Charles Bukowski - The Shoelace (Live) lyrics

A woman, a tire that’s flat, a disease, a
Desire fears in front of you
Fears that hold so still you can study them
Like pieces on a chessboard
It’s not the large things that
Send a man to the madhouse
Death he’s ready for, or
Murder, incest, robbery, fire, flood
No, it’s the continuing series
Of small tragedies that send a man to the
Madhouse… not the death of his love
But a shoelace that snaps
With no time left … the dread of life
Is that swarm of trivialities
That can kill quicker than cancer
And which are always there -
License plates or taxes
Or expired driver’s license
Or hiring or firing
Doing it or having it done to you, or
Roaches or flies or a broken hook on a
Screen, or out of gas or too much gas
The sink’s stopped-up, the landlord’s drunk
The president doesn’t care and the governor’s
Crazy light switch broken, mattress like a
Porcupine $105 for a tune-up
Carburetor and fuel pump at sears roebuck
And the phone bill’s up and the market’s
Down and the toilet chain is
Broken, And the light has burned out -
The hall light, the front
Light, the back light, The inner light it’s
Darker than hell and twice as
Expensive then there’s always crabs
And ingrown toenails
And people who insist they’re your friends
There’s always that and worse
Leaky faucet, christ and christmas
Blue salami, 9 day rains, 50 cent avocados
And purple liverwurst
Or making it
As a waitress at norm’s on the split shift
Or as an emptier of bedpans
Or as a carwash or a busboy
Or a stealer of old lady’s purses
Leaving them screaming on the sidewalks
With broken arms at the age of 80

Suddenly
2 red lights in your rear view mirror
And blood in your underwear
Toothache, and $979 for a bridge
$300 for a gold tooth
And china and Russia and america, and
Long hair and short hair and no
Hair, and beards and no
Faces, and plenty of zigzag but no
Pot, except maybe one to piss in
And the other one around your gut

With each broken shoelace
Out of one hundred broken shoelaces
One man, one woman, one thing
Enters a madhouse
So be careful when you
Bend over