From Esther, With Love

Monday, October 7, 2013

Bukowski

The Genius of the Crowd
There is enough treachery, hatred,
violence,
Absurdity in the average human
being
To supply any given army on any given
day.
AND The Best At Murder Are Those
Who Preach Against It.
AND The Best At Hate Are Those
Who Preach LOVE
AND THE BEST AT WAR
--FINALLY-- ARE THOSE WHO
PREACH
PEACE

Those Who Preach GOD
NEED God
Those Who Preach PEACE
Do Not Have Peace.
THOSE WHO PREACH LOVE
DO NOT HAVE LOVE
BEWARE THE PREACHERS
Beware the Knowers.

Beware
Those Who
Are ALWAYS
READING
BOOKS

Beware Those Who Either Detest
Poverty Or Are Proud Of It

BEWARE Those Quick To Praise
For They Need PRAISE In Return

BEWARE Those Quick To Censure:
They Are Afraid Of What They Do
Not Know

Beware Those Who Seek Constant
Crowds; They Are Nothing
Alone

Beware
The Average Man
The Average Woman
BEWARE Their Love

Their Love Is Average, Seeks
Average
But There Is Genius In Their Hatred
There Is Enough Genius In Their
Hatred To Kill You, To Kill
Anybody.

Not Wanting Solitude
Not Understanding Solitude
They Will Attempt To Destroy
Anything
That Differs
From Their Own

Not Being Able
To Create Art
They Will Not
Understand Art

The Will Consider Their Failure
As Creators
Only As A Failure
Of The World

Not Being Able To Love Fully
They Will BELIEVE Your Love
Incomplete
AND THEN THEY WILL HATE
YOU

And Their Hatred Will Be Perfect
Like A Shining Diamond
Like A Knife
Like A Mountain
LIKE A TIGER
LIKE Hemlock

Their Finest
ART

--------------------

oh, yes

there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realize this
and most often
when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than
too late.

--------------------

secret laughter

the lair of the hunted is
hidden in the last place
you'd ever look
and even if you find it
you won't believe
it's really there
in much the same way
as the average person
will not believe a great painting.

----------------------

the crunch

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.

or 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 are just 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 we have not yet
thought of.

who put this brain inside of me?

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

it will not say
"no."

------------------------

my fate

like the fox
I run with the hunted
and if I'm not
the happiest man
on earth
I'm surely the
luckiest man
alive.

_________________

starve, go mad, or kill yourself

I'm not going to die
easy;
I've sat on your suicide beds
in some of the worst
holes in America,
penniless and mad I've been,
I mean, insane, you know;
big tears, each one the size of your bastard hearts,
flowing down,
roaches crawling into my shoes,
one dirty 40-watt lightbulb overhead
and a room that smelled like piss;
while your rich
your falsely famous
laughed in safe stale places
far away,
you gave me a suicide bed and two choices,
no three:
starve, go mad, or kill yourself.

for now enjoy your trips to Paris where
you consort with great painters and dupes,
but I am getting ready for your eyes and your brain and
your dirty dishwasher souls;
you men who have created a pigpen for millions
to choke soundlessley in--
from India to Los Angeles
from Paris to the tits of the Nile--
you're fucked up
you rich you warty you insecure you pricky
damned imbecile pasty white
idiots with your startched shirts and your starched wives and, yes yes,
your starched lives,
get away get away
get away
go to Paris
while you can
while I let you.

the jolly damned man with the hoe (see Markham)
didn't answer the call,
but your children will be raped and your pigs will be eaten
and the skies will burn black with crows and your cries,
as you answer for centuries of
unbearable indignity and bullshit.
you will be dealt with
we know you now
we've known you forever;
the might of the timorous
the forth like a tremendous and ever beautiful swan,
no shit, friend
look up look up look up look up
the jolly damned man with the hoe
is now flying over Milwaukee
grinning
more lovely than the sun
more graceful than all the ugly wounds
more real than you
or I or anything.

_______________

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Monday, May 10, 2010

1. Watch 26 movies I've never seen starting with each letter of the alphabet

A. Away We Go
B. Brick
C. Conversations with Other Women
D. Doubt
E. Exit Through the Gift Shop
F. Flakes
G.
H. Hot Rod
I. Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, The
J. Jesus Camp
K.
L. Loverboy
M. Mulholland Dr.
N. New York, I Love You
O.
P. Practical Magic
Q.
R.
S. Shawshank Redemption
T. Twilight
U.
V.
W. Wristcutters
X.
Y.
Z.

