Come On In!

Charles Bukowski

• Publisher: Ecco
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780060577063
• eBook ISBN: 9780061855825
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Classics
• Index: Literature

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.

I live near the
slaughterhouse
and am ill
with thriving.

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.

nothing but a scarf

long ago, oh so long ago, when

I was trying to write short stories

and there was one little magazine which printed

decent stuff

and the lady editor there usually sent me

encouraging rejection slips

so I made a point to

read her monthly magazine in the public

library.

I noticed that she began to feature

the same writer

for the lead story each

month and

it pissed me off because I thought that I could

write better than that

fellow.

his work was facile and bright but it had no

edge.

you could tell that he had never had his nose rubbed into

life, he had just

glided over it.

next thing I knew, this ice-skater-of-a-writer was

famous.

he had begun as a copy boy

on one of the big New York

magazines

(how the hell do you get one of those

jobs?)

then he began appearing in some of the best

ladies’ magazines

and in some of the respected literary

journals.

then after a couple of early books

out came a little volume, a sweet

novelette, and he was truly

famous.

it was a tale about high society and

a young girl and it was

delightful and charming and just a bit

naughty.

Hollywood quickly made a movie out of

it.

then the writer bounced around Hollywood

from party to party

for a few years.

I saw his photo again and again:

a little elf-man with huge

eyeglasses.

and he always wore a long dramatic

scarf.

but soon he went back to New York and to all the

parties there.

he went to every important party thereafter for years

and to

some that weren’t very

important.

then he stopped writing altogether and just went

to parties.

he drank or doped himself into oblivion almost

every night.

his once slim frame more than doubled in

size.

his face grew heavy and he no longer looked

like the young boy with the quick and dirty

wit but more like an

old frog.

the scarf was still on display but his hats were

too large and came down almost to his

eyes;

all you noticed was his

twisted

lurid

grin.

the society ladies still liked to drag him

around New Yor...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• I Live Near the Slaughterhouse and Am Ill with Thriving.
• She Looked at Me and Asked, Did You? Did You? Did You?
• It’s a Lonely World of Frightened People
• I Will Never Have a House in the Valley with Little Stone Men on the Lawn
• About the Author
• By Charles Bukowski
• Copyright
• About the Publisher