just watched 'Bukowski Born Into This'

[KG]

ok, why have i never got around to reading Bukowski?

I read the Beats BitD.

why have you people been keeping that from me?

[bluedigger]

1. I borrowed "Factotum" a quarter century ago.

Been reading him ever since.

Some of my favorites:

The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills (1969)

Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame (1974)

Love Is a Dog from Hell (1977)

War All the Time (1984)

You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense (1986)

What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire. (1999)

[WilliamPitt]

2. See 'Barfly'

and read "Post Office."

===

SPARK

I always resented all the years, the hours, the
minutes I gave them as a working stiff, it
actually hurt my head, my insides, it made me
dizzy and a bit crazy — I couldn’t understand the
murdering of my years

yet my fellow workers gave no signs of
agony, many of them even seemed satisfied, and
seeing them that way drove me almost as crazy as
the dull and senseless work.

the workers submitted.
the work pounded them to nothingness, they were
scooped-out and thrown away.

I resented each minute, every minute as it was
mutilated
and nothing relieved the monotonous ever-
structure.

I considered suicide.
I drank away my few leisure hours.

I worked for decades.

I lived with the worst of women, they killed what
the job failed to kill.

I knew that I was dying.
something in me said, go ahead, die, sleep, become
them, accept.

then something else in me said, no, save the tiniest
bit.
it needn’t be much, just a spark.
a spark can set a whole forest on
fire.
just a spark.
save it.

I think I did.
I’m glad I did.

what a lucky god damned
thing.

— Charles Bukowski

[MiddleFingerMom]

3. My all-time favorite poet. My poetry was also bluesy and sexual and often about...

.
.
.
... the rough life.
.
My poetry professor really liked what I did and told me once that when Bukowski
died, I stood a good chance of inheriting his title of "The Dirty Old Man of Poetry".
.
He meant it... and I took it... as a gtreat compliment.
.
Alas, when he DID die, I had given up on poetry long before.
.
.
Definitely see the movie about his life called "Barfly" with Mickey Rourke and Faye
Dunaway. It's fascinating, though very gritty and disturbing (like his life).
.
.
.
My FAVORITE Bukowski poem (I was living with this woman when I read it):
.
.
YES YES
.
..
when God created love he didn't help most
when God created dogs He didn't help dogs
when God created plants that was average
when God created hate we had a standard utility
when God created me He created me
when God created the monkey He was asleep
when He created the giraffe He was drunk
when He created narcotics He was high
and when He created suicide He was low

when He created you lying in bed
He knew what He was doing
He was drunk and He was high
and He created the mountians and the sea and fire at the same time

He made some mistakes
but when He created you lying in bed
He came all over His Blessed Universe.
.
.
.

[cliffordu]

4. Wrote this after he passed....

Hank's ghost stands at the foot of my bed
with a beer and a racing form
and a cigarette

He says:
Why put up with these toothless men?
Why reflect dead eyes and
dying minds, sexless women,
this loveless twilight?

Fuck, man there's life out here,
sunshine in the beer and
wine squeezed from the laughter
of ripe women.

And these beautiful women might be
wounded and scarred but they are not dead
inside like the proper ladies, like the
control freaks and the faux liberated
who choke out love
who spit out love
who hate men and
hate their very sex

Hate the sex that bore them little pleasure
while promising wealth and
travel and beautiful children with
blonde hair and limitless futures
in nights of carefully acted fucking.

Marriage dried and dead
as yesterday's cummy sheets,
as the taste of failure bloomed,
as the dullard husbands escaped
with secretaries and
barmaids and
escorts and the
pert redheaded friends
of their daughters.

Leave them.

Leave the precious and the false
and the terrified to their illusions
of success and privelege.

Come back to life
where you were
born and be
borne again into the embrace of
the drinkers and the strippers
and the bartenders and
the wounded and the
graceless and
you can live your life

without privilege
without illusion
in a place where humans
still dream.

**************************



( I don't give a fuck who objects to this)

[MiddleFingerMom]

5. !!!

,
,
,

.
.
.

[cliffordu]

7. Thank you my friend

[Arctic Dave]

9. You wrote that!?

God damn that's good.

[cliffordu]

10. Thank you and yes, I wrote that

[Arctic Dave]

6. I think the last book I read of his was, "Tales of Ordinary Madness".

Gruff, foul, soaked in alcohol.

[cliffordu]

8. Love it

[cliffordu]

11. Kicked for the morning kids