I love Bukowski... great poem rowens

The thing about Bukowski is he has no skill. But he does. His skill is hidden under his macho skill. He's like a professional wrestler, playing the heel.

I can see that. I find in his best stuff there's always a few lines that just hit me hard as a reader. I think that makes me forgive any shortcomings he might have in other poetic areas. Sort of like you said: no skill, but he is skilled.

He was well aware of the fact that he wasn't writing on the technical level of other types of poets. He knew it, and he was well read, and did something original. Something that can never be emulated. He made easy hard.

"He made easy hard." -Agreed

I'd say he's better than Allen Ginsberg. One of the things I always remember reading in Bukowski is him saying Allen Ginsberg is doing grand extroverted cartwheels trying to get over.

i agree, i also think he made hard easy when vocalizing. he spoke and wrote from the gut. for me the following poem epitomises what i'm talking about. he write a similar way about life and people. he written more cat poems but this is my favourite.

The History Of One Tough Motherfucker

he came to the door one night wet thin beaten and
terrorized
a white cross-eyed tailless cat
I took him in and fed him and he stayed
grew to trust me until a friend drove up the driveway
and ran him over
I took what was left to a vet who said,"not much
chance…give him these pills…his backbone
is crushed, but it was crushed before and somehow
mended, if he lives he'll never walk, look at
these x-rays, he's been shot, look here, the pellets
are still there…also, he once had a tail, somebody
cut it off…"
I took the cat back, it was a hot summer, one of the
hottest in decades, I put him on the bathroom
floor, gave him water and pills, he wouldn't eat, he
wouldn't touch the water, I dipped my finger into it
and wet his mouth and I talked to him, I didn't go any-
where, I put in a lot of bathroom time and talked to
him and gently touched him and he looked back at
me with those pale blue crossed eyes and as the days went
by he made his first move
dragging himself forward by his front legs
(the rear ones wouldn't work)
he made it to the litter box
crawled over and in,
it was like the trumpet of possible victory
blowing in that bathroom and into the city, I
related to that cat-I'd had it bad, not that
bad but bad enough
one morning he got up, stood up, fell back down and
just looked at me.
"you can make it," I said to him.
he kept trying, getting up falling down, finally
he walked a few steps, he was like a drunk, the
rear legs just didn't want to do it and he fell again, rested,
then got up.
you know the rest: now he's better than ever, cross-eyed
almost toothless, but the grace is back, and that look in
his eyes never left…
and now sometimes I'm interviewed, they want to hear about
life and literature and I get drunk and hold up my cross-eyed,
shot, runover de-tailed cat and I say,"look, look
at this!"
but they don't understand, they say something like,"you
say you've been influenced by Celine?"
"no," I hold the cat up,"by what happens, by
things like this, by this, by this!"
I shake the cat, hold him up in
the smoky and drunken light, he's relaxed he knows…
it's then that the interviews end
although I am proud sometimes when I see the pictures
later and there I am and there is the cat and we are photo-
graphed together.
he too knows it's bullshit but that somehow it all helps.

He wrote a poem called hangovers that I can't find online. I like that one.

roll the dice

if you're going to try, go all the
way.
otherwise, don't even start.

if you're going to try, go all the
way.
this could mean losing girlfriends,
wives, relatives, jobs and
maybe your mind.

go all the way.
it could mean not eating for 3 or 4 days.
it could mean freezing on a
park bench.
it could mean jail,
it could mean derision,
mockery,
isolation.
isolation is the gift,
all the others are a test of your
endurance, of
how much you really want to
do it.
and you'll do it
despite rejection and the worst odds
and it will be better than
anything else
you can imagine.

if you're going to try,
go all the way.
there is no other feeling like
that.
you will be alone with the gods
and the nights will flame with
fire.

do it, do it, do it.
do it.

all the way
all the way.

you will ride life straight to
perfect laughter, its
the only good fight
there is.

