Charles Bukowski manuscripts

Collected poems and stories

Poems and stories that were published in Black Sparrow or Ecco books.

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1948

• A Kind, Understanding Face

1957

• A DOLLAR FOR CARL LARSEN

1959

• CAUGHT AGAIN AT SOME IMPOSSIBLE PASS

1962

• THE DAYS RUN AWAY LIKE WILD HORSES OVER THE HILLS
• TO JANE COONEY BAKER, DIED 1-22-62:

1968

• get the nose

1969

• ALL THE LOVE OF ME GOES OUT TO HER (for A.M.)
• beef tongue (for J.T.)

1970

• Only the Truly Lost
• NOW THE PROFESSORS...
• the heart's riot
• society should realize...
• the girl outside the supermarket
• T.H.I.A.L.H.
• looking for Jack Michelene
• to kiss the worms goodnight
• LIFEDANCE

1971

• that one
• When the violets roar at the sun they'll set us free
• I met this woman
• WORK-FUCK PROBLEMS
• MY LITERARY FLY
• Song for this softly-sweeping sorrow...
• the chicken

1972

• the bells
• tonight
• the end
• back ups
• the ordinary cafe of the world
• crickets
• wide and revolving
• artistic selfishness, yes, I have it--
• a cop-out to a possible immortality:
• the angel who pushed his wheelchair
• BORN TO LOSE
• this drunk
• poor Trochi
• girls coming home in their cars
• DAYLIGHT SAVING
• fast track
• I Can't See Anything

1973

• woman in the supermarket
• demise
• panties
• 200 years
• she lost weight
• the copulation blues
• big grey balloon things, heavy
• my comrades
• the police helicopter
• hooked

1974

• 2,294
• a plausible finish
• an afternoon in mid-February 1974
• 10:45 a.m.
• one hundred dollars
• extant
• d.n.f.
• to weep in her hair
• insomnia
• the bells of the condom
• no Cagney, me
• it comes from somewhere
• where are you?
• 2 horsecollars
• the first love
• The Fulfillment
• love
• the mad poet
• rosary for a once tenderness
• free
• A LOVE POEM
• like a movie
• The Apprentices
• guru
• FLASHING WHITE TEETH
• butterflies
• an old fan
• BLINKS A LITTLE SPOT OF SENSELESS YELLOW IN THE MIDDLE OF IT ALL
• a poem for the swingers, a poem for the playgirls of the universe:
• I meet a vegetarian

1975

• my groupie
• the hollywood hustle
• the pact
• finger
• I'll send you a postcard
• in this place now
• broken ass like a cherry seed down the throat
• the knife waltz
• look
• sometimes even putting a nickle
• Kraznick
• the 2nd. novel
• the 2nd. novel
• bright spots of light or serpents
• those flashes
• after the reading
• Hawley's leaving town
• against the window panes
• visitor
• the edge
• a lovely couple
• the meaning
• full moon
• piranhas
• the big score
• half a goldfish
• my father and the bum
• the anarchists
• thoughts from a stone bench in Venice
• cockroach
• the joke
• she caught it in the air
• mean and stingy
• the little girls
• IT'S ALL A MATTER OF ENTERTAINMENT
• entertainment
• little tigers everywhere
• after the reading
• 3 pairs of panties
• I'm getting back to where I was
• the red pigeon
• a goodbye
• those flashes
• the silver mirror (for Georgia K.)

1976

• traffic signals
• the tabby cat
• communion
• social
• a touch of steel
• her porsche is a pale pink
• trapped
• beds, toilets, you and me--
• be alone
• ummmm
• huge ear rings
• bedpans
• time
• tonight
• war, and that particular bayonet
• weep
• Carlton Way off of Western
• goodbye, goodbye clipped wing bluebird
• Pacific Telephone
• hunchback
• an unkind poem

1977

• dog
• note for my wall
• note left on the dresser by a ladyfriend
• uggh...
• the pretty girl who rented rooms
• a note upon starvation
• respite
• the beach boys
• downtown
• she's free and she's wild
• the ladies who rip men apart
• passport
• yes
• an old jockey
• smashed
• some notes on the word and the way
• love
• it's not exactly the sun
• tongue-cut
• silk
• it's strange
• edith sent us
• 11:49 p.m. discussion
• there's one in every bar
• overt population
• 2nd. street, near Hollister, in Santa Monica
• panasonic
• he uses unwaxed dental floss
• high-roller
• the deathly bravo
• job #36

