they are everywhere - by Charles Bukowski

TheManFromLondon

the tragedy-sniffers are all
about.
they get up in the morning
and begin to find things
wrong
and they fling themselves
into a rage about
it,
a rage that lasts until
bedtime,
where even there
they twist in their
insomnia,
not able to rid their
mind
of the petty obstacles
they have
encountered.

they feel set against,
it's a plot.
and by being constantly
angry they feel that
they are constantly
right.

you see them in traffic
honking wildly
at the slightest
infraction,
cursing,
spewing their
invectives.

you feel them
in lines
at banks
at supermarkets
at movies,
they are pressing
at your back
walking on your
heels,
they are impatient to
a fury.

they are everywhere
and into
everything,
these violently
unhappy
souls.

actually they are
frightened,
never wanting to be
wrong
they lash out
incessantly...
it is a malady
an illness of
that
breed.

the first one
I saw like that
was my
father

and since then
I have seen a
thousand
fathers,
ten thousand
fathers
wasting their lives
in hatred,
tossing their lives
into the
cesspool
and
ranting
on.

66Mustang

I found this extremely perceptive and observant and have had several of the same thoughts myself, less eloquently mind

When was this written?

Albus_Scope

Charles Bukowski died in 1995 I think? Or 94? So I'm guessing this was maybe 1992? 

66Mustang

@Albus_Scope

That makes it all the more interesting to me!!

Lots of the stuff mentioned - people honking at the slightest traffic infraction, or people getting angry because they want to be in the right - I assumed were observations of modern day people

I suppose it could be argued that people do remain roughly the same (fundamentally) even while the centuries go past!!

Albus_Scope

I see the 90s as a couple of years ago, because I'm old.   

TheManFromLondon

66Mustang said:

I found this extremely perceptive and observant and have had several of the same thoughts myself, less eloquently mind

When was this written?

I read it in "The Last Night of the Earth Poems", published in 1992. Has lot of my favourites, including my most loved poem of them all, "Bluebird"