Someday I'll be nothing too.

"I hated long views of life when the infinite overwhelms the finite subjects.  Not even forever lasts forever, and again I thought no matter what I do, someday I'd be nothing."  

Arthur Nersesian, The Fuck-Up

Madison, Wisconsin

The Bluebird

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that

Madison, WI

he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there
so don't be
sad.

then I put him back
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

-Charles Bukowski

A Constitution of Iron

"All his life he had tended and operated on the soft humans of civilization, who lived sheltered lives and had descended out of many sheltered generations.  Compared to White Fang, they were frail and flabby, and clutched life without strength in their grip.  White Fang had come straight from the Wild, where the weak perish early and shelter is vouchsafed to none.  In neither his father nor his mother was there any weakness, nor in the generations before them.  A constitution of iron and the vitality of the Wild were White Fang's inheritance, and he clung to life, the whole of him and every part of him, in spirit and in flesh, with the tenacity that of old belonged to all creatures."

Jack London, White Fang

Lake Monona, Madison, Wisconsin