Having given all my books by him away I treated myself to some new poems. They arrived from amazon last week. Along with a sound effects CD for the Mighty Molecules project – but that’s another story.
For more info click on The Last Night of the Earth Poems by Charles Bukowski
the eagle of the heart
Charles Bukowski
what will they be writing about 2,000 years from
now
if they are
here?
now
I drink cabernet sauvignon while
listening to
Bach: it’s
most curious: this
continuing death
this
continuing life
as
I look at this hand
holding a cigarette
I feel as if
I have been here
forever
now
troops with bayonets
sack
the town below.
my dog, Tony, smiles at
me.
it is well
to feel good
for no reason;
or
with a limited
choice to
choose
anyhow;
or with a little love,
not to buckle to
hatred
faith, brother, not in the
gods
but in
yourself:
don’t ask.
tell.
I tell you
such fine
music
waits
in the
shadows
of
hell.
26 comments:
Not many laughs in this one Roger? Give me John Hegley every time!
Bukowski was a wonderful observer
of life.
And in so few words
provokes much thought.
Not much to laugh about here...
unless we learn to laugh at
ourselves.
Sorry, this just looks maudlin to me.
Guess I'll have to read some
John Hegley then and see what
he's about!
Is life just a series of bits of humour?
Life is a bowl of cereal...
Don't you know Captain Crunch?!
Life is just a bowl of All Bran. You wake up every morning and it's there.
One point if you can identify the quote.
my life's more like a bowl of readybrek at the moment,
stodgy yet warm.
*(")
AUTUMN VERSES
Autumn is strange stuff
anagram of Aunt mu
but not of nostalgia.
Scarves come out,clocks go back
faulty or otherwise,
pumpkins enjoy brief popularity.
Kids collect cash
for slouched-on-the-ground
ash-bound bad dressers.
Ore tummy, heart of mould
old leaves leaving
enter the cold.
Last October
I got very depressed
when our dog got knoctober.
John Hegley
Hah! A good one! A definitely
more upbeat. I like.
Bukowski was an old soul all his life. And a sense of the absurd that I would give my right eye to for.
-The Reverend Maniac
He may be more upbeat, but it's obvious why Bukowski is more famous.
A buddy of mine runs HaggardandHalloo.com - a poetry website. Thought you might be interested.
Bukowski may be famous in the states but he means nothing over here!
Not quite true, Michael.
He is pretty well known in the UK. He just doesn't get the popular vote. But poetry's a bit like that isn't it?
Well, when I say "nothing" I say that in the spirit of Stan's "obvious", dismissing Hegley's entire work on the strength of just one poem!
So what's wrong with the popular vote anyway?
I'm sure if I went into my local Waterstones and asked for some Bukowski they would look at me rather blankly, but ask for some Hegley and they would find three or four of his books quite easily.
Hurray for poetry...
there's something for
everyone!
To tell you the truth, even in North America bukowski has a pretty 'downer' feeling. I made the bad mistake of going to see the movie base on his life, or part of it, some years ago (am I betraying my age?), and it was such a rolling-around-in-the-gutter kind of thing, it completely turned me off of Bukowski. Only much later did I happen to read a few of his poems, grudgingly, standing in a bookstore, and had to admit there was some pretty amazing stuff there. But even today I can't shake the grimy alcoholic feeling of it all, and so don't have any of his books.
I remember this film, it was called "Carry On Up Cannery Row" and starred Wallace Beary, Gabby Hayes, Sydney James and Mrs. Shufflewick. Some nice cameos by people like Che Guevara, Winston Smith, Lord Lucan and Norman Wisdom as the dipsomaniac half brother of Dylan Thomas.
Very funny. Actually if it had contained even a hint of humour, it might have been watchable. And to be truthful, maybe it did, but there is no way I would remember any humour in it over the continual rank smell of booze. It was the 1987 movie, 'Barfly', actually not about Bukowski's life, sorry, but written by him (and so largely autobiographical anyway, I suppose). It starred Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunnaway as two farflies.
What are farflies? Sounds like a barfly that has soaked up too much fffffffffboozzzzzzzzz!
I discovered Bukowski only weeks ago. Great stuff.
Yeah, Bukowski is an hero.
Listening to him read is a treat.
"Barfly" (the movie) was pretty crap... Mickey Rourke acting like a 70 year old.
Yes, it's all booze soaked... and you have to wonder how he could be so prolific and consistant.
Don't forget there's some great prose there, as well.
Bukowski is always interesting. It can be interpreted many different ways.
At least he has a Bobblehead now. You can check it out at http://www.thebobblehead.com.
La Eme says:
Bukowski rules hey!
check out the NO blogspot at
http://nadiesno.blogspot.com/
Bukowski was a very wonderful poet indeed. He was unpretentious and knew how to put things clearly so people wouldn't leap over to learn lessons from his own life. Even though he can be viewed as very cynical and sometimes even an alcoholic, i believe he brought new thoughts to the table and established a new way of writing poetry.
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