What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

by Charles Bukowski

I’d like to renew our relationship.

  do you really stay up all night?

  I can out-drink you.

  you stole it from Sherwood Anderson.

  did you ever meet Ezra?

  I am alone and I think of you every night.

  who the hell do you think you’re fooling?

  my tits aren’t much but I’ve got great legs.

  fuck you, man.

  my wife hates you.

  will you please read the enclosed poems and comment?

  I am going to publish all those letters you wrote me.

  you jack-off motherfuck, you’re not fooling anybody.

  a correction to a lady of poesy:

  “I think all life is a matter of luck—good and bad.” —Diane Wakoski

  any ballplayer can tell you, Diane:

  in games like baseball where luck is just a percentage,

  even

  there it evens

  out—

  dribble one through the shortpatch for a single and your next one

  might be a line drive into the 2nd baseman’s mitt.

  in games unlike baseball

  in games like life

  one good man might survive while another dies

  but this isn’t luck

  this is making a connection

  hitting the ball solidly on the nose.

  (but even the good man making the connection seldom remains the good

  man—he often softens in time and finally

  fails).

  if you consider yourself lucky,

  don’t,

  for whatever you’ve gained you’ve gained by

  doing something a little differently or

  with a little more magic than

  somebody else.

  but when the magic goes or

  lessens, and it usually

  does, and

  when the poetry readings drop off

  and the publishers stop inquiring as to your next

  manuscript, will you then consider your luck

  bad?

  will you then start bitching about

  the unfairness of the game

  like some untalented scribblers (not you)

  who I know?

  see the old ladies in the supermarkets

  angry and lonely

  pushing their carts—

  that they were once given young bodies was not luck

  or that they lost them was not,

  or that they did not build a life on something firmer

  was not.

  I am for the survival of all people until

  natural age takes

  them. but they’ll need something more than luck, and a cunning better than

  poetry.

  it’s hardly luck when the spider takes a fly or bad luck when the fly

  enters the web.

  I could go on

  but I feel by now

  I’ve made the point,

  and as the people come home this evening

  from the war

  and sit at their tables to eat and

  talk, and perhaps later to make

  love

  (if they are not too tired)

  don’t tell them that all life is a matter of luck—

  good and bad.

  they know it’s a matter of

  doing or dying.

  Hitler, Ty Cobb, the man at the vegetable stand—

  they knew it and they know it.

  save the bad luck fairy tale for small

  children. they’ll learn the real story

  soon enough.

  Beethoven conducted his last symphony while totally deaf

  his paintings would not be as valuable

  now

  if he hadn’t

  sliced off his ear

  worn that rag around his head

  and then done it to himself

  among the cornstalks.

  and would that one’s poems be

  so famous if he hadn’t

  faded at 19,

  given it all up to

  go gun running and gold hunting

  in Africa only to

  die of syphilis?

  what about the one who was

  murdered in the road

  by Spanish fascists?

  did that

  give his words more

  meaning?

  or take the one who was a

  national hero

  those iceberg symphonies soaring

  cutting that particular sky

  in half

  he had it all working for him

  then he got worried about old age

  saved his head

  went into his house

  vanished and was never seen

  again.

  such strange behavior, didn’t somebody

  once say?

  that the man should be as durable as his

  art, that’s what they want, they want the

  impossible: creation and creator to be as

  one. this is the dirty trick

  of the ages.

  on the sidewalk and in the sun

  I have seen an old man around town recently

  carrying an enormous pack.

  he uses a walking stick

  and moves up and down the streets

  with this pack strapped to his back.

  I keep seeing him.

  if he’d only throw that pack away, I think,

  he’d have a chance, not much of a chance

  but a chance.

  and he’s in a tough district—east Hollywood.

  they aren’t going to give him a

  dry bone in east Hollywood.

  he is lost. with that pack.

  on the sidewalk and in the sun.

  god almighty, old man, I think, throw away that

  pack.

  then I drive on, thinking of my own

  problems.

  the last time I saw him he was not walking.

  it was ten thirty a.m. on north Bronson and

  hot, very hot, and he sat on a little ledge, bent,

  the pack still strapped to his back.

