Charles Bukowski appreciation thread

[secrets]

I love American fiction, and Bukowski is grater than pretty much all else.

Post all details here of cool Bukowski books.

If u haven't discovered him Post Office is a good place to start.

Here's one of his poems to kick things off:

man in the sun

she reads to me from the New Yorker
which I don't buy, don't know
how they get in here, but it's
something about the Mafia
one of the heads of the Mafia
who ate too much and had it too easy
too many fine women patting his
walnuts, and he got fat sucking at good
cigars and young breasts and he
has these heart attacks - and so
one day somebody is driving him
in his big car along the road
and he doesn't feel so good
and he asks the boy to stop and let
him out and the boy lays him out
along the road in the fine sunshine
and before he dies he says:
how beautiful life can be, and
then he's gone.

sometimes you've got to kill 4 or 5
thousand men before you somehow
get to believe that the sparrow
is immortal, money is piss and
that you have been wasting
your time.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame
Selected poems 1955 - 1973
Black Sparrow Press, 1986.

[academic punk]

The man who made me aspire to grow up to be a drunken womanizer! Thank God that didn't take: from this perspective, I'd rather read it than deal with the reality of it.

Women is the novel to start with.

Mockingbird Wish Me Luck the poetry collection.


Avoid Barfly until you've read a bunch of his stuff. And maybe even at that point.

[buckshotjenkins]

only book of his i've read so far...short stories that changed my life a bit! he;s amazing...the book made me feel quite a bit cooler and more experienced somehow...

[secrets]

The guy was a genius. Ham on Rye was a fantastic read.

I'm still waiting for some more of his books to arrive. But the post is a bit slow these days. Now I wonder why that might be? Mmmm......

[secrets]

You must own this. It's grate.

[Matt White]

POST OFFICE is very good. I also got a kick out of PULP .
The guy was a genius. For extra credit, try reading Buk's fav poet, ROBINSON JEFFERS , another AMERICAN ORIGINAL.

[secrets]

BEER
from: Love is A Mad Dog From Hell

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 fuck 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.