si no brota de ti a borbotones
a pesar de todo,
no lo hagas.
a menos que salga por voluntad propia
de tu corazón y tu mente y tu boca
y tus entrañas,
no lo hagas.
si tienes que sentarte durante horas
mirando la pantalla de la computadora
o encorvado sobe la
máquina de escribir
en busca de palabras,
no lo hagas.
si lo estás haciendo por dinero o
fama,
no lo hagas.
si lo estás haciendo porque quieres
mujeres en tu cama
no lo hagas.
si tienes que sentarte y
rehacerlo una y otra vez,
no lo hagas.
si es un trabajo duro sólo pensar en ello,
no lo hagas.
si estás tratando de escribir como alguien
más,
olvídalo.
si tienes que esperar a que ruja fuera de
ti,
entonces espera pacientemente.
si nunca ruge fuera de ti,
haz otra cosa.
si primero se lo tienes que leer a tu esposa
o a tu novia o a tu novio
a tus padres o a cualquiera que sea,
no estás preparado.
no seas como tantos escritores,
no seas como tantos miles de
personas que se llaman escritores,
no seas insulso y aburrido y
pretencioso, no te dejes consumir por el amor
propio.
las bibliotecas del mundo han
bostezado hasta
dormirse sobre los de tu tipo.
no lo empeores.
no lo hagas.
a menos que te salga
de tu alma como un cohete,
a menos que inclusive
te llevaría a la locura o
al suicidio o al asesinato,
no lo hagas.
a menos que el sol en tu interior te
queme las entrañas,
no lo hagas.
cuando de veras sea el tiempo,
y si has sido elegido,
eso cobrará vida por
si mismo y seguirá cobrándola
hasta que mueras o eso muera en ti.
no hay otra manera.
y nunca la hubo.
(Traducción propia)
* * *
if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.
don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.
* * *
Henry Charles Bukowski (Heinrich Karl Bukowski) nació el 16 de agosto de 1920 en Andemach, Alemania y murió el 9 de marzo de 1994 en San Pedro, California, EEUU.
Obras: Novelas: Post Office (1971), Factotum (1975), Women (1978), Ham on Rye (1982), Hollywood (1989), Pulp (1994).
Poesía: Flower, Fist, and Bestial Wail (1960), Poems and Drawings (1962), Longshot Poems for Broke Players (1962), Run with the Hunted (1962), It Catches My Heart in Its Hands (1963), Crucifix in a Deathhand (1965), Cold Dogs in the Courtyard (1965), The Genius of the Crowd (1966), 2 by Bukowski (1967). The Curtains Are Waving (1967), At Terror Street and Agony Way (1968), Poems Written Before Jumping Out of an 8 story Window (1968), A Bukowski Sampler (1969), The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills (1969), Fire Station (1970), Mockingbird Wish Me Luck (1972), Me and Your Sometimes Love Poems (1972), While the Music Played (1973), Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame (1974), Africa, Paris, Greece (1975), Scarlet (1976), Maybe Tomorrow (1977), Legs, Hips and Behind (1978), Love Is a Dog from Hell (1977), Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit (1979), Dangling in the Tournefortia (1982), War All the Time (1984), Horses Don’t Bet on People & Neither Do I (1984), You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense (1986), The Roominghouse Madrigals (1988), Beauti-ful & Other Long Poems (1988), Septuagenarian Stew: Stories & Poems (1990), People Poems (1991), The Last Night of the Earth Poems (1992), Betting on the Muse: Poems and Stories (1996), Bone Palace Ballet (1998), What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire. (1999), Open All Night (2000), The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps (2001), Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way (2003), As Buddha smiles (2003), The Flash of the Lightning Behind the Mountain (2004), Slouching Toward Nirvana (2005), Come on In! (2006), The People Look Like Flowers at Last (2007), The Pleasures of the Damned (2007), The Continual Condition (2009).
Libros de cuentos: Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts (1965), All the Assholes in the World and Mine (1966), Notes of a Dirty Old Man (1969), Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions, and General Tales of Ordinary Madness (1972), South of No North (1973), Hot Water Music (1983), Tales of Ordinary Madness (1983), The Most Beautiful Woman in Town (1983), Portions from a Wine-stained Notebook: Short Stories and Essays (2008), Absence of the Hero (2010).
No ficción: Shakespeare Never Did This (1979, nueva edición 1995), The Bukowski/Purdy Letters (1983), Screams from the Balcony: Selected Letters (1993), Living on Luck: Selected Letters, vol. 2 (1995), The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship (1998), Reach for the Sun: Selected Letters, vol. 3 (1999), Beerspit Night and Cursing: The Correspondense of Charles Bukowski and Sheri Martinelli (2001).
Guión: Barfly (1984)
Facultades mentales 
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