What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire by Charles Bukowski Page B

Santa
    Cruz
    his filthy grey uncombed hair
    hanging in his face.
    â€œlook” I asked Beerlinghetti, “don’t they
    serve drinks up here
    in the stratosphere?”
    â€œwe’re waiting for dinner,” he informed
    me politely.
    I got up from the table and went
    over to the bar.
    â€œgive me a vodka-7,” I told the
    barkeep.
    I got it down fast, ordered
    a beer
    and went back to the Last
    Supper.
    on the way a guy grabbed my arm:
    â€œGinsbing says he doesn’t know how to
    relate to you,” he said.
    I sat down at the table.
    dinner came.
    we ate it.
    then before our transportation to the reading
    arrived
    we were given orders:
    each was to read
    20 minutes.
    I read 15 minutes.
    Beerlinghetti read 25 minutes.
    Ginsbing read 30 minutes.
    G. Cider read one hour and
    12 minutes.
    then it was
    over.
    and now the others say
    I am the
    Judas
    among us.

$180 gone
    lost my ass at the races
    now sitting with the flu
    listening to Wagner on the radio
    I’ve got this small heater humming.
    I’m not dead yet
    yet not dead
    I want to see more kneecaps under
    tight nylon hose.
    I’m re-grouping,
    I’m dreaming up the counter-attack.
    lost my ass at the races
    the Sierra Madre smiling at me
    lost my ass at the races
    walked through a wall of defeat.
    I saw a dead cat this morning
    both front legs sheared off
    he was lying by the garbage can
    as I walked by.
    this is the hardest game
    defeat grows like flowers
    the whores sit in chairs before their doorways
    Attila the Hun sleeps in a rubber mask at night.
    Wagner died, Rimbaud quit writing, Christ spit it out.
    I lost my ass at the races today
    and was reminded of history
    of waste and of error
    and of strangled dreams.
    we want it too easy
    and this is the hardest game.
    the small heater hums
    as I smoke
    looking at the walls.

blue head of death
    listening to Richard Strauss
    is most pleasant
    when you are blindfolded and up
    against the wall again
    facing old Spanish muskets and the
    heat and the dust, the
    blue head of death.
    listening to Richard Strauss
    reveals flashes of orange, grey and white
    light,
    lemonade, and cats crouched in the shade
    in polarized
    afternoons.
    things get bad for all of
    us, almost continually,
    and what we do under the constant
    stress
    reveals
    who/what we are.
    Richard Strauss
    is a colorful rush of craft and feeling,
    he’s like a loaf of french bread
    cut the long way
    and then loaded with all the ingredients.
    it’s just
    right.
    I leave my door open and the cats of the
    neighborhood all come in. they walk over to me
    and across the top of my couch
    and into the bathroom, and one of them goes to
    sleep on my
    bed. one other sits by me and we listen
    to Richard Strauss.
    we’re in trouble but we don’t
    know what to do.

young men
    again and again
    young men write me
    the same letter:
    â€œI can’t write, but I
    want to write. I
    read your stuff
    and I want to
    write just like you.
    can you
    please tell me something
    that will help?”
    all around me the
    hills are on fire,
    floodwaters run
    through here
    swarming with
    rats.
    the streets roar
    and yawn to
    swallow me.
    I’m choking
    and can’t breathe.
    they want to write?
    like me?
    what do they mean?
    what’s writing?
    I only want to go to
    bed
    close my eyes
    and sleep
    forever.

the meaning of it all
    born next to cold dogs and
    railroad tracks.
    born to live with the
    lost.
    born among faces
    uglier than anything
    life could
    devise.
    born to see the 7
    horse break its
    leg
    at 3:42 in the
    afternoon.
    born to lose another
    woman—
    clothes gone from
    closet,
    hairpins
    lotions
    lipstick
    rings
    left
    behind.
    born to dance on
    one leg.
    born to sit around
    and watch flies
    frogs
    and roaches.
    born to sever fingers
    on the edge of
    tuna cans.
    born to walk about
    with guts
    shot out
    from front to
    back.
    born again
    and
    again and
    again.

guess who?
    she passed from one important man
    to another,
    from