233-234

love is a dog from hell

feet of cheese

coffeepot soul

hands that hate poolsticks

eyes like paperclips

I prefer red wine

I am bored on airliners

I am docile during earthquakes

I am sleepy at funerals

I puke at parades

and am sacrificial at chess

and cunt and caring

I smell urine in churches

I can no longer read

I can no longer sleep

eyes like paperclips

my green eyes

I prefer white wine

my box of rubbers is getting

stale

I take them out

Trojan-Enz

lubricated

for greater sensitivity

I take them out

and put three of them on

the walls of my bedroom are blue

Linda where did you go?

Katherine where did you go?

(and Nina went to England)

I have toenail clippers

and Windex glass cleaner

green eyes

blue bedroom

bright machinegun sun

this whole thing is like a seal

caught on oily rocks

and circled by the Long Beach Marching Band

at 3:36 p.m.

there is a ticking behind me

but no clock

I feel something crawling along

the left side of my nose :

memories of airliners

my mother had false teeth

my father had false teeth

and every Saturday of their lives

they took all the rugs in their house

waxed the hardwood floors

and covered them with rugs again

and Nina is in England

and Irene is on ATD

and I take my green eyes

and lay down in my blue bedroom.

Bukowski, Charles. « love is a dog from hell », Love is a Dog From Hell, Poems 1974-1977, Harper Collins 1977, p. 230

liberty

she was sitting in the window

of room 1010 at the Chelsea

in New York,

Janis Joplin’s old room.

it was 104 degrees

and she was on speed

and had one leg over

the sill,

and she leaned out and said,

“God, this is great!”

and then she slipped

and almost went out,

just catching herself.

it was very close.

she pulled herself in

walked over and stretched

on the bed

I’ve lost a lot of women

in a lot of different ways

but that would have been

the first time

that way.

then she rolled off the bed

landed on her back

and when I walked over

she was asleep.

all day she had been wanting

to see the Statue of Liberty.

now she wouldn’t worry me about that

for a while.

Bukowski, Charles. « liberty », Love is a Dog From Hell, Poems 1974-1977, Harper Collins 1977, p. 186

the meek have inherited

if I suffer at this

typewriter

think how I’d feel

amont the lettuce-

pickers of Salinas?

I think of the men

I’ve known in

factories

with no way to

get out –

choking while living

choking while laughing

at Bob Hope or Lucille

Ball while

2 or 3 children beat

tennis balls against

the walls.

some suicides are never

recorded.

Bukowski, Charles. « the meek have inherited», Love is a Dog From Hell, Poems 1974-1977, Harper Collins 1977, p. 139

this then –

it’s the same as before

or the other time

or the time before that

here’s a cock

and here’s a cunt

and here’s trouble.

only each time

you think

well now I’ve learned :

I’ll let her do that

and I’ll do this,

I no longer want it all,

just some comfort

and some sex

and only a minor

love.

now I’m waiting again

and the years run thin.

I have my radio

and the kitchen walls

are yellow.

I keep dumping bottles

and listening

for footsteps.

I hope that death contains

less than this.

Bukowski, Charles. « this then – », Love is a Dog From Hell, Poems 1974-1977, Harper Collins 1977, p. 134

alone with everybody

the flesh covers the bone

and they put a mind

in there and

sometimes a soul,

and the women break

vases against the walls

and the men drink too

much

and nobody finds the

one

but they keep

looking

crawling in and out

of beds.

flesh covers

the bone and the

flesh searches

for more than flesh.

there’s no chance

at all :

we are all trapped

by a singular fate.

nobody ever finds

the one.

the city dumps fill

the junkyards fill

the madhouses fill

the hospitals fill

the graveyards fill

nothing else

fills.

Bukowski, Charles. « alone with everybody », Love is a Dog From Hell, Poems 1974-1977, Harper Collins 1977, p. 97-98

how to be a great writer

you’ve got to fuck a great many women

beautiful women

and write a few decent love poems.

and don’t worry about age

and/or freshly-arrived talent

just drink more beer

more and more beer

and attend the racetrack at least once a

week

and win

if possible.

learning to win is hard –

any slob can be a good loser.

and don’t forget your Brahms

and your Bach and your

beer.

don’t overexercise.

sleep until noon.

avoid credit cards

or paying for anything on

time.

remember that there isn’t a piece of ass

in this world worth over $50

(in 1977).

and if you have the ability to love

love yourself first

but always be aware of the possibility of

total defeat

whether the reason for that defeat

seems right or wrong –

an early taste of death is not necessarily

a bad thing.

stay out of churches and bars and museums,

and like the spider be

patient –

time is everybody’s  cross,

plus

exile

defeat

treachery

all that dross.

stay with the beer.

beer is continuous blood.

a continuous lover.

get a large typewriter

and as the footsteps go up and down

outside your window

hit that thing

hit it hard

make it a heavyweight fight

make it the bull when he first charges in

and remember the old dogs

who fought so well:

Hemingway, Celine, Dostoevsky, Hamsun.

if you think they didn’t go crazy

in tiny rooms

just like you’re doing now

without women

without food

without hope

then you’re not ready.

drink more beer.

there’s time.

and if there’s not

that’s all right

too.

Bukowski, Charles. « how to be a great writer », Love is a Dog From Hell, Poems 1974-1977, Harper Collins 1977, p. 93-94

me

me

women don’t know how to love,

she told me.

you know how to love

but women just want to

leech.

I know this because I’m a woman.

hahaha, I laughed.

so don’t worry about your breakup

with Susan

because she’ll just leech onto

somebody else.

we talked a while longer

then I said goodbye

hungup

went into the crapper and

took a good beershit

mainly thinking, well,

I’m still alive

and have the ability to expel

wastes from my body.

and poems.

and as long as that’s happening

I have the ability to handle

betrayal

loneliness

hangnail

clap

and the economic reports in the

financial section.

with that

I stood up

wiped

flushed

then thought :

it’s true:

I know how to

love.

I pulled my pants and walked

into the other room.

Bukowski, Charles. « me », Love is a Dog From Hell, Poems 1974-1977, Harper Collins 1977, p. 31-32