The Pleasures of the Damned

Selected Poems 1951-1993

Charles Bukowski

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781847675491
• eBook ISBN: 9781847678874
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

THE BEST OF THE BEST OF BUKOWSKI

The Pleasures of the Damned is a selection of the best poetry from America's most iconic and imitated poet, Charles Bukowski. Celebrating the full range of the poet's extraordinary sensibility and his uncompromising linguistic brilliance, these poems cover a lifetime of experience, from his renegade early work to never-before-collected poems penned during the final days before his death.

Selected by John Martin, Bukowski's long-time editor and the publisher of the legendary Black Sparrow Press, this stands as what Martin calls 'the best of the best of Bukowski'.

The Pleasures of the Damned is an astonishing poetic treasure trove, essential reading for both long-time fans and those just discovering this unique and important American voice.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• the mockingbird
• his wife, the painter
• on the sidewalk and in the sun
• the elephants of Vietnam
• dark night poem
• the last days of the suicide kid
• tabby cat
• metamorphosis
• a poem is a city
• a smile to remember
• a free 25-page booklet
• they, all of them, know
• a future congressman
• eulogy
• the drowning
• fooling Marie (the poem)
• the young man on the bus stop bench
• for they had things to say
• harbor freeway south
• schoolyards of forever
• in the lobby
• sex
• something for the touts, the nuns, the grocery clerks and you …
• blue beads and bones
• like a cherry seed in the throat
• turnabout
• the girl outside the supermarket
• it is not much
• 2 Outside, As Bones Break in My Kitchen
• The Japanese Wife
• the harder you try
• the lady in red
• the shower
• i was glad
• the angel who pushed his wheelchair
• a time to remember
• the wrong way
• no wonder
• a threat to my immortality
• my telephone
• Carson McCullers
• Mongolian coasts shining in light
• putrefaction
• where was Jane?
• something about a woman
• Sunday lunch at the Holy Mission
• trashcan lives
• school days
• grass
• crucifix in a deathhand
• the screw-game
• millionaires
• when you wait for the dawn to crawl through the screen like a burglar to take your life away
• the talkers
• art
• advice for some young man in the year 2064 A.D.
• ice for the eagles
• girl in a miniskirt reading the Bible outside my window
• hell is a lonely place
• the girls and the birds
• 1813–1883
• no leaders, please
• song
• one for Sherwood Anderson
• bow wow love
• the day the epileptic spoke
• when Hugo Wolf went mad—
• in a neighborhood of murder
• the strangest sight you ever did see—
• the 2nd novel
• junk
• Mademoiselle from Armentières
• now
• society should realize …
• the souls of dead animals
• the tragedy of the leaves
• the loner
• The Genius of the Crowd
• German bar
• the snow of Italy
• for Jane: with all the love I had, which was not enough:
• notice
• for Jane
• eulogy to a hell of a dame
• was Li Po wrong?
• the night I saw George Raft in Vegas
• I am eaten by butterflies
• the veryest
• man mowing the lawn across the way from me
• oh, yes
• Phillipe’s 1950
• downtown
• elephants in the zoo
• girl on the escalator
• the shit shits
• big time loser
• come on in!
• the bakers of 1935
• secret laughter
• an empire of coins
• what?
• the American Flag Shirt
• now she’s free
• gold in your eye
• a great writer
• the smoking car
• the shoelace
• self-inflicted wounds
• Verdi
• the young lady who lives in Canoga Park
• life of the king
• my failure
• a boy and his dog
• liberated woman and liberated man
• the crunch
• funhouse
• the poetry reading
• somebody
• the colored birds
• poem for personnel managers:
• my fate
• my atomic stockpile
• Bruckner (2)
• hello, how are you?
• vacancy
• batting slump
• bang bang
• the pleasures of the damned
• one more good one
• the little girls hissed
• ha ha ha ha ha, ha ha
• thoughts from a stone bench in Venice
• scene in a tent outside the cotton fields of Bakersfield:
• 3:16 and one half …
• a literary discussion
• butterflies
• my friend William
• safe
• starve, go mad, or kill yourself
• the beautiful lady
• those marvelous lunches
• The Look:
• the big one
• the genius
• about the PEN conference
• what a man I was
• Scarlet
• like a flower in the rain
• a killer
• prayer in bad weather
• melancholia
• eat your heart out
• I made a mistake
• she comes from somewhere
• The High-Rise of the New World
• car wash
• Van Gogh
• the railroad yard
• the girls at the green hotel
• in other words
• Destroying Beauty
• peace
• afternoons into night
• we ain’t got no money, honey, but we got rain
• marina:
• Trollius and trellises
• beagle
• coffee and babies
• magical mystery tour
• the last generation
• a radio with guts
• the egg
• a killer gets ready
• in the center of the action
• poetry
• notes upon the flaxen aspect:
• the fisherman
• the 1930s
• the burning of the dream
• sit and endure
• Goldfish
• finish
• dreaming
• my special craving
• A Love Poem
• one writer’s funeral
• the wine of forever
• the pile-up
• close encounters of another kind
• drying out
• scene from 1940:
• the area of pause
• I know you
• relentless as the tarantula
• the replacements
• to lean back into it
• eating my senior citizen’s dinner at the Sizzler
• it’s strange
• The Beast
• woman on the street
• lost in San Pedro
• Manx
• the history of a tough motherfucker
• bad fix
• one for the old boy
• my cats
• Death Wants More Death
• the lisp
• on being 20
• meanwhile
• the world’s greatest loser
• the trash men
• a gold pocket watch
• talking to my mailbox …
• I liked him
• one for the shoeshine man
• the proud thin dying
• shot of red-eye
• about pain
• hot
• who in the hell is Tom Jones?
• the price
• I’m in love
• the girls
• the ladies of summer
• tonight
• shoes
• hug the dark
• face of a political candidate on a street billboard
• white dog
• on going out to get the mail
• spring swan
• how is your heart?
• closing time
• racetrack parking lot at the end of the day
• there
• Dinosauria, we
• mind and heart
• TB
• the orderly
• the nurses
• cancer
• tired in the afterdusk
• again
• so now?
• blue
• sun coming down
• twilight musings
• the bluebird
• if we take—
• alphabetical index of poem titles
• About the Author
• Also by Charles Bukowski
• Copyright Page