How Is Your Heart? Poem by Charles Bukowski

How Is Your Heart?

Rating: 2.8


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.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Tere Lee 03 May 2014

this is not the whole poem.

1 0 Reply
Sanya Semakula 24 April 2009

Full version: 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.

20 3 Reply
M. Bronson Russell 29 July 2008

Ah, yes. Ditto, good sir.

2 0 Reply
Walter Durk 27 September 2007

A certain 'go with the flow' approach to life, I think, may have helped sustain him.

3 0 Reply
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