Love as a Theme in Bukowski's Poetry

[Short Bus]

And lets make the point that Jane may have loved him as best she could better than she could. Her love may have been the heroic bootstrap love that makes one better than imagined if only for moment.

FL I have issues with unrequited love even for the dead-but I suspect this may be more wordsmithing on my part. True love for me is like Jagger and Richards-Jones & Strummer
Page&Plant Prince&Prince. The parts togther are something never imagined possible or even attainable separate.

 

[Father Luke]

cirerita, oh sure there were plenty of love poems. i seem to remember a poem at the end of Love is a Dog from hell... something about driving around in the rain? i cannot quite remember it entirely and of course i gave that copy away.

Father Luke, i think he could love those who would stick around, and which he could tolerate to stick around at the same time. i think, in that manner, there was probably a combination of him choosing them and them choosing him. to gain his love they would have had to be interested in him long enough for that to develop. i think the ones who chose him chose him because they could see him. beyond his writing.

This wouldn't really account for Jane, though,
would it? Jane wasn't attracted to the Bukowski
persona. There was no Public Bukowski.

Jane was his true love because there was nothing
else besides she and him. No public persona, no
screaming women at poetry readings, no one
sending pictures of themselves in bathtubs reading
his poetry.

Jane was jane. He was bukowski.

The others, the ones everyone remembers, the two
Lindas? They loved him despite the popularity, and
the fame. They loved him beyond the persona.

But Jane was first. She saw him before the writing.

Gerard, perhaps as an artist she could see the beauty in ugliness also. because let's face it, Buk was not a pretty man. in that manner i guess i would say, again, that to love him you had to see him. see him see him. does that make sense?

jen

 

[stimso]

So, when is the wedding?

Coy glances, knowing looks, etc.

But seriously, I always figgered Bukowski had very deep feelings of love because there was such a lack of it in his life as a kid. That lack of tenderness must have really warped how he related to others, even in love....

I dunno, maybe he was simply obsessive or domineering but in his own mind, at the very least, he almost always appears to have taken it more seriously than the loved one. His widow excepted. Maybe others. What the fuck. I'm trying to come to terms with another man's love from what he's written about it and the very limited glimpses I've had of the man from grainy film clips.

I don't even know what my own love means.

I too, cried at Old Yeller. And probably ET, but I was what? 10 yrs old at best.

I cry a lot less now. When I feel it coming I just get nasty.

Quote from Vodka: "Buk was not a pretty man." Pretty no, beautiful yes. What a unique and startling physical beauty.

Love? A dog from hell. Ezekiel 27:23

I just scrolled down and read "David" (9:10 am today, such an obvious pseudonym--oop! gork ;)): you said all I wanted to say much more coherently.

Vodka, you're pretty clever but I don't like your pseudonym. (Don't really like mine either)

Back on topic: LOVE. Get back to me when you've figgered it out. For yourself. Then work on whether Bukowski felt it or not.

Okay, sorry, Glenfiddich and Kronenbourg again.

Wouldn't exactly dedicate one of his love peoms to a potential partner but he's still pretty on the money in my book.

My neighbor is a hunter.

Now that's profound!

 

[vodka]

Father Luke, i feel as though you just keep paraphrasing me and calling it something else.

stimso, yes we were just discussing how his fucked up childhood may have warped how he loved others in his adult life. and i don't know - i've sent Bukowski poems to people i love to illustrate love. sorry you're not digging my pseudonym... not sure what's to be done about that.

jenifer

 

[Father Luke]

Father Luke, i feel as though you just keep paraphrasing me and calling it something else.

Has it also occurred to you, dear, that I am
agreeing with you?

stimso, yes we were just discussing how his fucked up childhood may have warped how he loved others in his adult life. and i don't know - i've sent Bukowski poems to people i love to illustrate love. sorry you're not digging my pseudonym... not sure what's to be done about that.

jenifer

 

[vodka]

if you're agreeing with me why does it always sound like you're arguing?

you are purposely trying to get under my skin.

