your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

-The Laughing Heart; Charles Bukowski

roll the dice

if you’re going to try, go all the
way.
otherwise, don’t even start.

if you’re going to try, go all the
way.
this could mean losing girlfriends,
wives, relatives, jobs and
maybe your mind.

go all the way.
it could mean not eating for 3 or 4 days.
it could mean freezing on a
park bench.
it could mean jail,
it could mean derision,
mockery,
isolation.
isolation is the gift,
all the others are a test of your
endurance, of
how much you really want to
do it.
and you’ll do it
despite rejection and the worst odds
and it will be better than
anything else
you can imagine.

if you’re going to try,
go all the way.
there is no other feeling like
that.
you will be alone with the gods
and the nights will flame with
fire.

do it, do it, do it.
do it.

all the way
all the way.

you will ride life straight to
perfect laughter, its
the only good fight
there is.

Bukowski

Tradução

“role os dados

se você vai tentar, vá com tudo.
senão, nem adianta começar.

se você vai tentar, vá com tudo.
isso deverá fazer você perder namoradas,
esposas, con-gêneres, trabalhos e
talvez sua mente.

vá com tudo.
talvez você não coma por 3 ou 4 dias.
talvez você congele, sentado na praça.
pode ser que seja preso,
pode significar derrisão,
escárnio,
isolamento.
isolamento é um grande presente,
tudo o mais são testes de sua resistência,
de quanto você realmente quer
interferir.
e você o fará
a despeito de qualquer rejeição, as piores probabilidades,
e você estará melhor do que ninguém poderia imaginar.

se vai tentar, vá com tudo..
não há outro sentimento quanto a isso.
você estará sozinho, com os deuses
e as noites queimarão como fogo.

vá, vá, vá.
faça.

com tudo
de cabeça.

você montará na vida, numa reta,
e aperfeiçoará a gargalhada;
e só haverá boa luta.”

Tradução: Hilam A na Grama

Piss

remember once I was sitting in this hotel
room when my woman came in drunk and said,
”Christ, I couldnt hold it, I had to piss in the,
elevator!”
I was drunk too, I was harefoot and in
my shorts.
I got up and walked out the door and down
the hall and pushed the elevator
button.
it came up.
the door opened.
the elevator was empty but sure enough
there in the corner was the
puddle.
as 1 was standing there a man and a
woman came out of their place
and walked toward the
elevator.
the door was beginning to close
so I held it open with my hand
so they could get
on.
as the door began to close I heard the
woman say,
”that man was in his shorts.”
”and he pissed in the elevator.”

I went back to the room and told her,
”they think I pissed in the elevator”

”who?” she asked.

”people.”

”what people?”

”the people who saw me standing
in my shorts.”

”well, screw them,” she said.

she was sitting there drinking a glass
of wine.

”take a bath,” I said.

"Piss", by Charles Bukowski
From Betting on the muse, Black Sparrow Press, 1996