there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in the slow movement of
the hands of a clock.
people so tired
mutilated
either by love or no love.
people just are not good to each other
one on one.
the rich are not good to the rich
the poor are not good to the poor.
we are afraid.
our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big-ass winners.
it hasn’t told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.
or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone
untouched
unspoken to
watering a plant.”
― Love Is a Dog from Hell
The human being can be very stupid, especially in the half-light of almost 2000 years of semi-christian culture where emotionally barbaric ideals are mixed through with educational systems of learning based upon national, regional, economic and status forces. The development of the pure mind in America is almost impossible unless a man is fortunate enough to spend 25 years of his life in a madhouse or in some other entombed untouchable state.
Charles Bukowski, from an interview for the L. A. free press in 1967
collected in Sunlight Here I Am