Blues
for Charles Bukowski
A blessing and a curse
the legacy of Charles Bukowski
a sanction for his grace with words
a curse his shadow ghost haunting us all
as the monster screams from Hell’s black fire
but you know as well I do
inside the beast
was a scared little boy
the fear and scars
carving themselves visible on his adult face
and this is one blue note for Charles Bukowski
as the little Bukowskis pray
angels all of them, spreading their winged song
as Hank lifts his pitchfork in a fuck you gesture,
smiling, knowing,
there is no peace waiting for you
only the next long green mile
so you better be tough
when you get there
or it’s going to be a hell of a journey
and this is the ghost of a Chet Baker melody
for Charles Bukowski
who said he wanted to be alone
while reaching out from typewritten soul
and we heard you
we heard you, kid
and that was your damnation
you received the love
you never knew you were capable of
you received the love you must have thought
you didn’t deserve
yes,
this is the 12-bar broken guitar
for Charles Bukowski
who was never published in The New Yorker
but better yet, grew up in L.A.
rollin dice on 5th
street
bettin on horseshit in Hollywood
with no luck for humanity
and anyway you play it
you won’t win, can’t win, shouldn’t win
don’t try
for the big fat gold ring of eternity
here in this half cooked world
it’s what you leave behind that counts
and goddamnit,
you’re immortal ‘kowski
you of the unholy poetry
are something sacred
in the iconoclastic hands of the unlucky
whether you wanted to be or not
a drunken bear-hug
hanging onto the beating hearts
of the worst of us.
Heinrich Karl Bukowski was born in Andernach during the Allied occupation of Germany after World War I but moved to the US when he was 3 and then to Los Angeles when he was 10. He claimed his father beat him with a razor strap 3 times a week from the ages of six to 11 years, and this experience helped him to understand undeserved pain. He graduated from Los Angeles High School and attended Los Angeles City College for 2 years, taking courses in art, journalism, and literature, before quitting at the start of World War II. His German birth was a problem since the US was at war against Nazi Germany, and he was arrested in Philadelphia in 1944 on suspicion of evading the draft. He was imprisoned for 17 days, and 16 days after that he failed the psychological examination that was part of his mandatory military entrance physical test, leading to his being classified as unfit for military service. The experience solidified the Americanization of his name to Charles Bukowski, and he created a recurring literary alter ego, Henry Chinaski. Eventually he returned to Los Angeles. “I was a young man, starving and drinking and trying to be a writer. I did most of my reading at the downtown L.A. Public Library, and nothing that I read related to me or to the streets or to the people about me. Then one day I pulled a book down and opened it, and there it was. I stood for a moment, reading. Then like a man who had found gold in the city dump, I carried the book to a table. The lines rolled easily across the page, there was a flow. Each line had its own energy and was followed by another like it. The very substance of each line gave the page a form, a feeling of something carved into it. And here, at last, was a man who was not afraid of emotion. The humour and the pain were intermixed with a superb simplicity. The beginning of that book was a wild and enormous miracle to me.” The book was "Ask the Dust," a forgotten 1939 book by forgotten writer John Fante, describing his immigrant experience: “I have vomited at their newspapers, read their literature, observed their customs, eaten their food, desired their women, gaped at their art. But I am poor, and my name ends with a soft vowel, and they hate me and my father, and my father’s father, and they would have my blood and put me down...." The novel helped Bukoski discover his own writing identity, and located it in the city where he lived most of his life. ("Los Angeles, give me some of you! Los Angeles come to me the way I came to you, my feet over your streets, you pretty town I loved you so much, you sad flower in the sand, you pretty town." -- John Fante). In the 1960s and 1970s, as Bukowski developed his craft, he lived most of the time at De Longpre, an apartment he rented for $29 a month, in the Thai Town area of the city. At 50, he published his 1st novel, "Post Office" (1971). In 1992, in 1 of his last poems, he described his domicile at "5124 De Longpre Ave/ somewhere between/ alcoholism and/ madness.” After his death Black Sparrow Press continued to release new poetry collections every year or so, but (like Emily Dickinson before him) they have been comprehensively tampered with by his editors.
