Charles Bukowski
Friendly Advice to a Lot of Young Men
Go to Tibet
Ride a camel.
Read the bible.
Dye your shoes blue.
Grow a beard.
Circle the world in a paper canoe.
Subscribe to The Saturday Evening Post.
Chew on the left side of your mouth only.
Marry a woman with one leg and shave with a straight razor.
And carve your name in her arm.
Brush your teeth with gasoline.
Sleep all day and climb trees at night.
Be a monk and drink buckshot and beer.
Hold your head under water and play the violin.
Do a belly dance before pink candles.
Kill your dog.
Run for mayor.
Live in a barrel.
Break your head with a hatchet.
Plant tulips in the rain.
But don’t write poetry.
From: The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems 1946-1966.
Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) is the author of Post Office, Women, Pulp, Notes of a Dirty Old Man, South of No North, Ham on Rye, Tales of Ordinary Madness, Factotum, Holywood and many great poems. We will publish all of his works in Dutch translation at Lebowski in 2014.
