Bukowski Is Baaack!

NOB HILL--Bukowski: Born Into This is back at the Guild this weekend. Sunday is the last day (1:30, 4:00, 6:30, 9:00). As I said before, "If you got your poetry education in school, you missed this!" I posted a piece on this film last October 16th. It's in the Archives. I can't link you to it. What I can do is give you this. It's from Bukowski: Love Is A Dog From Hell, Poems 1974-1977.

how to be a great
writer

you've got to fuck a
great many women
beautiful women
and write a few
decent love poems.

and don't worry
about age

and / or freshlyarrived
talents.

just drink more beer
more and more beer

and attend the
racetrack at least
once a
week

and win
if possible.

learning to win is
hard--
any slob can be a
good loser.

and don't forget your
Brahms
and your Bach and
your
beer.
don't overexcercise.
sleep until noon.
avoid credit cards
or paying for
anything on
time.

remember that there
isn't a piece of ass
in this world worth
more than $50
(in 1977).

and if you have the
ability to love
love yourself first
but always be aware
of the possibility of
total defeat
whether the reason
for that defeat
seems right or
wrong--

an early taste of
death is not
necessarily
a bad thing.

stay out of churches
and bars and
museums,
and like the spider
be
patient--
time is everybody's
cross,
plus
exile
defeat
treachery

all that dross.

stay with the beer.
beer is continuous
blood.

a continuous lover.

get a large
typewriter
and as the footsteps
go up and down
outside your window

hit that thing
hit it hard

make it a
heavyweight fight
make it the bull
when he first
charges in

and remember the
old dogs
who fought so well:
Hemingway, Celine,
Dostoevsky,
Hamsun.

If you don't think
they didn't go crazy
in tiny rooms
just like you're doing
now

without women
without food
without hope
then you're not
ready.

drink more beer.
there's time.
and if there's not
that's all right
too.