ReplyDeleteYou Don't Know What Love Is
ReplyDelete(an evening with Charles Bukowski)
You don't know what love is Bukowski said
I'm 51 years old look at me
I'm in love with this young broad
I got it bad but she's hung up too
so it's all right man that's the way it should be
I get in their blood and they can't get me out
They try everything to get away from me
but they all come back in the end
They all came back to me except
the one I planted
I cried over that one
but I cried easy in those days
Don't let me get onto the hard stuff man
I get mean then
I could sit here and drink beer
with you hippies all night
I could drink ten quarts of this beer
and nothing it's like water
But let me get onto the hard stuff
and I'll start throwing people out windows
I'll throw anybody out the window
I've done it
But you don't know what love is
ReplyDeleteYou don't know because you've never
been in love it's that simple
I got this young broad see she's beautiful
She calls me Bukowski
Bukowski she says in this little voice
and I say What
But you don't know what love is
I'm telling you what it is
but you aren't listening
There isn't one of you in this room
would recognize love if it stepped up
and buggered you in the ass
I used to think poetry readings were a copout
Look I'm 51 years old and I've been around
I know they're a copout
but I said to myself Bukowski
starving is even more of a copout
So there you are and nothing is like it should be
That fellow what's his name Galway Kinnell
I saw his picture in a magazine
He has a handsome mug on him
but he's a teacher
Christ can you imagine
But then you're teachers too
here I am insulting you already
No I haven't heard of him
or him either
They're all termites
Maybe it's ego I don't read much anymore
but these people who build
reputations on five or six books
termites
Bukowski she says
ReplyDeleteWhy do you listen to classical music all day
Can't you hear her saying that
Bukowski why do you listen to classical music all day
That surprises you doesn't it
You wouldn't think a crude bastard like me
could listen to classical music all day
Brahms Rachmaninoff Bartok Telemann
Shit I couldn't write up here
Too quiet up here too many trees
I like the city that's the place for me
I put on my classical music each morning
and sit down in front of my typewriter
I light a cigar and I smoke it like this see
and I say Bukowski you're a lucky man
Bukowski you've gone through it all
and you're a lucky man
and the blue smoke drifts across the table
and I look out the window onto Delongpre Avenue
and I see people walking up and down the sidewalk
and I puff on the cigar like this
and then I lay the cigar in the ashtray like this and take a deep breath
and I begin to write
Bukowski this is the life I say
it's good to be poor it's good to have hemorrhoids
it's good to be in love
But you don't know what it's like
You don't know what it's like to be in love
If you could see her you'd know what I mean
She thought I'd come up here and get laid
She just knew it
She told me she knew it
Shit I'm 51 years old and she's 25
and we're in love and she's jealous
Jesus it's beautiful
she said she'd claw my eyes out if I came up here
and got laid
Now that's love for you
What do any of you know about it
Let me tell you something
I've met men in jail who had more style
than the people who hang around colleges
and go to poetry readings
They're bloodsuckers who come to see
if the poet's socks are dirty
or if he smells under the arms
Believe me I won't disappoint em
But I want you to remember this
there's only one poet in this room tonight
only one poet in this town tonight
maybe only one real poet in this country tonight
and that's me
What do any of you know about life
What do any of you know about anything
Which of you here has been fired from a job
or else has beaten up your broad
or else has been beaten up by your broad
I was fired from Sears and Roebuck five times
They'd fire me then hire me back again
I was a stockboy for them when I was 35
and then got canned for stealing cookies
I know what's it like I've been there
I'm 51 years old now and I'm in love
This little broad she says
Bukowski
and I say What and she says
I think you're full of shit
and I say baby you understand me
She's the only broad in the world
man or woman
I'd take that from
But you don't know what love is
They all came back to me in the end too
every one of em came back
except that one I told you about
the one I planted We were together seven years
We used to drink a lot
I see a couple of typers in this room but
I don't see any poets
I'm not surprised
You have to have been in love to write poetry
and you don't know what it is to be in love
that's your trouble
Give me some of that stuff
That's right no ice good
That's good that's just fine
So let's get this show on the road
I know what I said but I'll have just one
That tastes good
Okay then let's go let's get this over with
only afterwards don't anyone stand close
to an open window
--Raymond Carver