Drinkers With Writing Problems group on virb.com

5L says:

symposion -> toast ... cheers, pro sit, serefe, chin chin, sante, bottoms up, hau wech die pfuetze schreiben war noch nie was nuetze ....

posted Feb 29

SourceDeCalcium says:

yay get in ! all

posted Jul 30

dirt says:

For Esme - with Love and Squalor

posted Jun 11

max says:

Most people's dreams are boring. What if you had a dream to sell someone roadside corn- if you went and sold it, would that mean you were living your dream? Would people percieve you as a failure anyway? And how long would you be happy doing it? Probably not long, but by then it's too late to start something else. You're fucked. Communists are smart in some ways. They actively discourage hoping or dreaming. At least that way, when you finally get a shitty little AM radio after being on the waiting list since 1988, you'll feel both cheered and kindly towards the regime in power. Okay, I'm kidding. The only way to the top is killing and greed. Okay, I'm kidding. But killing helps. Greed kind of helps, but it looks ugly, and at parties people avoid greedheads, so there goes your social life. Life is a contest between you and everyone else. Don't you get an empty feeling in your soul when you have a blank to-do list? Hasn't it been a long time since you had a flying dream?

-Coupland

posted Jun 10

johnjohndoe says:

Hello. It's hard to decide but I think my favorite Bukowski book of poetry was is final one, "The Last Night of the Earth Poems."

the bluebird

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 you're in 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?

p.s.

I have about two and a half years of poems, stories, reviews, blogs ect. on the website below.

http://www.lit.org/author/johnjohndoe

posted May 28

Comment replies (2)

Sara City Lopez says:

this is my favorite bukowski poem.... i dont like bukowski that much, but i can relate to this one in particular.

posted Jun 1

Mar says:

I think my fav is "dinosauria, we". (thanks, J!)

born like this
into this
as the chalk faces smile
as Mrs. Death laughs
as the elevators break
as political landscapes dissolve
as the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree
as the oily fish spit out their oily prey
as the sun is masked

we are
born like this
into this
into these carefully mad wars
into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
into bars where people no longer speak to each other
into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings

born into this
into hospitals which are so expensive that it's cheaper to die
into lawyers who charge so much it's cheaper to plead guilty
into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes

born into this
walking and living through this
dying because of this
muted because of this
castrated
debauched
disinherited
because of this
fooled by this
used by this
pissed on by this
made crazy and sick by this
made violent
made inhuman
by this

the heart is blackened
the fingers reach for the throat
the gun
the knife
the bomb
the fingers reach toward an unresponsive god

the fingers reach for the bottle
the pill
the powder

we are born into this sorrowful deadliness
we are born into a government 60 years in debt
that soon will be unable to even pay the interest on that debt
and the banks will burn
money will be useless
there will be open and unpunished murder in the streets
it will be guns and roving mobs
land will be useless
food will become a diminishing return
nuclear power will be taken over by the many
explosions will continually shake the earth
radiated robot men will stalk each other
the rich and the chosen will watch from space platforms
Dante's Inferno will be made to look like a children's playground

the sun will not be seen and it will always be night
trees will die
all vegetation will die
radiated men will eat the...