Shortest poem ever?

[PhillyDave]

Longest? Interesting thread. Never really thought about that before. So, what would be Buk's shortest?

 

[roni]

'Art', I guess.

 

[zobraks]

Not the collected version. ;))

 

[skiroomalum]

http://bukowski.net/database/detail.php?WorkNumber=1060
Not as short as Art, but pretty brief.

 

[Purple Stickpin]

OK, bear with me: it depends on how you define shortest. Art contains seven words and 30 characters (not counting the period at the end). However, I would include the title as part of the poem. So that's eight words and 33 characters. In Bottle of Smoke Press' as Buddah smiles, card 1 of 20 is an untitled poem that contains eight words and 32 characters (also not counting the period at the end), so it is shorter than Art by one character.

 

[mjp]

as Buddah smiles...

Aren't those excerpts?

 

[Purple Stickpin]

Aren't those excerpts?

Could be; Bill would certainly know.

Killjoy. :wb:

I'd add, with the understanding that you'll agree, that an excerpt edited by our Mr. Roberts is more of a poem than a train-wreck that appears in a posthumous edition.

 

[bospress.net]

They are more aphorisms than poems, so Art wins, I think.

 

[Purple Stickpin]

You all suck. ;)

Edited to add: Seriously (and there's absolutely no need to be serious about this topic, but I seem to be keen on digging into things for no good reason), by that logic, how is Art not an aphorism?

 

[mjp]

It's a poem when the author says it's a poem. Or gives it a title.

If all short poems are aphorisms (hate that word, it stinks of college, we need a new one), then the Guerilla Poetics Project should have been called the Guerilla Aphorisms Project.

Not quite as snappy a name, but what can you do.

 

[roni]

or this one:

my first grave poem

"Don't Try"

 

[cirerita]

Strictly speaking, "art" is an excerpt off a longer poem, "it's difficult to be a god when bananas eat monkeys".

Here's one of B.'s shortest poems ever:

“your move”
Aganippe is empty.
we move on to Hippocrene.

 

[mjp]

 

[PhillyDave]

Are trying to bother me?! Martin strikes again. Ugh.

 

[mjp]

We talked about it before, we just never had the versions side by side.

 

[tony walton]

My favourite short Bukowski poem, thought not the shortest (the truest, though):

After the spirit wanes, the form appears.

 

[sean]

“your move”
Aganippe is empty.
we move on to Hippocrene.

Did anyone else have to use Google for this one?
Pax vobiscum.

 

[zobraks]

Not me, my two pets* (Vietnamese pot belly pigs) are called Aganippe and Hippocrene.
*They're not actually pets, I'm planning to eat them.

Nulla dies sine linea.

 

[esart]

Who knew!

How about a different short poem? Anyone got any better ones without having to google half the poem? I guess I'll have to dig for something myself.

I'll be back...

 

[esart]

I found one!

Night Work

my cat
leaped
into the fireplace
burning
as Van Gogh
slit
the rear screen
and entered
looking
for
the blue whore
of nowhere.

 

[cirerita]

 

[roni]

haha!
when the spirit breaks, the form appears lonely.

 

[Petey]

If just words count in this would be the winner...

https://bukowski.net/manuscripts/displaymanuscript.php?show=poem1992-05-19-]]]]].jpg&workid=208

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Black Sparrow put these out at some point.

 

[cirerita]

I think to recall all the matchbook poems were excerpts off longer poems.

Here's a short one about Marvin Malone:
http://blogs.uab.cat/wormwoodreviewproject/2016/04/24/unpublished-bukowski-poem-about-malone/

 

[roni]

this one does neither rank as the shortest nor is it a good one, but there you go:

 

[mjp]

I think to recall all the matchbook poems were excerpts off longer poems.

That wouldn't surprise me, but Martin did use two of the matchbook poems ("my fate" and "dark night poem," as they are on the matchbooks) in Pleasures of the Damned.

 

[cirerita]

"my fate", for instance, was part of a longer poem, "my doom has wire wheels and girls in light green tight green dresses smile at me," which was published under a different title in The Flash... with lots of changes. "my fate" wasn't changed in The Pleasures... because it had already been changed in The Flash...

 

[mjp]

For what it's worth, and for those of you keeping score:

"a dead romance" is from "rosary for a once tenderness" (Back to the Machinegun Vol. 1), and "moaning and groaning" (Love is a Dog From Hell - a.k.a. "you'll be moaning and groaning in your poems")

moaning and groaning

she writes: you’ll
be moaning and groaning
in your poems
about how I fucked
those 2 guys last week.
I know you.
she writes on to
say that my vibe
machine was right—
she had just fucked
a third guy
but she knows I don’t
want to hear who, why
or how. she closes her
letter, “Love.”

rats and roaches
have triumphed again.
here it comes running
with a slug in its
mouth, it’s singing
old love songs.
close the windows
moan
close the doors
groan.

rosary for a once
tenderness

the rats and roaches have
triumphed
again

the fury that lifted the rose
is gone

close the windows
close the doors

bury it with shopping bags and
flowers

be kind
kill it

here it comes running
with a slug in its mouth
singing old
love songs.

"dark night poem" is the end of "thoughts while eating a sandwich" (Flash of Lightning - a.k.a. "thoughts while having a sandwich and coffee at 12:45 p.m. at a local cafe"), and the intro to section 3 in The Night Torn Mad.

thoughts while eating a sandwich

we demand that our leaders possess
a certain clever charm, a certain mild wisdom, but no madness,
at least not madness at its
best.
maybe the energy is just not there anymore, maybe
not only is the air polluted, maybe the brain has been
poisoned, maybe the human spirit has been
diluted down to a dim imitation of
itself
until anybody who appears half-right half-the-time is
almost always accepted as our new
hero-leader.

it is more and more difficult—no, it’s just damned
impossible—to accept and admire those who are
deemed great in our time.
they all
are suspect
they all seem to lack:
nobility
originality
intelligence
honesty
and especially that which is most needed:
a simple, good heart.

just bones and more bones
bleaching in the sun.

they say that nothing is wasted:
either that
or
it all is.

 

[roni]

"my doom has wire wheels and girls in light green tight green dresses smile at me,"

was that originally the title of a Hosho McCreesh-poem?