Talking to Death: Bukowski’s Pocket-Sized Memento Mori

“I carry death in my left pocket. Sometimes I take it out and talk to it: ‘Hello, baby, how you doing? When you coming for me? I’ll be ready.’”
— From “The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain”

is a raw and intimate declaration of his lifelong familiarity with death — not as something to fear, but as a constant companion.

Line-by-line Breakdown:

“I carry death in my left pocket.”

Death isn’t far away — it’s on him, always. Not locked in some abstract idea or distant future, but right there, close enough to feel.
The left pocket? That’s near the heart — symbolic, perhaps, of how deeply aware he is of his own mortality.

“Sometimes I take it out and talk to it:”

He’s not avoiding it. He faces it. Speaks to it like an old friend. This is where Bukowski becomes different from most — he strips death of its horror by humanizing it, engaging with it, even playing with it.

“‘Hello, baby, how you doing?’”

The tone is casual, even flirtatious. This isn’t panic — it’s intimacy. He addresses death with a kind of twisted tenderness, like someone he’s learned to coexist with rather than run from.

“When you coming for me? I’ll be ready.”

There’s no denial here — only readiness. Bukowski’s bravado masks a deeper truth: that when you accept death, you become free.
He’s not inviting it, but he’s not hiding from it either. He’s saying: I see you. I know you’ll come. I won’t beg. I’ll be ready.

The Meaning:

This is Bukowski’s personal version of Memento Mori — a fearless, even cheeky intimacy with death.
He refuses to be terrified by it. Instead, he keeps it close, talks to it, and in doing so, strips it of its power to paralyze him.

This isn’t about morbidity.
It’s about liberation.

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