1978

• one thirty six a.m.
• EVEN CHATTERTON TOOK RAT POISON AND LEFT US AT PEACE
• victory
• hot dog
• one thirty six a.m.
• the big weight-lifting feat
• Hollywood Ranch Market
• Sibelius and etc.
• combat primer
• rape
• anonymity
• jilted
• my buddy
• little magazines and poetry chapbooks
• the end of a short love affair
• the yards
• where's it at?
• Igloo
• those
• crazy
• heart-ache
• racetrack
• you can't make a lion out of a butterfly
• funny man
• action down on the corner
• Academy Award
• 4 Christs
• a great place
• legs
• action...
• talk
• the pros
• gift
• he used to be
• the golden god
• the letters of John Steinbeck
• water the plants
• social
• dead again
• interview
• chill
• slump
• the immortals

1979

• off the board
• I don't need a Cleopatra
• Shubert
• within my own madness...
• HELL
• horse
• my style
• thrill time
• the German hotel
• the Lady in Red
• the old pinch hitter
• burning bright
• vision
• a place to relax
• the difficulty
• a place to go
• Hemingway
• what have I seen?
• movie
• I don't need a Cleopatra
• my father wanted me to be a mechanical draftsman
• I don't need a Cleopatra
• my father wanted me to be a mechanical draftsman but
• my father wanted me to be a mechanical draftsman but
• flight time
• the answer
• the fix
• good show
• the gamblers
• a reader
• the new neighborhood
• the x-con
• novels
• soundless
• Bruckner
• the drunk with the little legs
• the other room
• the secret of my endurance
• the secret of my endurance
• the other room
• the secret of my endurance
• uncrowned
• locks
• reject
• wall clock
• pleased to meet you
• tough cob
• guava tree
• THE PAYOFF
• the parts dept.
• THE PRINCESS TINA
• token drunk
• competition
• Manx
• competition

1980

• do you use a notebook?
• do you use a notebook?
• slow night
• I can't stop
• the new woman
• the liberated woman and the liberated air
• the liberated woman and the liberated air
• the new woman
• the liberated woman and the liberated air
• notes upon a hot streak
• comrade
• a Saturday afternoon
• ah
• lazing in San Pedro
• swinging from the dumb hook
• the temporal ease....
• A Fine Night
• the game
• dog fight
• 4 cops
• American Literature II
• you're not going to believe this
• pop
• unemployed and shacking
• heads without faces, seen in all the places
• dead dog
• dead dog
• heads without faces, seen in all the places
• heads without faces, seen in all the places
• horses don't bet on people and neither do I...
• unloading the goods
• 1810*1856
• unloading the goods
• let nothing ever happen
• the poetry game
• the poetry game
• 5.90 per pound
• an unliterary afternoon
• let nothing ever happen
• the poetry game
• drink and wait
• counter
• it sucks
• be angry at San Pedro
• lunch
• merry, merry
• the miracle man
• lunch
• be angry at San Pedro
• merry, merry
• in my day we used to call it pussy-whipped
• all that like that
• merry, merry
• as much as I hate to use this word...
• lunch
• the guitar player

1981

• heavy like dogs with cement shoes walking my skull
• talking to the barkeep
• talking to the barkeep
• good pay
• nothing
• genius
• nothing
• it was night a little while ago
• heavy like dogs with cement shoes walking my skull
• kissing me away
• Harbor Freeway South
• dirty poem
• Harbor Freeway South
• model
• my god
• listening to the radio at 1:35 a.m.
• the old soul-suck life
• come back
• I never bring my wife
• click, click...
• this habit
• click, click...
• bearclaw morning
• room service
• room service
• my Mexican buddy
• bearclaw morning
• grip the light
• the machinary of loss
• the old anarchist
• the old anarchist
• the column
• poor night
• poor night
• the column
• pain like an old black and white snapshot
• Carson McCullers
• pick up
• back to the machinegun
• the last generation
• sloppy day
• the green cadillac
• Ma Barker would have loved me
• the sadness in the air
• and i still don't vote
• pain like an old black and white snapshot
• Ma Barker would have loved me
• the sadness in the air
• no man is an island
• Kenyon review after the sandstorm
• my 3 friends
• bob
• no man is an island
• a close call while shopping
• an importation
• EMERGENCY
• garden talk
• Jane and Droll
• writing is very much a state of trance
• yours
• jack-knife
• yours
• the girls
• writing is a state of trance
• windy night
• an answer to an eleventh grade student in Philadelphia:

