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Post by johnyamrus on Jan 4, 2007 11:25:38 GMT -6
In one of her recent posts Sabrina asked me to start a thread discussing Charles Bukowski. i can't. how do you discuss the ocean? or a baby's smile? it can't be done. Bukowski is just too great a writer for me to ever begin a discussion of his work. let me merely post one of my favorites of the thousands and thousands of poems he published. read it and make up your own mind. here's Bluebird, by Charles Bukowski:
"bluebird"
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's in there.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to
mess me up?
you want to screw up the works?
you want to blow my book sales in Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night
sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there,
I haven't quite let him die
and we sleep together like that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man weep,
but I don't weep,
do you?
.....Charles Bukowski (1920 - 1994)
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Post by vixen on Jan 5, 2007 7:13:01 GMT -6
Wow. The is totally amazing. It makes me want to cry for all the joy he refused to have by not letting himself be vulerable. Wonderful piece of work. vixen
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Post by anirbas on Jan 5, 2007 8:43:05 GMT -6
Thank you, John...But, I wasn't clear, if you thought I meant you had to discuss his works... Just leave his work for us to encounter and become aqainted [mssplld?] with... In all honesty, I'd never heard of this great and talented writer, til you mentioned him. And not long after that, I caught a documentary about him, his life and his writings... I fell in love with him, when I read Bluebird, which you left in the getting published thread. Plan to add him to my nirlibrary of poets, asap! Sabrina  |
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Post by anirbas on Jan 5, 2007 9:01:37 GMT -6
And, what I meant, dear boy...Was for you to post his work in the favorite poets and poems board...Not that you have to discuss them...Men...Do they ever read instructions? hehehehehehehe...Sabrina
BTW...I'm taking our boy, Bukowski there...Where he belongs--amongst the other
literary giants...
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Post by johnyamrus on Jan 5, 2007 9:10:33 GMT -6
to show you how prolific Bukowski was, my bookshelf containing copies of many but not all of Bukowski's books is nearly 4 feet across...4 freakin feet! a few novels, but most of it poetry. just the most amazing poetry you've ever read.
john
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Post by anirbas on Jan 5, 2007 9:37:45 GMT -6
you don't have to sell me on that thought, Yams...i realized he was amazing, when i first read, bluebird, thanks to you sharing the piece with us...he was amazing and his work is amazing...to bad i didn't catch the Bukowski wave, sooner... |
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Post by DavidMc on Jan 10, 2007 4:51:43 GMT -6
Thank you, John...But, I wasn't clear, if you thought I meant you had to discuss his works... Just leave his work for us to encounter and become aqainted [mssplld?] with... In all honesty, I'd never heard of this great and talented writer, til you mentioned him. And not long after that, I caught a documentary about him, his life and his writings... I fell in love with him, when I read Bluebird, which you left in the getting published thread. Plan to add him to my nirlibrary of poets, asap! Sabrina What do you mean .... 'You fell in love with him'  You're supposed to be in love with me ;D |
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Post by johnyamrus on Jan 10, 2007 7:31:00 GMT -6
hey, pal...get in line!
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Post by DavidMc on Jan 10, 2007 7:34:11 GMT -6
;D hope you mean charles? I get very jealous where 'THE ONE' is concerned.
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Post by anirbas on Jan 10, 2007 21:20:43 GMT -6
ggglgggl...you boys are so funny...stop that...stop being funny...not...
you both know very well I meant Charles...as in his work...
stop teasing me for running all my thoughts together in a mish mash
of wordy if not withy mosh...only one living poetman I fell in love with
and am still falling in love with...drat...what's his name? ggglgggl...
~*~
I'd only read one of his poems...
I'd heard he was considered crazy
by his contemporaries and peers...
And one, still living sychophant of his...
One night I awoke...To a cigarette
and whiskey rasped voice reciting poetry...
It was deep stuff I tell you...Wound deep stuff...
These poems of the world and one being's place in it...
No I wasn't miraculously channeling the ancients in my sleep...
I'd left the television on when I dropped out of consciousness...
I opened one eye and focused on the screen...To catch a gander
at one of the rawest hewn, ugliest men, I'd ever seen...
His nose was huge, bulbous at the end...
His complexion muddy and splotched
with all the shades of a life lived hard and on the edge...
Wrinkles veiled his face with webs of tunnels and runnels...
A ladder of deep lines swept his brow...
His hair was long and unkempt with a greasy sheen to it...
He had the unfed, uncared for look of a homeless beggar...
Yet, he sat at a simple table of scarred like him wood,
in a straightbacked chair with the dignity of a king sitting his throne,
upon a tiny stage lit by a tinier but glaring bulb, overhead...
In a bar in the middle of who knows where and the back of beyond...
In front of him, several copies of his poems on loose paper from which he read...
A bottle of half drank whiskey, a half empty doubles glass,
and an ashtray that held a smoking cigarette...
My other eye popped open...I listened...
Awakened and enthralled by the poetical dirges
and monologues that spewed from the raw boned
man's line thin slash of a mouth...Reading his poems,
in a hole in the wall joint of a smoke filled bar...
Growing drunker as he read, in front of me...
Emptying the glass and refilling it between
this verse and that...I fumbled for the
channel changer on the coffee table...
Who the hell is this, I wondered?
Hit the info button and it was a documentary
I was watching on the life and times of...
You guessed it...Charles Bukowski...
And the scene was a reading he did...
In the early seventies...The bottle was empty,
by the end of the show...But, my mind was filled
with the need to know more of this talented
and tortured human who wrote so beautifully
of the wrong side of life and the bad things
that can and do spin a world out of orbit...
And yet, not kill the talent of a writer...
Nor a writer's obsession with writing...
When the bottle was empty, so was Bukowski...
The show was over and so was the documentary
except for the rolling of the credits...
But, I awakened the next and went net surfing
for more information on the man,
who'd awakened me with his poeming...
Found he was as prolific a drinker as he was a writer...
Often lived a down and out life, even worked as a dishwasher...
And I had to wonder...The bottle in front of him...
Was it perhaps his pay for the giving of this poetry reading,
and perhaps another to be sent him with him?
Sad life...Hell of a poet...And what a character...
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You're supposed to be in love with me ;D
