The Laughing Heart by Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski [1920-1994] was one of the most famous of the American poets of his time. He was German-American poet and born at Andernach, Germany and died of leukemia on March 9, 1994, in San Pedro, aged 73, shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp. Bukowski published extensively in small literary magazines and with small presses beginning in the early 1940s and continuing on through the early 1990s. Since his death in March 1994, Bukowski has been the subject of a number of critical articles and books about both his life and writings, despite his work having received relatively little attention from academic critics in the United States during his lifetime. In contrast, Bukowski enjoyed extraordinary fame in Europe, particularly in Germany, the place of his birth. Read here for more about of Charles Bukowski.

Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories and six novels, eventually publishing over 60 books.

'The Laughing heart' one of his famous poem of all time. Bukowski’s writing is often known for being realistic, depressing, and blunt, always getting straight to the point of the matter and not aiming to please. ‘The Laughing Heart’ is no different, telling people that they must stop letting others ‘club’ the joy out of life and take control of their own success and happiness. He argues that once you begin to show up for your own life, ‘marvellous’ things will begin to happen to you.

The Laughing Heart

Your life is your life

Don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.

Be on the watch.

There are ways out.

There is a 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.

Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski Quotes...

“We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.”
― Charles Bukowski

“what matters most is how well you walk through the fire”
― Charles Bukowski

“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
― Charles Bukowski

“there are worse things
than being alone
but it often takes
decades to realize this
and most often when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than too late”
― Charles Bukowski

“If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose”

― Charles Bukowski

“There's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going to let anybody see you.”
― Charles Bukowski