101 in 1001 [began Nov. 12 2009, finish by August 9, 2012]

Watch 26 movies I've never seen starting with each letter of the alphabet
Get a pedicure COMPLETED 05/2011
Go skydiving COMPLETED 06/2011
Get a tattoo COMPLETED 06/2010
Learn to drive a stick shift
Adopt a dog
Go to the beach in the winter COMPLETED 02/2011
Buy a digital SLR COMPLETED 12/2009
Sit up all night in the city and watch the sunrise
Color every page in a brand new coloring book
Start and finish one entire project (by myself) COMPLETED 12/2009
Send all of my secrets in to PostSecret
Go to a psychic
Go to Bonnaroo
Give $20 to a homeless person COMPLETED 11/2010
Have an Irish Car Bomb
Finish an entire book of sudoku puzzles
Do a keg stand
Make myself a t-shirt blanket (sorta?) COMPLETED 05/2011
Make Ryan a t-shirt blanket COMPLETED 05/2010
Blog/journal every day for a month
Finish an entire book of wordsearch puzzles
Ride a horse on the beach
Get my motorcycle license COMPLETED 05/2010
Make a profit off of something I create
Run in a marathon COMPLETED 08/2012
Learn a foreign language and travel to the country in which it is spoken
Make volunteering a part of my life
Take a roadtrip without a predetermined destination
Learn how to use/create a darkroom
Learn to play a whole song on the guitar
Read all of the books on my current list
Do something nice for someone anonymously
Don't eat out for an entire month
Finish undergrad and grad school
Get in shape (with actual muscle tone)
Knit an entire item from a pattern
Sew an entire item from a pattern
Play on a see-saw COMPLETED 08/2010
Go to a drive-in movie COMPLETED 07/2010
Tie-dye my pile of white clothes
Reacquaint myself with the piano and learn to play an entire song
Ride a mechanical bull
Travel to Europe (attend Oktoberfest) COMPLETED 10/2012
Get the sign for Veronica Lane
Take dancing lessons
Name 100 things that make me happy
Donate $100 to a charity
Make a 'Day in the Life' documentary
Travel to San Francisco
Spend one night in a haunted house
Eat waffles at the Waffle Shop
Get one of my photographs printed COMPLETED 11/2010
Enter photography contests
Maintain organization in my life
Travel to Portland
Travel to Omaha
Go to a rave
Play a game of Monopoly all the way until the end
Learn morse code
Learn shorthand
Go to Bartender school
Participate in Pedal Pittsburgh (or something equivalent)
Go to the Church Brew Works COMPLETED 09/2010
See Radiohead live
See the Arcade Fire live
Go to the 'Golden Variety' in Mount Pleasant
Find a real/long-term job that makes me feel accomplished
Exist for a whole week (at least) without technology (computer, phone, etc.)
Roll down a grassy hill COMPLETED 06/2011
Go to an apple festival COMPLETED 08/2011
Photograph a stranger (up close...where I'd have to ask permission)
Ride the entirety of the Philadelphia Fairmount Park River Trail
Ride the connecting trails in Pittsburgh (when they are all complete)
Race go-karts
Fly a kite
Go to a driving range
Get my name on a plaque on a wall at Fuel n Fuddle by drinking the 100 beers
Buy Chupa-Chup ice cream lollipops
Play glow in the dark golf COMPLETED 12/2010
Ride a quad COMPLETED 07/2011
Learn to do a backbend from the standing position
Learn to ride a bike with no hands
Learn to gracefully dismount my bicycle
Actually complete my goal of reading 50 books in one year
Explore Amish Country
Go to The Smiling Moose COMPLETED 07/2010
Donate blood all of the times possible in one year
Read my camera manual and learn how to fully utilize it
Own all of the vinyl records that are on my wishlist
Finish the 'Kitchen Sink' at the San Francisco ice cream place in the allotted time period
Find and take pictures of all of the dinosaurs in Pittsburgh
Obtain and solve all of the 450 Lionshead Rebuses
Go to the Columbus Zoo with Sam
Go back to the Washington D.C. Zoo with Sam COMPLETED 08/2010
Re-photograph the Tire Swing in my grandparent's backyard and have it printed COMPLETED 11/2010
Get microdermals on my collarbones COMPLETED 10/2010
Go to a roller derby COMPLETED 07/2011
Fill my entire bear with change COMPLETED 03/2011
Photograph everything that I spend money on for an entire month
Whiten my teeth COMPLETED 09/2011

List for Summer [2010]

X1. play on a seesaw
2. tie-dye
X3. go to a drive-in
4. eat waffles at the Waffle Shop

X5. make ryan eat Rita's

6. make mom her plant holder

7. finish an entire game of Monopoly

X8. go to the Church Brew Works

9. go to the 'Golden Variety' in Mount Pleasant

10. fly a kite
X11. go to The Smiling Moose