  I slowed down to look at his face.

  I had seen one or two other men in my life

  with looks on their faces like

  that.

  I speeded up and turned on the

  radio.

  I knew that look.

  I would never see him again.

  what do they want?

  there are times when those eyes inside your

  brain stare back at

  you;

  it is always sudden.

  sometimes when you come in

  and lie down on the bed

  it happens—

  2 eyes that have nothing to do with

  you

  stare back at you from inside your

  brain.

  you sit up

  until they go away.

  or say you scream at a child

  or slap a woman—

  as you walk into the kitchen

  the eyes appear in the back of your brain

  hang there

  as you drink

  water.

  or sometimes you are at peace

  sitting on a park bench

  reading a newspaper—

  here come the

  eyes:

  fat red golden eyes,

  a pair.

  you get up and

  walk

  away.

  or the phone rings and as you answer the

  phone

  the eyes arrive again—

  “yes, of course. no, I’m not doing

  anything. yeh, I feel

  o.k.”

  then you hang up, go to the bathroom and

  throw water on

  your face.

  I would gladly give these eyes to the

  blind or to anybody who

  would take them.

 
; o, o, there they are

  again.

  I don’t understand it.

  what do they

  want?

  I hear all the latest hit tunes

  somewhere in whatever neighborhood

  there’s

  some guy

  at 10:30 in the morning

  sunday morning

  monday morning

  any morning

  washing and polishing his

  car

  with the radio on

  LOUD

  so that the entire neighborhood

  is compelled

  to listen to the music

  that he is

  listening to

  but it’s all right

  because we surely don’t

  want him to be bored out

  there;

  it’s going to take him

  hours.

  they’d arrest a drunk or a

  panhandler

  as a

  public nuisance

  but this boy is a

  respectable citizen

  and it’s the respectable

  citizens

  that our culture is built

  upon

  and whom

  the music is written

  for.

  if I murdered him

  no court in America would

  forgive

  my courage.

  meanwhile

  he circles his car

  with the

  hose plus

  a bucket of

  suds.

  he’s safe

  he’s fearless

  look at him there

  almost as handsome as that twittering

  bluejay

  and at least 4 women are

  in love with

  him and he

  deserves them all

  and I hope he

  gets them all.

  it’s the only way we can

  teach that

  son-of-a-bitch what

  suffering is.

  am I the only one who suffers thus?

  took me 45 minutes to find my glasses,

  and I lost a credit card mailed to me today,

  then I sat down at this machine and it wouldn’t

  function,

  took me 15 minutes to put it back in

  order.

  yes, I am constantly losing things and

  the fault is mine,

  I sit in this room and it is a collection of

  trash—

  papers, wine bottle corks, scotch tape,

  magazines, letters, bills, old wrist

  watches and sundry other items

  which rest one upon the

  other:

  paint tubes, toothpicks,

  non-functioning cigarette lighters,

  liquid paper, pens, address labels,

  boxes of light bulbs, a red toy devil,

  a wall socket (for 3 prongs), matchbooks,

  lens cleaning tissue, 25 cent stamps (they

  are now 29 cents and rising),

  bottle openers, band-aids, well, I just don’t

  know what else.

  I suppose the saddest of all are the letters

  from lonely people

  (and look, here are two pocket combs

  resting side by side)

  and then there’s the telephone and

  the answering machine taking the

  messages:

  more lonely people, more frustrated

  people, more eager people,

  more people wanting to come by,

  wanting to talk…

  how can they find TIME to talk?

