"bitterness" (1 Viewer)

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.
 
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.
 

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