Tales of Ordinary Madness

 I've never been lonely. 

I've been in a room -- I've felt suicidal. 

I've been depressed. 

I've felt awful -- awful beyond all -- 

but I never felt that one other person 

could enter that room and cure what was bothering me...

or that any number of people could enter that room. 

In other words, 

 loneliness is something I've never been bothered with 

because I've always had this terrible itch for solitude. 

It's being at a party, or at a stadium 

full of people cheering for something, that I might feel loneliness. 

I'll quote Ibsen, 

"The strongest men are the most alone." 

I've never thought,

 "Well, some beautiful blonde will come in here 

and give me a fuck-job, rub my balls, 

and I'll feel good.

" No, that won't help. You know the typical crowd, 

"Wow, it's Friday night, what are you going to do? 

Just sit there?

" Well, yeah. Because there's nothing out there. 

It's stupidity. Stupid people mingling with stupid people. 

Let them stupidify themselves. 

I've never been bothered with the need to rush out into the night. 

I hid in bars, because I didn't want to hide in factories. 

That's all. 

Sorry for all the millions, 

but I've never been lonely. 

I like myself. I'm the best form of entertainment I have. 

Let's drink more wine! 

 
― Charles Bukowski

 

Factotum

“If you're going to try, go all the way. 

Otherwise, don't even start. 

This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. 

It could mean not eating for three or four days. 

It could mean freezing on a park bench.

 It could mean jail. 

It could mean derision.

It could mean mockery--isolation. 

Isolation is the gift. 

All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it.

 And, 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.”

― Charles Bukowski, Factotum

Love Is a Dog from Hell

“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.

the rich are not good to the rich
the poor are not good to the poor.

we are afraid.

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

untouched
unspoken to

watering a plant.” 

― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

 

 

 

 

Factotum

“There's nothing to mourn about death any more than there is to mourn about the growing of a flower. What is terrible is not death but the lives people live or don't live up until their death. They don't honor their own lives, they piss on their lives. They shit them away. Dumb fuckers. They concentrate too much on fucking, movies, money, family, fucking. Their minds are full of cotton. They swallow God without thinking, they swallow country without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others think for them. Their brains are stuffed with cotton. They look ugly, they talk ugly, they walk ugly. Play them the great music of the centuries and they can't hear it. Most people's deaths are a sham. There's nothing left to die.”

 Charles Bukowski

 

Alone With Everybody - Charles Bukowski

'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 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.'

Alone With Everybody - Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski

“...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.

the rich are not good to the rich
the poor are not good to the poor.

we are afraid.

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

untouched
unspoken to

watering a plant.” 

― Charles Bukowski, Love is a Dog from Hell