 

[Gerard K H Love]

you are purposely trying to get under my skin.

That can be a good thing.

 

[stimso]

Sorry Vodka. A good illustration of why I should probably refrain from hitting the reply button while in a state of, um, non-sobriety. Many of the times like that I don't even agree with me.

 

[Gerard K H Love]

Nice Thread!

Here's to drinking and reading a great thread. Cheers! hic

Custom made;) By some one else.

 

[Father Luke]

I don't drink. . .

 

[Gerard K H Love]

Watch out! There's gonna be a another one comin' down the pike with the initials C.S. on th Absolut bottle, you just watch.

The corgi's feet are pointing at the ceiling. That means it's time to retire for the evening he hates it when you make me laugh when it's this late.

 

[vodka]

those are both exceptionally beautiful bottles of vodka.

custom made to feed my ego.

'it's not all about you -vodka'

 

[Lesagedec]

I know no one will read this because as usual I'm miles behind. As usual, I diss myself. As usual, I repeat myself.
For what it's worth, and I've only touched the surface, I believe Bukowski was massively influenced by love, more than anything else. I feel he knew that all his actions were motivated at their deepest level by one of two emotions - fear or love. In truth, there are no other emotions. Not me I just agree.

 

[poptop]

Love and the Purple Onion

There is much attention paid to the womanizing, gambling and drinking ways of Charles Bukowski, but I find love as a theme running throughout his writing tends to be largely ignored....

What do you think of the Bukowski's poetry which speaks of love or often the lack of it? ...

Hello Vodka,

My first chance to drop in in awhile... As a long time Bukster I don't have any answers at the moment... but I love your amazing questions... so rich and good. Makes me feel good just reading them.

Perhaps I will venture to say that I always felt he was a sensitive and vulnerable soul and his vulnerability carried over heavily into his love-life, though not always apparent in his early works, with him continually getting the shaft emotionally (starting with his parents) when he was young, because he either didn't understand women, was repeatedly rejected by them, or his emotions were too backed up to get at. That yearning can build up inside a man and harden him if the right woman doesn't finally come along, even in his case it turns out to be his "300 whore." (While he treated her like shit at the end of their encounter, wrongly accusing her of stealing his wallet, I believe that he remembered her with some tenderness and affection.)

Some of his macho savagery might have been in reaction to that sensitivity and he would sometimes lash out -- i.e., the famous kicking scene in the Buk tapes with his future wife Linda on/off the couch.

I might also say that some men draw a wide divide between love and sexuality. It might be easier for them -- though there a exceptions to the rule in both men and women. That steeply inclines the man to crow about his sexual prowess, appear to be beyond the need of tenderness, and perhaps try to impress the woman with his throbbing purple manhood. ☺ Bukowski's "purple onion," if I'm quoting him correctly, lol. I think he was acutely aware of the distinction in order to prove himself as a man. He finally had his fill of sexual escapades (written on in Women) and mellowed in love... became more the gentle tolerant romantic in his twilight years, probably because Linda was a strong woman who had stood up to his occasional vicious verbal abuse and he came to terms with the 'dark' side of his nature. He probably needed her more than he knew, but men are taught not to reveal that. He could be surprisingly emotionally dependent on women, as shown in Born into This, with Cupcake or whatever her name was.

If I had to guess which came first, I would say that his sensitivity came first -- his writing became the outlet for that, which he discovered at an early age to save his sanity from his physically abusive father -- and much of his occasional leonine outbursts of unregenerate macho behavior came in reaction to his sensitivity and romanticism.

On the other hand, maybe he was simply a total macho prick always needing to prove himself and compete when he was young and was finally civilized into his romantic sensitivity from ground zero. But one cannot deny that something finally softened within him and we have his exquisitely sensitive writings when the exquisite sensitivity was needed and without appearing to lose all his strength as a man. Hard to put into words.