1982

• letter to a friend with a domestic problem
• justice
• Brown
• love
• fooling Marie
• the beautiful rush
• cap
• the beautiful rush
• making it
• agnostic
• words for you
• good morning, how are you?
• the eternal players
• the factory crew of Southeast L.A.
• Gothic and etc.
• I am chastised
• the main course
• no eulogy
• sardines in striped dresses
• no eulogy
• the main course
• clones
• I might get traded
• gallery
• LIFE, DEATH, LOVE, ART
• she said
• no eulogy
• LIFE, DEATH, LOVE, ART
• the main course
• regrets of a sort
• darlings of the word
• the new revolution
• practice
• the media
• my doctor
• one out
• one out
• the media
• my doctor
• the lucky ones
• the lucky ones
• the girls from nowhere
• the faithful wife
• practice
• the girls from nowhere
• dead dog
• short story form
• promenade
• short story form
• dead dog
• the suicide
• now here see me
• what we need
• what we need
• "I demand a little respect" Roger Dangerfield
• ding-dong
• ding-dong
• a certain pride here
• the yellow pencil
• the yellow pencil
• action off the board
• zero
• bright boy
• the overhead mirrors
• beaujolais jadot
• beaujolais jadot
• nuke me, I wouldn't know
• the overhead mirrors
• beaujolais jadot
• divorce
• the death of the snowman
• legs
• suitable
• legs
• the day the epileptic spoke
• problems in the checkout line
• night on a Visa card
• the beer bottle blow
• the beer bottle blow
• I'm a failure
• for the foxes, the defamers, the tap dancers, and the dreamers of ballet
• the perfect silence
• secret laughter shining
• the announcer
• on first reading the great literature of the world
• upon first reading the great literature of the world
• upon first reading the great literature of the world
• upon first reading the immortal literature of the world
• don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me
• shut out
• D. April 9, 1553
• a little cafe on 6th street in Pedro
• I been working on the railroad

1983

• self-inflicted
• dark, and darker
• the room
• the rock
• the smirking of the dark
• the rivers
• the parade
• disgusting
• the racetrack salutes you!
• do you believe that a writer can be taught to write?
• zero
• the dream
• the beats
• a loser
• macho man
• the condition
• takeover
• those girls we followed home
• transformation
• transformation and disfiguration
• the darlings
• the darlings
• my walls of love
• darlings
• out of place
• the history of a tough motherfucker
• beauti-ful
• goodbye, flying circus
• the history of a tough motherfucker
• beauti-ful
• the star
• fingernails
• take it
• macho man
• oh, yes
• THE POET
• like it was waiting
• here I am
• a smile to remember
• a smile to remember
• my critics are sometimes right
• fall out
• I fall into it without trying...
• how I got started
• how I got started
• proclamation and instructions
• how I got started
• not to worry
• note upon the love letters of Beethoven
• the little girls hissed
• truce
• a hot sweaty day in August
• a split
• nice try
• repeat
• nice try
• repeat
• repeat
• it was all right
• about pain
• interview
• NAKED AT 92 DEGREES
• success?
• decades centuries of error
• balloons
• love
• love
• love
• result
• result
• result
• result
• something cares
• they need what they need
• talking to a part of my mailbox
• let them be found
• sex and/or love
• re-union
• Dear Mr. Martin
• the priest
• Saratoga hot walker
• a note to the boys in the back room
• residue
• girls get back on your reels
• telephone
• out of the blue
• eating my senior citizen's dinner at the Sizzler
• sweater
• John Dillenger marches on
• suggestion for an arrangement
• out of the money (Celine is 3 dots)
• the two toughest apes in the South Bay area (for K.P.)

1984

• the good old machine
• a sensible fellow
• working out in hades
• rift
• love
• eulogy
• my friend, the parking lot attendant
• punch-out
• thanks for your help
• note upon our very drab affair
• wine pulse
• where was Jane?
• SOMETIMES WHEN YOU GET THE BLUES THERE MIGHT BE A DAMNED GOOD REASON
• the hatchet job
• the highschool girls
• a nature poem for you
• no man is an island, especially around Hollywood Park
• the chemistry of things
• the lady who looks young forever
• well that's just the way it is
• miracle
• endurance
• the improbable probability
• dream girl i understand your absence
• what I need
• a magician, gone...
• oh, to be young!
• help wanted
• it's all so clearly simple
• murder
• party's over
• working out

