Category Archives: Nothing

Letter to the Editor

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Sirs:
Let’s all laugh in the face of dental hygiene and go out and sharpen our teeth on a tree trunk, pee in the back of a cathedral, walk listing to one side, and tell the postman to “cram it.”

Sir Kenneth Clarke
Oofs, Devonshire
Letters from the Editors of the National Lampoon (1973)

barstool

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The set of 'Barfly'

the longer I live the more I realize
that I knew exactly what I was doing
when I didn’t seem to be doing
anything
but watching a wet fly on the
bar
nuzzling a pool of
spilled beer.
I was quitting the game,
tossing in my hand
early,
it felt grand, I tell you,
it even felt dramatic, I mean
to cough it up and out,
to give way,
to sit there
the dirty Venetian blinds
behind me,
nothing to do but get my
wits up enough
to cage another free
drink.
I had zeroed out, I was
the Grand Marshal of
Nowhere,
still young,
I realized that there was
no place to go,
ever,
I was already there.
I was the Clown of the
Patrons.
I was the Nut.
I was the Heart of a
Heartless bar.

the drinks came.
the days and nights
went.
the years went.

I lived by my addled
crushed wits,
sometimes
ended up bloodied in
some alley, given up
for dead,
only to rise again.

I knew exactly what I
was doing: I was
doing nothing.
because I knew there
was nothing
to do.

I know now
that I knew then all that there
was to
know,
and tonight
sitting alone here,
nobody about,
I am still fixed in this
floating
perfect
aspect.
my wits have gotten me
from nowhere to
nowhere
and death like life
is lacking,
and I know so well
I did right
watching that fly
nuzzle the beer
suds
as the others
hustled their butts,
circled in the
tenebrous
light.

Charles Bukowski
Betting on the Muse (1996)

Photo: Faye Dunaway, Charles Bukowski and Mickey Rourke on the set of Barfly (1987)