Charles Bukowski: people as flowers

people as flowers

such singing's going on in the

streets--

the people look like flowers

at last

the police have turned in their

badges

the army has shredded its uniforms and

weapons. there isn't any need for

jails or newspapers or madhouses or

locks on the doors.

a woman rushes through my door.

TAKE ME! LOVE ME!

she screams.

she's as beautiful as a cigar

after a steak dinner. I

take her.

but after she leaves

I feel odd

I lock the door

go to the desk and take the pistol

from the drawer. it has its own sense of

love.

LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! the crowd sings in the

streets.

I fire through the window

glass cutting my face and

arms. I get a 12-year-old boy

an old man with a beard

and a lovely young girl something like a

lilac.

the crowd stops singing to

look at me.

I stand in the broken window

the blood on my

face.

"this," I yell at them, "is in defense of the

poverty of self and in defense of the freedom

not to love!"

"leave him alone," somebody says,

"he is insane, he has lived the bad life for

too long."

I walk into the kitchen

sit down and pour a

glass of whiskey.

I decide that the only definition of

Truth (which changes)

is that it is that thing or act or

belief which the crowd

rejects.