184 lines
4.1 KiB
Plaintext
184 lines
4.1 KiB
Plaintext
_____________________________________________________________________________
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---------------------------- I Bleed for This? ------------------------------
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------04.07.96-----------------------------------------------------#054------
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Drive Through Hell
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appreciated by IBFT
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by Charles Bukowski
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relentless as the tarantula
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---------------------------
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they're not going to let you
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sit at a front table
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at some cafe in Europe
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in the mid-afternoon sun.
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if you do, somebody's going to
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drive by and
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spray your guts with a
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submachine gun.
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they're not going to let you
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feel good
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for very long
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anywhere.
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the forces aren't going to
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let you sit around
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fucking off and
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relaxing.
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you've got to do it
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their way.
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the unhappy, the bitter and
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the vengeful
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need their
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fix - which is
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you or somebody
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anybody
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in agony, or
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better yet
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dead, dropped into some
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hole.
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as long as there are
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human beings about
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there is never going to be
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any peace
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for any individual
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upon this earth (or
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anywhere else
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they might
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escape to)
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all you can do
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is maybe grab
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ten lucky minutes
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here
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or maybe an hour
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there.
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something is working toward you
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right now, and
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I mean you
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and nobody but
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you.
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gay paree
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---------
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the cafes in Paris are just like you imagine
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they are:
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very well-dressed people, snobs, and
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the snob-waiter comes up and takes your
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order
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as if you were a
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leper.
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but after you get your wine
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you feel better
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you begin to feel like a snob
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yourself
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and you give the guy at the next table
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a sidelong glance
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he catches you and
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you twitch your nose
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a bit as if you had just smelled
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dogshit
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then you
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look away.
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and the food
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when it arrives
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is always too mild.
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the French are delicate with their
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spices.
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and
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as you eat and drink
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you realize that everybody is
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terrorized:
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too bad
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too bad
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such a lovely city
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full of cowards.
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then more wine brings more
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realization:
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Paris is the world and the world
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is
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Paris.
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drink to it
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and
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because of
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it.
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for the concerned:
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------------------
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if you get married they think you're
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finished
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and if you are without a woman they think you're
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incomplete.
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a large portion of my readers want me to
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keep writing about bedding down with madwomen and
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streetwalkers-
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also, about being in jails and hospitals, or
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starving or
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puking my guts
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out.
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I agree that complacency hardly engenders an
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immortal literature
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but neither does
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repetition.
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for those readers now
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sick at heart
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believing that I'm a contented
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man-
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cheer: agony sometimes changes
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form
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but
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it never ceases for
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anybody.
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drive through hell
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------------------
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the people are weary, unhappy and frustrated, the people are
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bitter and vengeful, the people are deluded and fearful, the
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people are angry and uninventive
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and I drive among them on the freeway and they project
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what is left of themselves in their manner of driving-
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some more hateful, more thwarted than others-
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some don't like to be passed, some attempt to keep others
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from passing
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--some attempt to block lane changes
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--some hate cars of a newer, more expensive model
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--others in these cars hate the older cars.
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the freeway is a circus of cheap and petty emotions, it's
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humanity on the move, most of them coming from some place
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they
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hated and going to another they hate just as much or
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more.
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the freeways are a lesson in what we have become and
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most of the crashes and deaths and collisions
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of incomplete beings, of pitiful and demented
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lives.
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when I drive the freeways I see the soul of humanity of
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my city and it's ugly, ugly, ugly: the living have choked the
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heart
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away.
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==============================================================================
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IBFT: No matter how hard you laugh with or at it, you'll NEVER get it.
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http://www.amherst.edu/~mcspinks/ibft/ibfthome.html
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email: mcspinks@unix.amherst.edu
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ftp://ftp.etext.org/pub/Zines/IBFT The Eleventh Hour (617)696-3146
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==============================================================================
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