1985

• having the flu and nothing else to do
• in and out of the dark
• the shack jobs
• the x-bum
• practice
• about the mail
• the fuck-master
• never
• the son
• my buddy
• my turn
• escape
• never look
• the albums
• horse fly
• the boil
• too early too late and never
• quiet
• what can I do?
• snake-eyes
• I thought the stuff tasted worse than usual
• strictly bullshit
• observation
• bombed away
• you must remember that each day you get out of bed, it's a new beginning...
• a cheer for modern contrivances
• driving test
• Hemingway, drunk before noon
• the unfolding
• lousy mail
• going on
• SPEED!!!!!!!!
• gay paree
• I have continued writing...
• idols in the fight through darkness
• hard times
• putrefaction
• a difference
• siege
• it's never been so nice
• each man's hell is different
• good try, all
• a visitor complains of my disenfranchise...
• loll
• i'll take it
• a good time
• a hell of a duet
• a simple kindness
• snapshot
• the barometer
• thoughts while having a sandwich and coffee at 12:45 p.m. at a local cafe:
• a happening
• final story
• love crushed like a dead fly
• Gertude up the stairway
• not listed
• shop talk
• I'm not a misogynist but...
• dark night poem #12
• the dogs
• i'm so tired

1986

• nothing's free, not even the sun...
• this most delicate profession
• an angel and an asshole
• it's funny, isn't it?
• the burning of the dream
• the Rape of the Holy Mother
• cause and effect
• yeah
• about the PEN conference:
• my friend, Howie
• ow
• if I had failed the struggle there would have been none...
• be cool, fool
• it's all right
• it's all right
• lost in San Pedro
• lost in San Pedro
• my cat, the writer
• a lady who wants to help
• A.D. 701-62
• to the ladies who no longer think of me
• a re-evaluation
• just trying to get a little service
• buddha chinaski says
• birthday party
• my cat, the writer
• dear old dad
• the pretenders
• a bit of gardening
• the other day i saw a man reading the Wall Street Journal as if it did contain something...
• a terrible need
• I am known
• the end of an era
• how to get out?
• a common interest
• for the lady who hates it
• night quarterhorse racing, Hollywood Park
• sometimes you go a bit crazy
• tired in the afterdusk
• the last drink
• the dream, the dream, the dream...
• the girls and the birds
• immortal wino
• yawn...

1988

• two writers
• the nurses

1989

• sometimes it's easier to kill somebody else
• slob
• the magic fix
• nothing but a scarf
• observation

1990

• the mirror game
• happy birthday
• the movies
• cancer
• days and nights
• my buddy
• girl on the escalator
• flying through space
• no leaders
• hello, how are you?
• somebody else
• not normal
• I am a true mole
• The Kenyon Review and other matters
• rags, bottles, sacks
• talk
• meeting them
• on the rebound
• clothes cost money
• my buddy
• husk
• love poem
• the place
• sumatra cum laude
• everything hurts to the edge of goodness
• the dream
• curious
• kiss those days goodbye
• the last salamander
• displaced
• Stomping at the Savoy
• don't call me, I'll call you
• the spill
• I'm flattered
• skinny-dipping
• silverfish
• .188
• cracking the odds
• some of this place
• mailbag
• ow ow ow
• why do you write so many poems about death?
• the death of a hero
• neon
• nothing to it
• the roaches
• strange
• the glory days
• self-invites
• free dinner
• 1990 special
• you write many poems about death
• another interview
• straw hat
• it
• Dreiser wasn't so hot either
• girl on the escalator
• outside the racetrack just before the 9th race
• before the 7th race, one mile, $32,000 claimer
• it
• straw hat
• Drieser wasn't so hot either
• counsel
• poem for nobody
• congrats, Chinask
• a final word on no final words
• checkmate
• journey
• the schoolyard of forever
• hell
• another Portfolio
• poem for nobody
• small talk
• why oh why oh why and why not
• how do they get their jobs when I had to work in a dog biscuit factory?
• dusty shoes
• the telephone message machine
• breakfast
• lousy day
• clothes cost money
• small talk
• the curse
• the bedpan nightmare
• anyhow
• the way it is
• forewarned
• see here
• gestation
• in finality
• oh my
• the bedpan nightmare
• oh my
• the movies
• hello, how are you?
• IBM
• upon reading an interview with a best selling novelist in the metropolitan daily
• somebody else
• upon reading an interview with a best selling novelist in the metropolitan daily
• change over
• 8 count and up
• I am a true mole
• being too young
• our gang
• meeting them
• TB
• living in a great big way
• mailbag
• New York in hell
• war and peace
• living in a great big way
• making it
• up, down and all around
• unclassical symphony
• TB
• unclassical symphony

