we forget the terror of one person
aching in one room
alone
unkissed
untouched
cut off
watering a plant alone
without a telephone that would never
ring
anyway.

people are not good to each other
people are not good to each other
people are not good to each other

and the beads swing and the clouds obscure
and dogs piss upon rose bushes
the killer beheads the child like taking a bite
out of an ice cream cone
while the ocean comes in and goes out
in and out
in the thrall of a senseless moon.

and people are not good to each other.

— excerpt from Charles Bukowski’s “the crunch”

* There are multiple different versions of this poem in which the text varies.

Rogers Street Bridge Railing Shadow..  Photo credit: Larry D. Moore, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in the slow movements of
the hands of a clock

there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it blinking in neon signs
in Vegas, in Baltimore, in Munich

there are people so tired
so strafed
so mutilated by love or no
love
that buying a bargain can of tuna
in a supermarket
is their greatest moment
their greatest victory

— from Charles Bukowski’s “the crunch”*

* There are multiple different versions of this poem in which the text varies.

Photo credit: By Theo Crazzolara – Waiting, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54570965