  I don’t have time to do the simplest

  things.

  in my wallet there is a piece of paper:

  IN CASE OF ACCIDENT OR DEATH,

  PLEASE INFORM, ETC.

  for 3 years now I have been wanting

  to take this piece of paper out of my

  wallet and update it,

  because all the phone numbers and

  addresses except one

  have changed

  yet I haven’t been able to attend to

  this matter.

  also, I know that the spare tire

  in my car needs a bit of

  air.

  but when?

  when will I do it?

  when will I get my teeth cleaned?

  when will I cut my toenails?

  when will I get a haircut?

  there are countless other untended

  matters

  while the IRS and the California Franchise Tax Board

  loom…

  and still there are people who come by here

  and plant themselves upon the couch

  and they seem to have absolutely

  NOTHING to do

  but

  chat away.

  chat, chat, chat about absolutely

  nothing.

  or they want to play GAMES or watch the

  damnedest garbage on TV

  (I’ve been waiting to shine my shoes

  for a year now)

  or they work crossword puzzles

  or tell jokes.

  every time there is a knock at the

  door

  a deathly chill runs up my

  back:

  it will be one of them,

  it is always one of them

  and when they come in and ease

  down on that couch

  I am truly in hell.

  I do all that I can to keep

  them away

  but through one guise or

  another

  or through some affiliation,

  they slip

  through.

  and they are aware of it,

  they are very aware of

  it

  and then they begin…

  my life, at that moment,

  becomes only a process of

  waiting for them to

  leave

  and their life becomes

  a process of staying

  as long as

  possible.

  and one must not hurt

  their feelings

  for they would not

  understand!

  on lighting a cigar

  we ask for no mercy and no

  miracles;

  (if only there were fewer flies around

  as we ponder our imbecilities and losses!)

  I light a cigar, lean back

  remember

  dead friends dead days dead loves;

  so much has gone by for most of us,

  even the young, especially the young

  for they have lost the beginning and have

  the rest of the way to go;

  but isn’t it strange, all I can think of now are

  cucumbers, oranges, junk yards, the

  old Lincoln Heights jail and

  the lost loves that went so hard

  and almost brought us to the edge,

  the faces now without features,

  the love beds forgotten.

  the mind is kind: it retains the

  important things:

  cucumbers

  oranges

  junk yards

  jails.

  I have killed a fly

  that tiny piece of life

  dead like dead love.

  there used to be over 100 of us in that big room

  in that jail

  I was in there many

  times.

  you slept on the floor

  men stepped on your face on the way to piss.

  always a shortage of cigarettes.

  names called out during the night

  (the few lucky ones who were bailed out)

  never you.

  we asked for no mercy or miracles

  and we ask for none

  now;

  we paid our way, laugh if you will, />
  we walked the only paths there were to walk.

  and when love came to us twice

  and lied to us twice

  we decided to never love again

  that was fair

  fair to us

  and fair to love itself.

  we ask for no mercy or no

  miracles;

  we are strong enough to live

  and to die and to

  kill flies,

  attend the boxing matches, go to the racetrack,

  live on luck and skill,

  get alone, get alone often,

  and if you can’t sleep alone

  be careful of the words you speak in your sleep; and

  ask for no mercy

  no miracles;

  and don’t forget:

  time is meant to be wasted,

  love fails

  and death is useless.

  the cigarette of the sun

  the headless dog snaps,

  the half melon drips, there’s blood under the

  fingernails,

  the yawweed cries and

  Tacitus hops like a frog.

  destitution everywhere,

  the manacled in rusted armor walk through

  crippled dreams,

  one more dead. one more dying. one more to die.

  they lied to themselves and then to us and then to the stinking wind.

  bargain basement heroes erected for elucidation.

  poison music stuffs the brain,

  the roses yell for mercy,

  mouse chases cat,

  elephants carry the gray bad news,

  infinity is split and nothing happens

  and

  one more dead. one more dying. one more to die.

  the engine is stuffed with peat moss.

  the schoolboys eat gravel.

  space mutilates space.

  the pin worms dance with the collared peccary.

  throats are cut like bread.

  flags are covered with custard.

  the knife chases the gun.

  and

  one more

  dead.

  dying.

  to die.

  one more dead

  rose

  dog

  flea

  hyena,

  as the spoon and the feather