Id: The first image is of the book "Love is a dog from hell" by Charles Bukowski. It is a collection of his poems from 1974-1977. The second image is text that says, 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. End id.
Okay, I recognized his voice in this, but also thought it was oddly sanitized for Bukowski and the flow was off. Incomplete.
I looked it up. This is made up of fragments of his pub. 1992 poem The Crunch -- so, likely not published in Love is a Dog from Hell, though I don't have the time to check.
Here is the full text of The Crunch:
Too much / too little / or not enough.
Too fat / too thin / or nobody.
Laughter / or tears / or immaculate non-concern.
Armies running through streets of blood / waving wine bottles / bayoneting and fucking virgins.
Or an old guy / in a cheap room / with a photograph of Marilyn Monroe.
Many old guys / in cheap rooms / without any photographs at all.
Many old women / rubbing rosaries / when they'd prefer / to be rubbing cocks.
There is a loneliness in this world / so great / that you can see it / in the slow movements / of the hands of a clock.
There is a loneliness in this world / so great / that you can see it / blinking in neon signs / in Vegas, / in Baltimore, / in Munich...
There are people / so tired, / so strafed, / so mutilated by love / or no love / that buying a bargain can of tuna / in a supermarket / is their greatest moment, / their greatest victory.
We don't need new governments, / new revolutions, / we don't need new men, / new women, / we don't need new ways, / wife-swaps, waterbeds, / good Columbian coke, / water pipes, / dildoes, / rubbers with corkscrew stems, / watches that give you the date.
People are not good to each other / one on one. / Marx be damned / the sin is not the totality of certain systems. / Christianity be damned / the sin is not the killing of a God.
People are just not good to each other.
We are afraid, / we think that hatred means strength, / we think that New York City / is the greatest city in America.
What we need is less brilliance, / what we need is less instruction, / what we need are less poets, / what we need are less Bukowskies, / what we need are less Billy Grahams.
What we need is more beer, / a typist, / more finches, / more green-eyed whores / who don't eat your heart / like a vitamin pill.
We don't think / about the terror / of one person aching in one place alone / untouched, unspoken to, / watering a plant, / being without a telephone / that will never ring because / there isn't one.
More haters than lovers / slices of doom like taffeta.
People are not good to each other. / People are not good to each other. / People are not good to each other.
And the beads swing, / and the clouds cloud, / and the dogs piss upon the roses, / and the killer beheads the child / like taking a bite / out of an ice cream cone, / and the ocean comes in and out / in and out / under the direction of a senseless moon.
And people are not good to each other. / Rich are not good to the poor.
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 fat / too thin / or nobody.
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.
Surely there must be a way / that we have not yet thought of.
Who put this brain inside of me?
It cries / it demands / it says that there is a chance.
Due to Tumblr's formatting I have replaced breaks with slashes. You can read the original formatting of his poem here.
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