Come on In!

by Charles Bukowski

Overview

another comeback

climbing back up out of the ooze, out of
the thick black tar,
rising up again, a modern
Lazarus.
you're amazed at your good
fortune.
somehow you've had more
than your share of second
chances.
hell, accept it.
what you have, you have.
you walk and look in the bathroom
mirror
at an idiot's smile.
you know your luck.
some go down and never climb back up.
something is being kind to you.
you turn from the mirror and walk into the
world.
you find a chair, sit down, light a cigar.
back from a thousand wars
you look out from an open door into the silent
night.
Sibelius plays on the radio.
nothing has been lost or destroyed.
you blow smoke into the night,
tug at your right
ear.
baby, right now, you've got it
all.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780060577063
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/27/2007
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.76(d)

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 1920 in Andernach, Germany, to an American soldier father and a German mother, and brought to the United States at the age of two. He was raised in Los Angeles and lived there for over fifty years. He died in San Pedro, California, on March 9, 1994, at the age of seventy-three, shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp.

Abel Debritto, a former Fulbright scholar and current Marie Curie fellow, works in the digital humanities. He is the author of Charles Bukowski, King of the Underground, and the editor of the Bukowski collections On Writing, On Cats, and On Love.

Date of Birth:

August 16, 1920

Date of Death:

March 9, 1994

Place of Birth:

Andernach, Germany

Place of Death:

San Pedro, California

Education:

Los Angeles City College, 2 years

Read an Excerpt

Come On In!

come on in

welcome to my wormy hell.
the music grinds off-key.
fish eyes watch from the wall.
this is where the last happy shot was
fired.
the mind snaps closed
like a mind snapping
closed.
we need to discover a new will and a new
way.
we're stuck here now
listening to the laughter of the
gods.
my temples ache with the fact of
the facts.
I get up, move about, scratch
myself.
I'm a pawn.
I am a hungry prayer.
my wormy hell welcomes you.
hello, hello there. come in, come on in!
plenty of room here for us all,
sucker.
we can only blame ourselves so
come sit with me in the dark.
it's half-past
nowhere
everywhere.

this machine is a fountain

my system is always the same:
keep it loose
write a great number of
poems
try with all your
heart and
don't worry about the
bad
ones.

keep it going
keep it
hot
forget about immortality
if you ever
remembered
it.

the sound of this machine is
good.

much paper
more desire.

just
hammer away and wait for lady
luck.

what a
bargain.

Come On In!. Copyright © by Charles Bukowski. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.