Read Online What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire by Charles Bukowski - Free Book Online

bed to bed
    from man to man
    all of them
    society’s important men:
    politicians, athletes, artists,
    lawyers, doctors, entertainers,
    producers, financiers,
    and they all gave her one thing
    or another:
    gifts, money, publication,
    publicity and/or
    the good life.
    but when she suddenly died
    at 32
    the only ones at her funeral
    were
    an aunt from Virginia
    her bookie
    her dope dealer
    a bartender
    an alcoholic neighbor
    and several hired hands at the
    graveyard.
    but she held
    2 final aces
    and had the last laugh:
    she’d never worked an
    8 hour day
    and they buried her
    with all the gold
    in her teeth.

I want a mermaid
    speaking about going crazy
    I have been thinking about
    mermaids lately.
    but I can’t place them
    properly in my
    mind.
    one problem that bothers
    me
    is where are their sexual
    organs located?
    do they use toilet paper?
    and can they stand
    on their flipper
    while frying bacon and
    eggs?
    I think
    I’d like a mermaid
    to love.
    sometimes in the supermarket
    I see crabs and baby
    octopi
    and I think, well,
    I could feed her that.
    but how would I pack her
    around at the racetrack?
    I get my things and then
    push my cart to the
    checkout stand.
    â€œhow are you today?” she
    asks.
    â€œo.k.,” I say.
    she has on a
    market uniform
    flat shoes
    earrings
    a little cap
    pantyhose.
    she rings up my
    purchases. I know
    where her sexual organs
    are located as
    I look out the
    plate glass window
    and wait.

an unusual place
    just thinking about
    writing this poem has
    already almost made me
    sick
    but I’ll try it one more
    time.
    it was in Salt Lake
    City
    and I had the
    flu
    and it was cold
    and I was in my
    shirtsleeves.
    I had given my
    reading and was
    ready to fly
    back to L.A.
    but I was with
    2 girls who wanted
    to make the bars
    and we went into
    this one place
    and the girls wanted
    to sit near the
    front.
    there was a
    boy on the stage
    a Japanese cowboy
    and he could
    holler.
    I had to
    make the men’s room
    and I ran in
    there
    and the urinal was
    like a large shallow
    bathtub
    and it was
    clogged and
    full of urine
    gently spilling across
    the floor.
    the entire floor
    was wet
    and I almost puked
    into that flowing
    tide of piss.
    I came out and
    got the girls
    out of there.
    that time
    I didn’t tip for
    table service.
    I’m still not
    sure
    which was worse—
    the men’s room
    or that Japanese
    cowboy.
    that’s Mormon
    territory and clearly
    there’s work to be
    done.

in this city now—
    wives’ heads are
    battered
    against kitchen
    walls
    by unemployed
    butchers.
    pimps
    send out their
    dreary and doped
    battalions
    of tired
    girls.
    upstairs a man
    pukes
    his entire stomach
    into a
    wastebasket.
    we all drink
    too much
    cheap wine
    search for
    cigarettes
    look at our
    mates
    across
    tabletops
    and wonder why
    they became
    ugly
    so soon.
    we turn our
    TV’s on
    searching for
    baseball games
    soaps
    and
    cop
    shows
    but it’s only
    the sound
    we want
    some minor
    distraction.
    nobody cares
    about
    endings
    we know the
    end.
    some of us
    weaken
    some of us
    become
    sniffers of
    Christ.
    some don’t.
    to know anything is
    to score
    and to score
    is
    necessary
    that’s
    baseball
    and that’s all
    the rest
    of it
    too.

Captain Goodwine
    one goes from being a poet
    to being an entertainer.
    I read my stuff in Florida once
    and the professor there
    told me, “you realize you’re
    an entertainer now, don’t
    you?”
    I began to
    feel bad about that remark
    because when the crowd
    comes to be entertained by
    you
    then you become somehow
    suspect.
    and so, another time,
    starting from Los Angeles
    we took to the air and
    the flight captain introduced
    himself as
    â€œCaptain Goodwine,”
    and thousands of miles
    later I found myself transferred
    to a small 2-engine
    plane and we took off and
    the stewardess put a drink
    in my hand
    took my money and then
    hollered, “drink up,
    we’re