#6 Howl

I see the best minds of my generation destroyed by their apathy, pretending to be interested, crouching and cowering, and adjusting the brightness levels of machines to ease their eyes,

fooling themselves and nodding in indifferent agreement with the rabble babble of soulless networks stealing time precious irredeemable time under their noses,

who sit up smoking everything and drinking and more and sometimes less,

only waiting for the next time their bank accounts will be topped up again, and hoping,

knowing fully well it won’t, but hoping anyway,

that it’ll make a damned difference.

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# 5 Abstract Abandon

There is art here, all around,

framed and hung strategically

on the walls

because, you see, 
they must know we are cultured.

That we pause, sometimes,

as we hurry past,

and we deeply inhale

the soothing balm 

of vague abstractions
and obscure design.

They mustn’t think otherwise-

it must not be said that we don’t

look at the paintings,

that we do not have time,

and that the stark white light

reflects off the glass

and all you can see, if you were to look

away from the screen,

would be your own face,

haggard, dark-circled, defeated.

They mustn’t know that all the art is dead,

that it hangs in mocking derision.

They’d rather believe that

the colours, and patterns,

can revive us,

make this worthwhile.

There is art everywhere here,

beckoning to flights

of fantasy,

but nobody looks,

nobody lingers,
and nobody flies.

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#4 I need you to know

I want you to know,

that because

I don’t say the words,

doesn’t mean I don’t feel

those emotions- intense,

that ardor, overwhelming,

frightening, even.

I need you to know why

I won’t say those words-

so trite,

so common.

I want you to know,

that, I wonder,

what if,

the passion, the experience

those feelings,

are trivialized

in utterance.

I want you to know that

I could tell you over

and over again.

I could scream into caves,

and listen for the echos

of those words, that will

barely, hardly

so inadequately express

how deeply,

fiercely,

and consumingly,

I love you.

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So You Want to be a Writer

if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.
don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.

                                                                                                           -- Charles Bukowski

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