Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame

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by Charles Bukowski


  the roses howl

  in the dim wind,

  we have

  said the necessary things, and

  getting out is next, only I’d like

  to say

  no matter what they’ve said,

  I’ve never been mad

  at anything.

  dreamlessly

  old grey-haired waitresses

  in cafes at night

  have given it up,

  and as I walk down sidewalks of

  light and look into windows

  of nursing homes

  I can see that it is no longer

  with them.

  I see people sitting on park benches

  and I can see by the way they

  sit and look

  that it is gone.

  I see people driving cars

  and I see by the way

  they drive their cars

  that they neither love nor are

  loved—

  nor do they consider

  sex. it is all forgotten

  like an old movie.

  I see people in department stores and

  supermarkets

  walking down aisles

  buying things

  and I can see by the way their clothing

  fits them and by the way they walk

  and by their faces and their eyes

  that they care for nothing

  and that nothing cares

  for them.

  I can see a hundred people a day

  who have given up

  entirely.

  if I go to a racetrack

  or a sporting event

  I can see thousands

  that feel for nothing or

  no one

  and get no feeling

  back.

  everywhere I see those who

  crave nothing but

  food, shelter, and

  clothing; they concentrate

  on that,

  dreamlessly.

  I do not understand why these people do not

  vanish

  I do not understand why these people do not

  expire

  why the clouds

  do not murder them

  or why the dogs

  do not murder them

  or why the flowers and the children

  do not murder them,

  I do not understand.

  I suppose they are murdered

  yet I can’t adjust to the

  fact of them

  because they are so

  many.

  each day,

  each night,

  there are more of them

  in the subways and

  in the buildings and

  in the parks

  they feel no terror

  at not loving

  or at not

  being loved

  so many many many

  of my fellow

  creatures.

  palm leaves

  at exactly 12:00 midnight

  1973-74

  Los Angeles

  it began to rain on the

  palm leaves outside my window

  the horns and firecrackers

  went off

  and it thundered.

  I’d gone to bed at 9 p.m.

  turned out the lights

  pulled up the covers—

  their gaiety, their happiness,

  their screams, their paper hats,

  their automobiles, their women,

  their amateur drunks…

  New Year’s Eve always terrifies

  me

  life knows nothing of years.

  now the horns have stopped and

  the firecrackers and the thunder…

  it’s all over in five minutes…

  all I hear is the rain

  on the palm leaves,

  and I think,

  I will never understand men,

  but I have lived

  it through.

  About the Author

  CHARLES BUKOWSKI is one of America’s best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in Andernach, Germany, to an American soldier father and a German mother in 1920, and brought to the United States at the age of three. He was raised in Los Angeles and lived there for fifty years. He published his first story in 1944 when he was twenty-four and began writing poetry at the age of thirty-five. He died in San Pedro, California, on March 9, 1994, at the age of seventy-three, shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp (1994).

  During his lifetime he published more than forty-five books of poetry and prose, including the novels Post Office (1971), Factotum (1975), Women (1978), Ham on Rye (1982), and Hollywood (1989). Among his most recent books are the posthumous editions of What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire (1999), Open All Night: New Poems (2000), Beerspit Night and Cursing: The Correspondence of Charles Bukowski and Sheri Martinelli, 1960-1967 (2001), and Night Torn Mad with Footsteps: New Poems (2001).

  All of his books have now been published in translation in more than a dozen languages and his worldwide popularity remains undiminished. In the years to come Ecco will publish additional volumes of previously uncollected poetry and letters.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  BY CHARLES BUKOWSKI

  The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills (1969)

  Post Office (1971)

  Mockingbird Wish Me Luck (1972)

  South of No North (1973)

  Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame: Selected Poems 1955–1973 (1974)

  Factotum (1975)

  Love Is a Dog from Hell: Poems 1974–1977 (1977)

  Women (1978)

  You Kissed Lilly (1978)

  Play the piano drunk Like a percussion Instrument Until the fingers begin to bleed a bit (1979)

  Shakespeare Never Did This (1979)

  Dangling in the Tournefortia (1981)

  Ham on Rye (1982)

  Bring Me Your Love (1983)

  Hot Water Music (1983)

  There’s No Business (1984)

  War All the Time: Poems 1981–1984 (1984)

  You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense (1986)

  The Movie: “Barfly” (1987)

  The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems 1946–1966 (1988)

  Hollywood (1989)

  Septuagenarian Stew: Stories & Poems (1990)

  The Last Night of the Earth Poems (1992)

  Screams from the Balcony: Selected Letters 1960–1970 (Volume 1) (1993)

  Pulp (1994)

  Living on Luck: Selected Letters 1960s–1970s (Volume 2) (1995)

  Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories (1996)

  Bone Palace Ballet: New Poems (1997)

  The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship (1998)

  Reach for the Sun: Selected Letters 1978–1994 (Volume 3) (1999)

  What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire: New Poems (1999)

  Open All Night: New Poems (2000)

  Beerspit Night and Cursing: The Correspondence of Charles Bukowski & Sheri Martinelli (2001)

  The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps: New Poems (2001)

  Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems (2002)

  Copyright

  BURNING IN WATER DROWNING IN FLAME. Copyright © 1974 by Charles Bukowski. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented,
without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  Mobipocket Reader July 2007 ISBN 978-0-06-145721-0

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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