Style - Charles Bukowski

Style is the answer to everything.
A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous thing
To do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without it
To do a dangerous thing with style is what I call art

Bullfighting can be an art 
Boxing can be an art
Loving can be an art
Opening a can of sardines can be an art

Not many have style
Not many can keep style
I have seen dogs with more style than men,
although not many dogs have style.
Cats have it with abundance.

When Hemingway put his brains to the wall with a shotgun,
that was style.
Or sometimes people give you style
Joan of Arc had style
John the Baptist
Christ
Socrates
Caesar
García Lorca.

I have met men in jail with style.
I have met more men in jail with style than men out of jail.
Style is the difference, a way of doing, a way of being done.
Six herons standing quietly in a pool of water,
or you, naked, walking out of the bathroom without seeing me.

Bluebird - Charles Bukowski

"there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?"

http://menicola.tumblr.com/post/5801476443/tattoo-bluebird-bukowski

Roll The Dice by Charles Bukowski

if you’re going to try, go all the
way.
otherwise, don’t even start.

if you’re going to try, go all the
way.
this could mean losing girlfriends,
wives, relatives, jobs and
maybe your mind.

go all the way.
it could mean not eating for 3 or 4 days.
it could mean freezing on a
park bench.
it could mean jail,
it could mean derision,
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.

do it, do it, do it.
do it.

all the way
all the way.

you will ride life straight to
perfect laughter, its
the only good fight there is.

The Crunch by 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
though of. 

who put this brain inside of me? 

it cries
it demands
it says that there is a chance. 

it will not say
"no."