"The Laughing Heart" [by Charles Bukowski]

The Laughing Heart by Charles Bukowski

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

-- by Charles Bukowski

Read more about Charles Bukowski here. We first posted this poem back in 2008, and we continue to get comments on it.

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

-- by Charles Bukowski

Read more about Charles Bukowski here. We first posted this poem back in 2008, and we continue to get comments on it.

Comments

[Walter Carey]

Say what you like:
Your life is your life
your life to live a soap opera
but your life
your death too if that's what you want
and some guys want it some women too
I knew a few who thought they
could beat death in a card game
even a Tarot card game.
If I wanted to die I'd just do it
drive into a telephone pole
in the death car.
How romantic! What bullshit.
Your life is yours and you are the hero of your novel.
As my uncle used to say, no one can die for you.

[Robin Neidorf]

I adore this one, though it's always struck me as not terribly on-brand for Bukowski. And the response in the comment inspires me to write my own.

[Ken Lauter]

The Sensible Heart

- after Charles Bukowski’s “The Laughing Heart”

"The gods wait to delight/in you?"
Oh, come on, Charles,
let’s not get carried away.

Let’s not forget the MS patients,
how they die. Or the Hiroshima babies
who were melted in 1945.

That was two years after I was born
and started seeking light–
a search that’s lasted 80 years.

I found some, but also some darkness.
If the gods would grant
all of us only that much, I might

believe in them, and even call them
marvelous– but would not
find delight in any of the bastards.

-Ken Lauter