Charles Bukowski ( 16/8/20 -9/3/94) - Alone With Everybody / Be Kind / Oh Yes

Cheers and thanks Charles whose  birthday would have been  today

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  keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds
fresh 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 jukyards fill
the madhouse fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills


Be Kind

we are always asked
to understand the other person's
viewpoint
no matter how
out-dated
foolish or
obnoxious,
one is asked
to view
their total error
their life-waste
with kindliness,
especially if they are
aged
but age is the total of
our doing.
they have aged
badly
because they have
lived
out of focus,
they have refused to
see,
not their fault?
whose fault?
mine?
I am asked to hide
my viewpoint
from them
for fear of their
fear,
age is no crime
but the shame
of a deliberately
wasted life
among so many
deliberatelt
wasted
lives
is.

Oh Yes

there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realise this
and most often
when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than t
too late.