SpokenVerse | dreamlessly from Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame by Charles Bukowski (read by Tom O'Bedlam) @SpokenVerse | Uploaded September 2012 | Updated October 2024, 4 hours ago.
This poem reminds me of the refrain of "Randy Scouse Git" by the Monkees:
Why don't you cut your hair?
Why don't you live up there?
Why don't you do what I do,
See what I feel when I care?
Why don't you be like me?
Why don't you stop and see?
Why don't you hate who I hate,
Kill who I kill to be free?
Incidentally don't believe what you read on the web about the title. It was originally released in the UK with the name "Alternate Title". Then it came up on a TV chat show and somebody remarked "Perhaps it was originally called Randy Scouse Git". I have an idea it was Rolf Harris who said it, but I could be wrong. Anyway "Randy Scouse Git" is a quotation from a TV show "Till Death Us Do Part" starring a racist, bigoted, well-loved character called Alf Garnett, who referred to his layabout son-in-law in those terms. (The show was imported into the US as Archie Bunker, in a much milder form)
Translation Randy = Horny, Scouse = somebody who comes from Liverpool (scouse is a local stew made with scrag-ends of meat) and a Git is a pregnant camel, an awkward useless creature, a word adopted from arabic into army slang during the British occupation of North Africa. Other more common slang words from the same source are "bint" (whore, tart, slut) and "take a shufi" (have a look).
Bukowski seems puzzled that everybody else ain't like Bukowski. He can't see why that should be. If they're not like him what do they have to live for?
He feels a strong sense of fellowship with the other specimens of humanity that he sees. But Buk has that problem that afflicts so many of us: he sees anything that is different from what he is, or he thinks, as being an aberration. He's derisive and sneering: the empathy is only a patina.
Wow, I just ditched a few brownie points with Buk's aficionados. Those same guys who he said were "mostly ... cracked-up men in tiny rooms with factory jobs or no jobs who are living with whores or no woman at all, no hope, just booze and madness."
I'm just kidding guys - I "like his stuff" too. And I often wonder why everybody isn't like me.
The old grey haired waitress isn't human, she's a 6 foot tall statue. You can buy her here: butlerstatue.com/pd_waitress.cfm
The girl with Bukowski is Linda Lee Beighle, who became his wife.
The supermarket picture is from "Funny People Shopping in Walmart"
But be warned - If you go to this site, it'll probably "kill your day"
there are hundreds of breathtaking pictures here:
killmydaynow.com/?s=walmart&submit=+
Which one's YOUR favourite?
The still of Charlie Chaplin is from City Lights, 1931
old grey-haired waitresses
in cafes at night
have given it up,
and as I walk down sidewalks of
light and look into windows
of nursing homes
I can see that it is no longer
with them.
I see people sitting on park benches
and I can see by the way they
sit and look
that it is gone.
I see people driving cars
and I see by the way
they drive their cars
that they neither love nor are
loved-
nor do they consider
sex. it is all forgotten
like an old movie.
I see people in department stores and
supermarkets
walking down aisles
buying things
and I can see by the way their clothing
fits them and by the way they walk
and by their faces and their eyes
that they care for nothing
and that nothing cares
for them.
I can see a hundred people a day
who have given up
entirely.
if I go to a racetrack
or a sporting event
I can see thousands
that feel for nothing or
no one
and get no feeling
back.
everywhere I see those who
crave nothing but
food,shelter, and
clothing; they concentraate
on that
dreamlessly.
I do not understand why these people do not
vanish
I do not understand why these people do not
expire
why the clouds
do not murder them
or why the dogs
do not murder them
or why the flowers and the children
do not murder them,
I do not understand
I suppose they are murdered
yet I can't adjust to the
fact of them
because there are so
many.
each day
each night,
there are more of them
in the subways and
in the buildings and
in the parks
they feel no terror
at not loving
or at not
being loved
so many many many
of my fellow
creatures.
This poem reminds me of the refrain of "Randy Scouse Git" by the Monkees:
Why don't you cut your hair?
Why don't you live up there?
Why don't you do what I do,
See what I feel when I care?
Why don't you be like me?
Why don't you stop and see?
Why don't you hate who I hate,
Kill who I kill to be free?
Incidentally don't believe what you read on the web about the title. It was originally released in the UK with the name "Alternate Title". Then it came up on a TV chat show and somebody remarked "Perhaps it was originally called Randy Scouse Git". I have an idea it was Rolf Harris who said it, but I could be wrong. Anyway "Randy Scouse Git" is a quotation from a TV show "Till Death Us Do Part" starring a racist, bigoted, well-loved character called Alf Garnett, who referred to his layabout son-in-law in those terms. (The show was imported into the US as Archie Bunker, in a much milder form)
Translation Randy = Horny, Scouse = somebody who comes from Liverpool (scouse is a local stew made with scrag-ends of meat) and a Git is a pregnant camel, an awkward useless creature, a word adopted from arabic into army slang during the British occupation of North Africa. Other more common slang words from the same source are "bint" (whore, tart, slut) and "take a shufi" (have a look).
Bukowski seems puzzled that everybody else ain't like Bukowski. He can't see why that should be. If they're not like him what do they have to live for?
He feels a strong sense of fellowship with the other specimens of humanity that he sees. But Buk has that problem that afflicts so many of us: he sees anything that is different from what he is, or he thinks, as being an aberration. He's derisive and sneering: the empathy is only a patina.
Wow, I just ditched a few brownie points with Buk's aficionados. Those same guys who he said were "mostly ... cracked-up men in tiny rooms with factory jobs or no jobs who are living with whores or no woman at all, no hope, just booze and madness."
I'm just kidding guys - I "like his stuff" too. And I often wonder why everybody isn't like me.
The old grey haired waitress isn't human, she's a 6 foot tall statue. You can buy her here: butlerstatue.com/pd_waitress.cfm
The girl with Bukowski is Linda Lee Beighle, who became his wife.
The supermarket picture is from "Funny People Shopping in Walmart"
But be warned - If you go to this site, it'll probably "kill your day"
there are hundreds of breathtaking pictures here:
killmydaynow.com/?s=walmart&submit=+
Which one's YOUR favourite?
The still of Charlie Chaplin is from City Lights, 1931
old grey-haired waitresses
in cafes at night
have given it up,
and as I walk down sidewalks of
light and look into windows
of nursing homes
I can see that it is no longer
with them.
I see people sitting on park benches
and I can see by the way they
sit and look
that it is gone.
I see people driving cars
and I see by the way
they drive their cars
that they neither love nor are
loved-
nor do they consider
sex. it is all forgotten
like an old movie.
I see people in department stores and
supermarkets
walking down aisles
buying things
and I can see by the way their clothing
fits them and by the way they walk
and by their faces and their eyes
that they care for nothing
and that nothing cares
for them.
I can see a hundred people a day
who have given up
entirely.
if I go to a racetrack
or a sporting event
I can see thousands
that feel for nothing or
no one
and get no feeling
back.
everywhere I see those who
crave nothing but
food,shelter, and
clothing; they concentraate
on that
dreamlessly.
I do not understand why these people do not
vanish
I do not understand why these people do not
expire
why the clouds
do not murder them
or why the dogs
do not murder them
or why the flowers and the children
do not murder them,
I do not understand
I suppose they are murdered
yet I can't adjust to the
fact of them
because there are so
many.
each day
each night,
there are more of them
in the subways and
in the buildings and
in the parks
they feel no terror
at not loving
or at not
being loved
so many many many
of my fellow
creatures.
