recipe for genius- charles bukowski

  Let's say you take this kid.... 

  Born during a depression,  conceived out of wedlock -  

   give the kid horrible acne,

   painful shyness, 

   the weathered face and spirit of a man who's lived too long,

   an abusive father, 

   an addictive personality,

   have the other kids beat him up and isolate him - 

   make him a total outsider-

   .... but give him a talent - 

   a talent to take words and mold them - 
 
   NO - that's not right - -  SHOOT THEM - 

   Follow that recipe... and what would you end up with? 

  What you would have there is the recipe for a sad, demented genius. 

         What you would have - is Charles Bukowski. 

the schoolyard of forever  by Charles Bukowski 

the schoolyard was a horror show: the bullies, the dragons, the
freaks

the beatings against the wire fence
the eyes of our mates watching
glad that they were not the victims
we were beaten well and good
and afterwards
followed
taunted all the way home to our homes of hell
full of more beatings

in the schoolyard the bullies ruled well, and in the restrooms
at the water fountains they owned us and disowned us
but in our way we held
never begged for mercy
we took it straight on
silently
we were trained within that horror
a horror that would later hold us in good stead
and that came around
as we grew in several ways with time
the bullies gradually began to deflate, lose power

grammar school
Jr. high
high school
we grew like odd plants
gathering nourishment
blossoming
as then the bullies tried to befriend us
we turned them away

college
where a sun of wildness and power arrived
the bullies melted entirely
we became and they un-became

there were new bullies
the professors
who had to be taught something beyond Kant
we glowed madly
it was grand and easy
the coeds dismayed at our gamble
but we looked beyond them
to a larger fight out there

but when we arrived out there
it was back against the fence again:
new bullies
deeply entrenched
almost but not quite worthy
they kept us under for decades
we had to begin all over again
on the streets
and in small rooms of madness
it lasted and lasted like that
but our training within horror endured us
and after so very long
we outed
oblique to their tantamounts
we found the tunnel at the end of the light

it was a small minority victory
no song of braggadocio
we knew we had won very little against very little
that the changing of the clock and the illusions beat everybody
we clashed against the odds just for the simple sweetness of it

even now we can still see the janitor with his broom
in his pinstripes and sleeping face
we can still see the little girls in their curls
their hair so carefully washed and shining

and the faces of the teachers
fall and folded

the bells of recess
the gravel on the baseball diamond
the volleyball net
the sun always up and out
spilling over us like the juice of a giant tangerine

and Herbie Ashcroft
his fists coming against us
as we were trapped against the steel fence
as we heard the sounds of automobiles passing but not stopping
as the world went about doing what it did
we asked for no mercy

and we returned the next day and the next and the next
the little girls so magic as they sat so upright in their seats
in a room of blackboards and chalk we began badly
but always with a disdain for occurence

which is still embedded
through the ringi-ng of new bells and ways
stuck with that
fixed with that:
a grammar school world
even with Herbie Ashcroft dead

   Of course, some of you know who Bukowski was ...  - is-  since his work keeps him alive,   despite the fact that he is long dead (1994) and buried under a gravestone that reads : "Don't Try".

Bukowski was a Beat Poet -
sometimes called the "King of the Skid-Row poets",
and his work has influenced people in all fields of artistic endeavor:

from Bono, Eddie Vedder, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Tom Waits, to Lily Burana, R. Crumb, and Johnnie Depp.


But his influence and work isn't universally appreciated -
from the "New Yorker" magazine:

"He bears the same relation to poetry as Zane Grey does to fiction, or Ayn Rand to philosophy - a highly colored, morally uncomplicated cartoon of the real thing."

Awww - BULLSHIT.


That's the thing about Bukowski, for me anyway - is how deceptively simple his stuff is....

