Just got a bunch of Charles Bukowski poetry books from a friend who is moving to the other side of the country. One of them is You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense. Here’s one poem from the book that is a particular favorite.

for the concerned:, by Charles Bukowski

if you get married they think you’re

finished

and if you’re without a woman they think you’re

incomplete.

 

a large portion of my readers want me to

keep writing about bedding down with madwomen and

streetwalkers -

also, about being in jails and hospitals, or

starving or

puking my guts

out.

 

I agree that complacency hardly engenders an

immortal literature

but neither does

repetition.

 

for those readers now

sick at heart

believing that I’m a contented

man -

please have some

cheer: agony sometimes changes

form

but

it never ceases for

anybody.

The poem “for the concerned:” is in the Charles Bukowski poetry collection You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense. Click the image for more information.