40 Comments

I like the references to the spiritless and dead-before-death gang. See so much of it these days. Once you recognize and see it, it truly can't be unseen.

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A motivational halftime pep talk from Coach Hank.

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A stanza full of questions! Never dared to have that many in one go. Loved this! We live in this.

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"baby, air and light and time and space

have nothing to do with it

and don’t create anything

except maybe a longer life to find

new excuses

for."

-bukowski, "air and light and time and space"

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He tells it like it is.

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He told it like it is ... :-)

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Average, basic people can be fine if pleasant and self-aware.

Some people are just simple and I don't think they can help it.

But when they need reassurance and even demand it from you,

or they walk around with a void,

an insatiable, internalized hollow and it expresses itself as domineering and tyrannical

that's what I take issue with.

a lot of them simply following the well-beaten path end up in corporate offices and I've had issues there, especially in majority female offices, in a 3rd world country.

If people would look there, they would see a lot of the ills of society brewing, It's so hidden in plain sight.

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He said we've met them and I think I'm one of them.

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I've been MIA per Substack and I've genuinely missed although I've been living Hank's advice .Poetic Outlaws and a couple of others. Going to try to get back to some regular Substack reading now in the days ahead. Hope it's a good call. :)

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P.S. I clarify: The above is not meant to besmirch Substack. There is much worthwhile on Substack to get one's time too. Especially in comparison with other things. One might look at online which I don't. :) it's simply that I stopped essentially everything online for a season. Now, here I am, 'slouching towards Bethlehem '.

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good destination, great verb

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And then there’s a whole other group of ppl who never feel like they’re doing enough when they’re doing literally everything

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Want to be free of that

Sure

I agree

...

I can’t imagine being complacent

I can’t even imagine anyone thinking about it

...

But by the way

Who are the cowards?

...

I don’t see many

...

It’s a little like climbing a peak

We can take the easy way to understand someone

Or the hard way

Bukowski took the easiest way

to understand the other

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A young drunk, soon to die, handed me a book of poems by Bukowski. I did try to reason with the young drunk, to no avail. Charles paints with words of our human condition. We are all connected.

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I understand Bukowskis frustration. I've felt it. But love poems can triumph...

I think some of you will love this:

https://jonathanfostersthecrow.substack.com/p/welcome-to-the-crow

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This explains why mostly nobody thinks any more. They have NOTHING TO THINK ABOUT… a tragic mass of ignorance…

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Bee righteous always looking inward. dave p

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Bukowski rules. That's all to say. The antidote to our modern plague of stupid.

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