"bitterness" (1 Viewer)

[sophia]

Hello,

I'm new.
About ten years ago I read a poem (a Dutch translation)
by Bukowski.
In this poem, the 'narrator' visits a friend in hospital. The friend is dying, and is afraid of becoming bitter.
The last line goes something like this:

"and back outside
the white belly of heaven laughed
as I read the last word

bitterness."

I am unable now to find this poem.
Can someone please help me?

Thanks.

 

[hank solo]

the passing of a great one

Not sure about the lines you mention, but one poem about visiting John Fante is called the passing of a great one (from You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense, Black Sparrow Press 1986).

the passing of a great one

he was the only living writer I ever met who I truly
admired and he was dying when I met
him.
(we in this game are shy on praise even toward
those who do it very well, but I never had this
problem with J.F.)
I visited him several times at the
hospital (there was never anybody else
about) and upon entering his room
I was never sure if he was asleep
or?


"John?"


he was stretched there on that bed, blind
and amputated:
advanced
diabetes.


"John it's
Hank ..."


he would answer and then we would talk for
a short bit (mostly he would talk and I would
listen; after all, he was our mentor, our
god):


Ask the Dust
Wait Until Spring, Bandini
Dago Red


all the others.


to end up in Hollywood writing
movie scripts
that's what killed
him.


"the worst thing," he told me,
"is bitterness, people end up so
bitter."


He wasn't bitter, although he had
every right to
be ...


at the funeral I
met several of his script-writing
buddies.


"let's write something about
John," one of them
suggested.


"I don't think I can," I
told them.


and, of course, they never
did.

 

[NoBukowski]

The poem youre asking about is called “final word” (all lower case). It appeared on page 175 of a volume called Septuagenarian Stew: Stories & Poems (1990).

 

[Father Luke]

final word


there he was in that room
beached
under that white sheet:
blind legs amputated:
again and
again,
they kept chopping away
at him.
all the operations, it
was all they knew
to
do.


he talked about various
things, mostly about a
subject we had both been
imbued with
and that he was still
strangely
interested in.


the nurse came in,
indicated to me
that
he needed
rest.


I told him that
I must
leave.


"there is something
terrible
that finally comes to most
people," he
said.


Then he whispered what it was.

we said
goodbye.


on that long drive back
into town
on the
freeway


I saw it
everywhere


it shouted and it
flailed and it
wailed


it hung there
in the sky
as


the fat belly of
heaven laughed:

"bitterness."