1991

• the 8 count concerto
• a day so flat you could roll marbles on it
• looking back
• old
• they are after me
• the dress maker
• in one ear and out the other
• the minute
• the secret life
• the poem
• good news
• no dice
• what will the neighbors think?
• the 60's
• dead
• human nature
• Lord Byron
• old?
• roll the dice
• in search of the hero
• a model
• slow night
• poem, poem, poem, poem
• hanging there
• no return address
• who needs it?
• crazy world
• the 60's
• dear Mr. Chinaski
• hummingbird chance
• lousy mail
• one of those
• goading and whipping the muse
• the modern life
• slow night
• poetry readings
• the crowd
• the harder you try, the harder you die
• not much singing
• wind the clock
• 40,000
• death and transfiguration
• hunger
• lousy mail
• open here
• God's man
• the inspection
• mountain
• snake eyes
• poop
• cruising
• hardly Nirvana
• last will and testament
• with his awful teeth
• the barometer
• defining the magic
• hurry slowly hurry
• the mail
• our big day at the movies
• from the Dept. of English
• the interview
• my big night on the town
• solving a crime before it begins is important too
• preparation hell
• a curious thing
• he showed me his buttocks
• late payment
• notes on the telephone
• basic
• depression kid
• hymn from the hurricane of the blinking eye
• man's best friend
• owl
• Genius, unfettered
• my companion
• something's knocking at the door
• putting it to bed
• the hardest
• learning the ropes
• worse than nobody
• Chinaski
• I don't know about you but
• the march
• Paris in the Spring
• German
• it got away
• a name is nothing if the named is nothing
• spelling it out
• reading the little magazines
• liar, liar, your pants are on fire!
• note from hell in the mailbox
• he's a dog who types
• I inherit
• computer class
• a vote for the light
• pause before the counter attack
• the girls
• the joke
• neither Shakespeare or Mickey Spillane
• stuck with it
• rest period
• the dangling carrot
• life on the half shell
• traffic report
• clever
• the disease of existence
• I know you
• walking with the dead
• the people
• giving thanks
• lark in the dark
• a new war
• the swimming pool
• the x-factor
• the darkening light
• hey, hey, hey
• the lonely hearts of the universe
• now Ezra
• total madness
• don't forget
• I used to feel sorry for Henry Miller
• the Mexican fighters
• scene from 1940
• picture this
• a grounder to the shortstop
• just trying to do a good deed
• night cap
• taken
• revolt in the ranks
• the young poets
• the darkening light
• the horses of Mexico
• the longest snake in the world
• odd
• they rolled they whole bed out of there
• Dostoevsky
• I used to think
• the mice
• scrambled legs
• please
• going
• killing life
• the Nile runs north
• telephone
• computer now
• Hemingway never did this
• Hemingway never did this
• last seat at the end
• the damnation of Buk
• the damnation of Buk
• classical music and me
• Dinosauria, we
• Dinosauria, we
• in the shadow of the rose
• it got away
• block
• the pile-up
• last seat on the end
• last seat on the end
• welcome darkness
• the sheep
• paris
• writing
• these good people
• as the poems go
• writing
• hands
• writing
• the word
• met a man on the street
• met a man on the street
• some luck somehow
• classical
• the luck of the draw
• iron
• the horseplayer
• night cap
• how to get rid of the great purists
• returning to an old love
• a note upon the masses
• a note on the masses
• cool fur

1992

• the cigarette of the sun
• ow said the cow to the fence that linked
• the circus of death
• poem for my 72nd birthday, if I get there
• the riots
• the death of an era
• a summation
• the great writer
• working out
• the cigarette of the sun
• the love for the first whore
• Jack
• the stupidest thing I ever did
• i'm still no good
• the wine that roared like a lion
• stay out of my slippers you fool
• top gun
• a conversation not to remember
• this is when they come in for what's left of your soul
• working out
• the great writer
• tremor
• the great escape
• more than ow
• bedtime story
• a good cause
• the couple
• heart in the cage
• from the Dept. of English
• waste
• rare
• cicada
• hot night
• two night before my 72nd birthday
• do you want to enter the arena?
• the condition book
• a wise-ass

1993

• cold summer
• made in the shade (Happy New Year)
• Moving Toward Age 73
• crawl
• crime does pay
• sour grapes
• one for Wolfgang
• now
• farewell, farewell
• Richard Nixon shook my hand

1994

• #1
• club Hell
• club Hell