Hell Is A Lonely Place Poem by Charles Bukowski

Hell Is A Lonely Place

Rating: 4.4


he was 65, his wife was 66, had
Alzheimer's disease.

he had cancer of the
mouth.
there were
operations, radiation
treatments
which decayed the bones in his
jaw
which then had to be
wired.

daily he put his wife in
rubber diapers
like a
baby.

unable to drive in his
condition
he had to take a taxi to
the medical
center,
had difficulty speaking,
had to
write the directions
down.

on his last visit
they informed him
there would be another
operation: a bit more
left
cheek and a bit more
tongue.

when he returned
he changed his wife's
diapers
put on the tv
dinners, watched the
evening news
then went to the bedroom, got the
gun, put it to her
temple, fired.

she fell to the
left, he sat upon the
couch
put the gun into his
mouth, pulled the
trigger.

the shots didn't arouse
the neighbors.

later
the burning tv dinners
did.

somebody arrived, pushed
the door open, saw
it.

soon
the police arrived and
went through their
routine, found
some items:

a closed savings
account and
a checkbook with a
balance of
$1.14
suicide, they
deduced.

in three weeks
there were two
new tenants:
a computer engineer
named
Ross
and his wife
Anatana
who studied
ballet.

they looked like another
upwardly mobile
pair.

Monday, February 9, 2015
Topic(s) of this poem: lonely
COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Dr Antony Theodore 08 March 2019

loneliness, that kills the body and the soul. tony

1 0 Reply
Ian Lewis Copestick 05 January 2019

Painful, but life is painful.

1 0 Reply
Angela Cox 15 July 2017

ahh! this is so great.. it's so realistic and painful.. but it's lovely to read because it's the truth

3 0 Reply
Thomas Case 23 December 2015

brilliant....Buk often paints vivid pictures of the harsher side of life.

5 0 Reply
READ THIS POEM IN OTHER LANGUAGES
Close
Error Success