Tuesday, August 16, 2022

a single dog walking alone on a hot sidewalk of summer appears to have the power of ten thousand gods

BEASTS BOUNDING THROUGH TIME

Charles Bukowski

Van Gogh writing his brother for paints
Hemingway testing his shotgun
Celine going broke as a doctor of medicine
the impossibility of being human
Villon expelled from Paris for being a thief
Faulkner drunk in the gutters of his town
the impossibility of being human
Burroughs killing his wife with a gun
Mailer stabbing his
the impossibility of being human
Maupassant going mad in a rowboat
Dostoyevsky lined up against a wall to be shot
Crane off the back of a boat into the propeller
the impossibility
Sylvia with her head in the oven like a baked potato
Harry Crosby leaping into that Black Sun
Lorca murdered in the road by Spanish troops
the impossibility
Artaud sitting on a madhouse bench
Chatterton drinking rat poison
Shakespeare a plagiarist
Beethoven with a horn stuck into his head against deafness
the impossibility the impossibility
Nietzsche gone totally mad
the impossibility of being human
all too human
this breathing
in and out
out and in
these punks
these cowards
these champions
these mad dogs of glory
moving this little bit of light toward us
impossibly.





Bukowski born 102 years ago today. Was a primary gateway drug four plus decades ago. The traditional BLCKDGRD Bukowski birthday post.





DOG

Charles Bukowski

a single dog
walking alone on a hot sidewalk of
summer
appears to have the power
of ten thousand gods.
 
why is this?






a 340 dollar horse and a 100 dollar whore

Charles Bukowski

don’t ever get the idea I am a poet; you can see me
at the racetrack any day half drunk
betting quarters, sidewheelers and straight thoroughs,
but let me tell you, there are some women there
who go where the money goes, and sometimes when you
look at these whores these onehundreddollar whores
you wonder sometimes if nature isn’t playing a joke
dealing out so much breast and ass and the way
it’s all hung together, you look and you look and
you look and you can’t believe it; there are ordinary women
and then there is something else that wants to make you
tear up paintings and break albums of Beethoven
across the back of the john; anyhow, the season
was dragging and the big boys were getting busted,
all the non-pros, the producers, the cameraman,
the pushers of Mary, the fur salesman, the owners
themselves, and Saint Louie was running this day:
a sidewheeler that broke when he got in close;
he ran with his head down and was mean and ugly
and 35 to 1, and I put a ten down on him.
the driver broke him wide
took him out by the fence where he’d be alone
even if he had to travel four times as far,
and that’s the way he went it
all the way by the outer fence
traveling two miles in one
and he won like he was mad as hell
and he wasn’t even tired,
and the biggest blonde of all
all ass and breast, hardly anything else
went to the payoff window with me.

that night I couldn’t destroy her
although the springs shot sparks
and they pounded on the walls.
later she sat there in her slip
drinking Old Grandad
and she said
what’s a guy like you doing
living in a dump like this?
and I said
I’m a poet

and she threw back her beautiful head and laughed.

you? you . . . a poet?

I guess you’re right, I said, I guess you’re right.

but still she looked good to me, she still looked good,
and all thanks to an ugly horse
who wrote this poem.

    


                               
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3 comments:

  1. Bukowski ... [w]as a primary gateway drug [emphasis added]

    this reminded me of a term that caught my attention only in the past few days, although i have been reading about buddhism for decades - dharma gate

    melissa myozen blacker tells us

    Once I was on a riverboat tour in the Costa Rican rain forest when our guide suddenly stopped the boat. He asked everyone to sit still, breathe quietly, and let our eyes rest on the tree that was right in front of us. The guide had won our trust with his competence and good humor, so everyone in the boat obeyed him.

    He said to us, “Let me know when you see the iguana.”

    It was clear to me and every other tourist on the boat that there was no iguana in that tree. It was just a tree, with a brown trunk and green leaves. Sitting still, breathing, looking, I appreciated the tree very much. It was a beautiful tree, in a lovely place. The water lapped at the boat, and I felt very peaceful. After all, he had just given us meditation instructions, and I love to meditate. But there was no iguana in that tree.

    And then there was! All over the boat, people started exclaiming, “I see it! I see it!” It had always been there, but before we saw it, we didn’t know we were seeing it.


    she goes on to say

    What allows us to enter a dharma gate to awakening are the same instructions that the Buddha, and the riverboat guide, gave: Be still, be quiet, and pay attention. This practice sets up the conditions for revelation. What you have been longing for reveals itself, and you know that it has been there the whole time.



    https://www.garrisoninstitute.org/blog/seeing-dharma-gates/

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  2. melissa myozen blacker tells us

    For twenty years, I taught Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction at the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. One of the simplest tools we offered people who wanted to live more mindfully was the word STOP itself. Practicing with STOP allows us to have a tiny little mini-retreat right here, right now. Many people use stopping practice to help reduce stress and tension. The relief of stress can be a wonderful side effect of learning to recognize our awakened nature.

    For me, the power of stopping practice lies in its simplicity and adaptability to every situation.

    S: STOPPING

    The first part of stopping practice is “S”: learning to actually stop. Whatever you are doing, thinking, or saying, alone or with others, you can always pause. You can stop for a moment, or for a longer period of time.

    Stopping is powerful, especially if you are busy and hassled. You can practice pausing throughout the day, turning it into a new habit. Maybe you can set a bell to ring on your computer, or put a little sticker on your phone that says, “STOP!” If you’re with other people, you can say, “Can we just take a little pause before we continue?” Or, “I just need a moment.”

    T: TAKE A MOMENT

    The next part, the “T,” stands for “take a breath,“ “take a moment,” or “tune in.” We breathe, pause, and remember we have a body, not just a busy mind. We directly and intimately encounter whatever is here, without judging it or needing it to be different.

    When the Buddha sat down and vowed to be still and quiet, his awakening revealed some universal truths to him. He realized that the main obstacle to seeing clearly is our wish for things to be different, our desire to fight reality. If things are good, we want the good times to go on forever. If things are bad, we want them to change into something good. When we stop and tune in, we can clearly recognize our longing for things to change or to stay the same. We realize that when we try to fight reality, we always lose.

    O: OPEN

    Once we have stopped and tuned in, we are ready for “O.” We can “open” to everything: first to our own sense perceptions, thoughts, and emotions, and then to the whole wide environment in which we find ourselves. This is the moment when we see the morning star, when we discover the iguana in the tree. In this opening, clarity arises in our thoughts as well. We may turn the “O” into “Oh! How wonderful!” Or, it can be “Oh! How awful!” The important part of opening is not whether we like or dislike what is happening, but that we are seeing what is happening clearly.

    P: PROCEED

    Finally, there is “P.” After the opening, after the clarity and spaciousness of our widened view, we know what to do. We “proceed” if that’s what seems to be the wisest course. We take action.

    Meditation practice is not only about sitting around and being quiet and still. It is about seeing clearly how to be effective participants in the world.





    https://www.garrisoninstitute.org/blog/seeing-dharma-gates/

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  3. We realize that when we try to fight reality, we always lose.

    In the fight between you and the world, back the world.
    Frank Zappa

    ReplyDelete