Just my own thoughts on the matter, because after all it's what the great and immortal Bukowski evokes in the reader that makes him the great writer he was beyond what he put down on paper, at least for me. His sensitivity and ability to observe the falsity and truth of the human condition becomes more apparent the more one reads him. The limited reader is likely to latch on the drinking, toughness and whoring only and think that Bukowski never went beyond it. That's why when one discovers a writer one likes, devour everything to get the richness of the rounded picture... the flaws and exaltations. I've also done that with the works of Henry Miller and Eckhart Tolle.

Poptop

 

[vodka]

i cannot remember the poem, but there was one where he mentioned that, in love - people always end up treating each other badly. i believe it was Bukowski anyway. i cannot remember the poem or the book though.

that always rang so true to me.

the idea that it's not so much whether someone will end up treating you badly, but when and how.

meh.

maybe someday i will be able to evolve so much as Bukowski did.

 

[poptop]

The poem with the repeated lines..."people just aren't good to each other" or words to that effect? I believe Bono read that poem in Born into This. Anyone?

 

[hank solo]

the crunch - in its many forms

 

[vodka]

there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in the slow movement of
the hands of a clock

to me, that is just so brilliant.

 

[mjp]

the crunch - in its many forms

And you can see them side by side here.

It got shorter with each version.

Some words in the 1999 version are rather...un-Bukowskian, perhaps not surprisingly.

 

[Corndog]

What a fantastic thread. I've been away a bit and just popped in.....

I won't get into the argument re: academic approval of Bukowski..... It doesn't really matter.... Just look at his sales.
The thing that attracted me to Bukowski was his honesty and sincerity. I love his work.
It's his love poems and his observations on life that I appreciate soooo much.

Despite Buk presenting himself as a hard man, he was deeply sensitive, compassionate and caring.

 

[roni]

And you can see them side by side here.

fine idea! thanks!

 

[vodka]

could somebody please tell me who is the woman with the red hair Bukowski wrote this poem, and others about toward in Love is a Dog From Hell, without making me feel like a dolt?

I made a mistake

I reached up into the top of the closet
and took out a pair of blue panties
and showed them to her and
asked "are these yours?"

and she looked and said,
"no, those belong to a dog."

she left after that and I haven't seen
her since. she's not at her place.
I keep going there, leaving notes stuck
into the door. I go back and the notes
are still there. I take the Maltese cross
cut it down from my car mirror, tie it
to her doorknob with a shoelace, leave
a book of poems.
when I go back the next night everything
is still there.

I keep searching the streets for that
blood-wine battleship she drives
with a weak battery, and the doors
hanging from broken hinges.

I drive around the streets
an inch away from weeping,
ashamed of my sentimentality and
possible love.

a confused old man driving in the rain
wondering where the good luck
went.

 

[Gerard K H Love]

I think it was the one he called cupcakes. But I'm going from my faded old memory.
Tammie in Women aka Pamela Miller. Post #21 in this thread

 

[Father Luke]

who is the woman with the red hair

Linda the first.

 

[Ponder]

could somebody please tell me who is the woman with the red hair Bukowski wrote this poem, and others about toward in Love is a Dog From Hell, without making me feel like a dolt?

Since Bukowski writes in Women she (Tammie) was my first woman with red hair, it must be Pamela Miller.

 

[vodka]

huh.

so which witch is which?

meaning which one is it?

 

[1fsh2fsh]

I always thought that it was Pamela Miller / cupcakes. pretty sure.

 

[Father Luke]

Never mind me.
I guessed.

 

[Gerard K H Love]

I think it was the one he called cupcakes. But I'm going from my faded old memory.
Tammie in Women aka Pamela Miller. Post #21 in this thread

Like I was saying.....

 

[hank solo]

Yes, as GKHL says, it was Pam.