Breakfast - Jacques Prévert (translation by Lawrence Ferlinghetti)

He put the coffee

In the cup

He put the milk

In the cup of coffee

He put the sugar

In the café au lait

With the coffee spoon

He stirred

He drank the café au lait

And he set down the cup

Without a word to me

He lit

A cigarette

He made smoke-rings

With the smoke

He put the ashes

In the ash-tray

Without a word to me

Without a look at me

He got up

He put

His hat upon his head

He put his raincoat on

Because it was raining

And he left

In the rain

Without a word

Without a look at me

And I       I took

My head in my hand

And I cried.

The Crunch - Charles Bukowski

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 winebottles

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.

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.

people are not good to each other.

people are not good to each other.

people are not good to each other.

I suppose they never will be.

I don't ask them to be.

but sometimes I think about

it.

the beads will swing

the clouds will cloud

and the killer will behead the child

like taking a bite out of an ice cream cone.

too much

too little

too fat

too thin

or nobody

more haters than lovers.

people are not good to each other.

perhaps if they were

our deaths would not be so sad.

meanwhile I look at young girls

stems

flowers of chance.

there must be a way.

surely there must be a way that we have not yet

thought of.

who put this brain inside of me?

it cries

it demands

it says that there is a chance.

it will not say

"no."

night animal - Charles Bukowski

I have never seen such an animal

except perhaps once,

but that is another story--

there it stood,

no lion

yet no dog

no deer yet deer

frozen nose

and eye, all eye gathering all the

moonlight that hung in the trees;

and everywhere the people slept;

I saw bombers over Brazil,

cathedrals choked in silk,

the gray dice of Vegas,

a Van Gogh over the kitchen sink.

home, I poured a drink

took off my gloves           you god damned thing

why could you have not been a woman

with all your beauty,

with all your beauty

I have not found her yet.

Celestial Music - Louise Glück

I have a friend who still believes in heaven.

Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to god,

she thinks someone listens in heaven.

On earth she's unusually competent.

Brave, too, able to face unpleasantness.

We found a caterpillar dying in the dirt, greedy ants crawling over it.

I'm always moved by weakness, by disaster, always eager to oppose vitality.

But timid, also, quick to shut my eyes.

Whereas my friend was able to watch, to let events play out

according to nature. For my sake, she intervened,

brushing a few ants off the torn thing, and set it down across the road.

My friend says I shut my eyes to god, that nothing else explains

my aversion to reality. She says I'm like the child who buries her head in the pillow

so as not to see, the child who tells herself

that light causes sadness—

My friend is like the mother. Patient, urging me

to wake up an adult like herself, a courageous person—

In my dreams, my friend reproaches me. We're walking

on the same road, except it's winter now;

she's telling me that when you love the world you hear celestial music:

look up, she says. When I look up, nothing.

Only clouds, snow, a white business in the trees

like brides leaping to a great height—

Then I'm afraid for her; I see her

caught in a net deliberately cast over the earth—

In reality, we sit by the side of the road, watching the sun set;

from time to time, the silence pierced by a birdcall.

It's this moment we're both trying to explain, the fact

that we're at ease with death, with solitude.

My friend draws a circle in the dirt; inside, the caterpillar doesn't move.

She's always trying to make something whole, something beautiful, an image

capable of life apart from her.

We're very quiet. It's peaceful sitting here, not speaking, the composition

fixed, the road turning suddenly dark, the air

going cool, here and there the rocks shining and glittering—

it's this stillness that we both love.

The love of form is a love of endings.

for one I knew - Charles Bukowski

Of all the iron beds in paradise

yours was the most cruel

and I was smoke in your mirror

and you sluiced your hair with jade,

but you were a woman and I was a

boy, but boy enough for an iron bed

and man enough for wine

and you.

now I am a man,

man enough for all,

and you are, you

are

        old

not now so cruel,

now your iron bed

is empty.

Sonnet (from "50 Sonnets") - Eleanor Brown

Not if you crawled from there to here, you hear?

Not if you begged me, on your bleeding knees.

Not if you lay exhausted at my door,

and pleaded with me for a chance.

Not if you wept (am I making this clear?)

or found a thousand different words for 'Please',

ten thousand for 'I’m sorry'; I’d ignore

you so sublimely; every new advance

would meet with such complete indifference.

Not if you promised me fidelity.

Not if you meant it. What impertinence,

then, is this voice that murmurs, 'What if he

didn’t? That isn’t his line of attack.

What if he simply grinned, and said, I’m back?'