Here's one for an art critic that I'm rather fond of:On Going Back To The Street After Viewing An Art Show by Charles Bukowski

they talk down through
the centuries to us,
and this we need more and more,
the statues and paintings
in midnight age
as we go along
holding dead hands.

and we would say
rather than delude the knowing:
a damn good show,
but hardly enough for a horse to eat,
and out on the sunshine street where
eyes are dabbled in metazoan faces
i decide again
that in theses centuries
they have done very well
considering the nature of their
brothers:
it's more than good
that some of them,
(closer really to the field-mouse than
falcon)
have been bold enough to try.

Fair enough, it's a little collegiate, but I say don't rule him out just for his alcoholic raging—he could sometimes hit the odd high note with it. Sounds like you were lucky to get your infatuation out of the way early, that's all.

As to the Nazi stuff, who among us hasn't yelled "Turn on the gas!" in a Jewish deli from time to time. Oh, hang on, no, that's unforgivable. What an asshole. Did he REALLY say that? Do you think his legacy will be affected? Or will it be compensated for, in some way: "Well, he was drunk. And boy, what a talent."

While we're on the college-hero line, I often think Kerouac got away with pulling some awful shit, using booze as the excuse. Sartori in Paris is basically the best argument for an "intervention" ever written down. Thank goodness he died soon afterwards.

this

self-congratulatory nonsense as the
famous gather to applaud their seeming greatness

you
wonder where
the real ones are

what
giant cave
hides them

as
the deathly talentless
bow to
accolades

as
the fools are
fooled
again

you
wonder where
the real ones are

if there are
real ones.

this
self-congratulatory nonsense
has lasted
decades
and
with some exceptions

centuries.

this
is so dreary
is so absolutely pitiless

it
churns the gut to powder
shackles hope

it
makes little things
like
pulling up a shade
or
putting on your shoes
or
walking out one the street

more difficult
near
damnable

as
the famous gather to
applaud their
seeming
greatness

as
the fools are
fooled
again

humanity
you sick
m******f*****.

Charles Bukowski
run with the hunted: a charles bukowski reader
1993

You jealous?

"Poets who criticize other poets generate the smell of bitter cunt."- Gregory Corso

I'll keep my opinions on Bukowski to myself. At least he wrote from the depths he let himself fall into- more than you can say for most Portland barflies.

Corso lived the same life but wrote much more elegantly about it, until horse rotted his brain.

Nazi sympathizer? Doubtful. Whatever you say about Bukowski's poetry, he was a master at fucking with people.

lifedance

the area dividing the brain and the soul
is affected in many ways by
experience -
some lose all mind and become soul:
insane.
some lose all soul and become mind:
intellectual.
some lose both and become:
accepted.

Charles Bukowski
what matters most is how well you walk through the fire
2000

Be Kind


we are always asked
to understand the other person's
viewpoint
no matter how
out-dated
foolish or
obnoxious.

one is asked
to view
their total error
their life-waste
with
kindliness,
especially if they are
aged.

but age is the total of
our doing.
they have aged
badly
because they have
lived
out of focus,
they have refused to
see.

not their fault?

whose fault?
mine?

I am asked to hide
my viewpoint
from them
for fear of their
fear.

age is no crime

but the shame
of a deliberately
wasted
life

among so many
deliberately
wasted
lives

is.

Charles Bukowski

The Genius Of The Crowd


there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average

but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect

like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock

their finest art

Charles Bukowski

BEER

I don't know how many bottles of beer
I have consumed while waiting for things
to get better
I dont know how much wine and whisky
and beer
mostly beer
I have consumed after
splits with women-
waiting for the phone to ring
waiting for the sound of footsteps,
and the phone to ring
waiting for the sounds of footsteps,
and the phone never rings
until much later
and the footsteps never arrive
until much later
when my stomach is coming up
out of my mouth
they arrive as fresh as spring flowers:
"what the hell have you done to yourself?
it will be 3 days before you can f*** me!"

the female is durable
she lives seven and one half years longer
than the male, and she drinks very little beer
because she knows its bad for the figure.

while we are going mad
they are out
dancing and laughing
with horney cowboys.

well, there's beer
sacks and sacks of empty beer bottles
and when you pick one up
the bottle fall through the wet bottom
of the paper sack
rolling
clanking
spilling gray wet ash
and stale beer,
or the sacks fall over at 4 a.m.
in the morning
making the only sound in your life.

beer
rivers and seas of beer
the radio singing love songs
as the phone remains silent
and the walls stand
straight up and down
and beer is all there is.

Charles Bukowski
from: Love is A Mad Dog From Hell

Christ, I didn't realize my invitation would entail having to read a bunch of Bukowski poems this afternoon. So far, Matt's selection is the best of the bunch.

#2 "this / self-congratulatory nonsense as the famous gather to applaud their seeming greatness... / as the fools are fooled again / you wonder where the real ones are"

Ah yes—Life is full of phonies, and you and I are smarter than them. Oh, humanity—you sick motherfucker! This is a terrible poem.

#3 "Poets who criticize other poets generate the smell of bitter cunt.'- Gregory Corso"
I probably would have drunkenly quoted this in college until I awoke to realize that subtract the word "cunt," and there's no reason to repeat that sentence. (Are writers not allowed to have opinions about literature? Or are they just not allowed to say what they think about other books? I'm confused here.)

#4: "what matters most is how well you walk through the fire"
I think I saw that on a bumpersticker

#5: Not the worst thing he ever wrote, but the language is so flat and uninspired that it just sounds like self-righteous grandstanding divied up into choppy line breaks.

I remain wholly unconvinced.

PM, please don't make me cut you off.

Chas,
You are wholly unimaginative. Your post encapsulates the dribble of boring people everyone.

Yes—bad poetry about drinking alone: the grandest height of human imagination.

A lifetime of drinking in shitty bars after getting off from your shitty job: nothing boring about that.

"...until I awoke to realize that subtract the word "cunt," and there's no reason to repeat that sentence."

'twas ever the way. I have a photograph of this really tough guy in Trafalgar Square in 2003, wearing a t-shirt that says: "George Bush Is a Cunt."

And yet there can be poetry in it: Asked when he was happiest in life, an army buddy told the writer Henry Green, "Lying in bed on a summer morning, with the window open, listening to the church bells, eating buttered toast with cunty fingers."

That's gorgeous.

Bukowski: sometimes funny; definitely his own man; rarely worth revisiting.

I have a good, only second hand,Nazi story that doesn't disprove or prove this theory. It just involves someone I know who knew Bukowski, Bukowski and closeted Nazzies. Lots of people knew him more than just an interview will be glad to speak up on this matter as everyone stopped asking questions about him more than a few years ago.

Bukowski would most likely dislike any guy named (or who calls himself) "Chas." That's just a guess.

Best I got is a religious studies professor of mine edited a poetry revue with Bukowski in the seventies. The professor was Jewish, but that didn't stop Bukowski from working with him and taking him to the track.

Best I got is a religious studies professor of mine edited a poetry revue with Bukowski in the seventies. The professor was Jewish, but that didn't stop Bukowski from working with him and taking him to the track.