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Poetry: Charles Bukowski


So you want to be a writer, eh?
by Charles Bukowski



unless it flows in torrents
you yet,
not even try.
unless you voluntarily leave
heart and mind and mouth and bowels
,
not even try.
if you have to spend hours sitting watching

computer screen or hunched over the typewriter

for words,
not even try.
if you do it for money or fame
,
not even try.
if you do because you want women in bed
,
not even try.
if
have to sit and redo it again and again,
not even try,
if just thinking about it and you have trouble, do not try

if you want to write like someone else, forget
.

if you to wait until you leave
with a roar, then wait quietly
.
if you come out as a roar,
devote yourself to something else.
if first you have to read
your wife or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
your parents or whoever,
're not prepared.

not be like so many other writers,
not be like
many thousands of people who call themselves writers,
not be dull, boring and pretentious,
not let yourself be consumed by narcissism.

libraries around the world have fallen asleep from boredom
with those of your ilk.
not make it worse,
not even try.
unless you
out the soul like a rocket,
unless you believe that inaction would
you
madness or suicide or murder,
not even try.
unless the sun inside you will scorch the insides
,
not even try.

when really it's time,
and if you're among the chosen,
comes to life itself and will continue to grow

until you die or you die
in


no other way or were ever.

(Translated by Eduardo Iriarte, taken in "scrutinizing the
madness in search of the word, verse, the path".
Madrid, Visor Books, 2005) More information

http://bukowski.net/ .