Some pedantic creep of a critic who makes his living making negative noise for a paycheck would say that.



it was just a little while ago by Charles Bukowski

almost dawn
blackbirds on the telephone wire
waiting
as I eat yesterday's
forgotten sandwich
at 6 a.m.
an a quiet Sunday morning.

one shoe in the corner
standing upright
the other laying on it's
side.

yes, some lives were made to be
wasted.




Certainly - a lot of his work is offensive to the sensibilities - and I'm not just talking about blue-nosed sensibilities here - his attitudes toward life, art, women, and sex are bound to startle you at times.

He can be crass to the crassest -
- cold to the coldest -
-- purile to the purient .

And what he writes -
- he means -

- oh yes- make no mistake - he meant it, baby.

the great lover by Charles Bukowski

I mean, at that place in east Hollywood
I was so often with the hardest numbers
in town
I don't speak as a misogynist
I had other people ask me,
"what the hell are you doing, anyhow?"

these were floozies, killers, blanks

they had bodies, hair, eyes, legs
parts
but, say, take one of them, it was like
sitting there with a shark dressed in a
dress, high heels, smoking, drinking,
pilling

the nights went into days and the days
went into nights
and we babbled on through, sometimes
bedding down, badly.

through the drink, the uppers, the
downers, I got myself to imagine
things--say, that this one was the
golden girl of the golden heart and
the golden way of laughter and love
and hope

in the dim smokey light the long hair
looked better than it was, the legs
more shapely, the conversation not as
bare, not as vicious

I fooled myself pretty well. I even
got myself to thinking that I loved
one of them, the worst one

I mean, why the hell be negative?
accept

we drank, drugged, stayed in the
center of the rug, through sunset,
sunrise, played Scrabble for 8
or ten hours

each time I went in to piss she
stole the letters she needed
she was a survivor, the
bitch

after one marathon session
of 52 hours of whatever we
were doing
she said, "let's drive to
Vegas and get married?"

"what?" I asked.

"let's drive to Vegas and
get married before we
change our minds!"

"but suppose we get married,
then what?"

"then you can have it any
time you want it." she told
me

I went in to take a piss
to let her steal the letters
she needed

but when I came out I opened
a new bottle of wine
and spoke no more of the
subject

she didn't come around as
much after that
but there were others,
about the same
sometimes there were
more than one
they'd come in two's
the word got out that
there was an old sucker
in the back court, free
booze and he wasn't overly
sexually demanding,
although at times something
would overtake me and I
would grab a body and throw
in a sweaty horse copulation,
mostly, I guess, to see if
I could still do it

and I confused the mailman
there was an old couch on
the porch and many a morning
as he came by I'd be sitting
there with, say, two of them
we'd be sitting there with our
beer cans, smoking and
laughing

one day he found me alone

"pardon me," he said, "but can
I ask you something?"

"sure"

"well, I don't think you're
rich..."

"no, I'm broke."

"Listen, he said, "I've been around
the world."

"yeah?"

"and I've never seen a man with
as many women as you.
there's always a different one.
or a different pair..."

"yeah?"

"how do you do it?
I mean, pardon me, but you're kind
of old and you're not exactly a
Cassanova, you know?"

"I could be ugly, even."

he shifted his letters from one hand to the
other.

"I mean, how do you do it?"

"availability," I told him.

"what do you mean?"

"I mean, women like a guy who is always
around."

"uh," he said, then walked off to continue his
rounds

his praise didn't help me
what he saw wasn't as good as he thought
even with them there were unholy periods of
drab senselessness,
and worse

I walked back into my place
the phone was ringing

I knew that it would be a female
voice

I'm blogging about Bukowski today not to bury him, nor to praise him .... I simply felt the need to recognize a couple pieces of his work that have influenced me in my life......

I have always said that I don't need to LIKE a man in order to relate to him-

-- and so it is with Bukowski - -

despite my begrudgeoningly-given secret self-admission....
... that we certainly had some things in common....

--------------------- we all did.




be kind by Charles Bukowski

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.