sitting on a 2nd-floor porch at 1:… while looking out over the city. could be worse. we needn’t accomplish great things…

the men phone and ask me that. are you really Charles Bukowski the writer? they ask. I’m a sometimes writer, I say, most often I don’t do anything.

It was Christmas season and I learned from the drunk up the hill, who did the trick every Christmas, that they would hire damned near anybody, and so I went and the next thing I knew I ...

these things that we support most… have nothing to do with up, and we do with them out of boredom or fear or money or cracked intelligence;

The next day I sat in the hall in my green tin chair, waiting to be called. Across from me sat a man who had something wrong with his nose. It was very red and very raw and very fat and...

suppose like others have come through fire and sword, love gone wrong, head-on crashes, drunk at sea, and I have listened to the simple…

We got back to 1010. I had my check. I’d left word that we didn’t want to be disturbed. Tammie and I sat drinking. I’d read 5 or 6 love poems about her. “They knew who I was,” she said....

I was sitting next to a young girl who didn’t know her scheme very well. “Where does 2900 Roteford go?" she asked me. "Try throwing it to 33," I told her. “You say you’re from Kansas Ci...

Two nights later I went over to Tammie’s place on Rustic Court. I knocked. The lights weren’t on. It seemed empty. I looked in her mailbox. There were letters in there. I wrote a note, ...

The Stone’s favorite carrier was Matthew Battles. Battles never came in with a wrinkled shirt on. In fact, everything he wore was new, looked new. The shoes, the shirts, the pants, the ...