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3 May: "How is Your Heart?" by Charles Bukowski

during my worst times on the park benches in the jails or living with whores I always had this certain contentment- I wouldn't call it happiness- it was more of an inner balance that settled for whatever was occuring and it helped in the factories and when relationships went wrong with the girls. it helped through the wars and the hangovers the backalley fights the hospitals. to awaken in a cheap room in a strange city and pull up the shade- this was the craziest kind of contentment and to walk across the floor to an old dresser with a cracked mirror- see myself, ugly, grinning at it all. what matters most is how well you walk through the fire.

2 comments:

  1. I'm not sure if the writer is proud of his contentment or regretful of it. Is the last paragraph describing the rest of the poem or telling the reader to do the opposite?

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    1. Good point.

      It is an interesting perspective on contentment. Because most people would/could/should not be content with the life the narrator describes. I'd agree that being content is better than being angry, resentful, or unaccountable.

      If you walk through the fire well enough, maybe you don't get burnt as bad. Although the better bet is not to walk trough the fire, of course.

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