- Charles Bukowski

ha, my brain changed it to:

if you're going to try, go all the
way.
this could mean gaining girlfriends,
wives, relatives, jobs and
maybe losing your mind.



Great ending on this one.

I found this in an old poetry journal (The Antigonish Review) that someone gave me about fifteen years ago.


Forty Below in Dewington, Alberta
by Beverly Hocking

Lips crack and sting.
The dogs limp out
to pee frightened
and shrink back in,
two small warm rounds
by the cold back door.
The car sits numb,
its dumb forehead to the wind.

Found your last letter
cold and white
in the box by the road-
don't know how long it had been there.
Walked home stiff in tears.

It's even too cold
to bury what's dead.

^^I can see why that one stuck with you, thanks for posting it.

Here is a favorite of mine;

The Consolations of Sociobiology BY BILL KNOTT (to JK)

Those scars rooted me. Stigmata stalagmite
I sat at a drive-in and watched the stars
Through a straw while the Coke in my lap went
Waterier and waterier. For days on end or

Nights no end I crawled on all fours or in
My case no fours to worship you: Amoeba Behemoth.
—Then you explained your DNA calls for
Meaner genes than mine and since you are merely

So to speak its external expression etcet
Ergo among your lovers I’ll never be ...
Ah that movie was so faraway the stars melting

Made my thighs icy. I see: it’s not you
Who is not requiting me, it’s something in you
Over which you have no say says no to me.

Bill Knott, "The Consolation of Sociobiology" from Becos,
 published by Random House.  Copyright 1983 by Bill Knott.  
Reprinted by permission of the author.
Source: Becos (1983)

^^ A fun, interesting read, one I'll have reread but already so many interesting word combinations.

Driving
by John Newlove


You never say anything in your letters. You say,
I drove all night long through the snow
in someone else's car
and the heater wouldn't work and I nearly froze.
But I know that. I live in this country too.
I know how beautiful it is at night
with the white snow banked in the moonlight.

Around black trees and tangled bushes,
how lonely and lovely that driving is,
how deadly. You become the country.
You are by yourself in that channel of snow
and pines and pines,
whether the pines and snow flow backwards smoothly,
whether you drive or you stop or you walk or you sit.

This land waits. It watches. How beautifully desolate
our country is, out of the snug cities,
and how it fits a human. You say you drove.
It doesn't matter to me.
All I can see is the silent cold car gliding,
walled in, your face smooth, your mind empty,
cold foot on the pedal, cold hands on the wheel.

From the Hazel Bough
By Earle Birney

I met a lady
    on a lazy street
hazel eyes
    and little plush feet

her legs swam by
    like lovely trout
eyes were trees
    where boys leant out

hands in the dark and
    a river side
round breasts rising
    with the finger's tide

she was plump as a finch
    and live as a salmon
gay as silk and
    proud as a Brahmin

we winked when we met
    and laughed when we parted
never took time
    to be brokenhearted

but no man sees
    where the trout lie now
or what leans out
    from the hazel bough

Military Hospital, Toronto 1945/Vancouver 1947

(05-02-2019, 07:37 AM)Richard Wrote:  From the Hazel Bough
By Earle Birney

...


but no man sees
    where the trout lie now
or what leans out
    from the hazel bough

Military Hospital, Toronto 1945/Vancouver 1947

What a terrific buildup!  Hard to think of a better.

Yeah, I'm not a huge Birney fan, but this poem is one of his best works, in my opinion.

Since it's Canada Day, I figured I'd share a Canadian poem:


Then, If I Cease Desiring
by John Newlove

Then, if I cease desiring,
you may sing a song
of how young I was.

You may praise famous moments,
all have them, of the churches
I broke into for wine,

not praise, the highways
I travelled drunkenly
in winter, the cars I stole.

You may allow me moments,
not monuments, I being
content. It is little,
but it is little enough.

I found this article on the Pulitzer prize winner in 1923 - really lovely poem and a boy and his mother see what you think https://9mousai.com/pulitzer-prize-for-poetry-1923/