What buk piece effects you the most emotionally in a personal way?

[Primary Disorder]

Bluebird

Makes me tear up every time I read this poem and especially when I hear Bukowski read it. I've spent alot of my life being a tough hardass, but everyone always says that once you get to know me Im a sensitive guy with alot of romance in my blood. Of course Ill never admit to that bullshit. What the fuck do they know anyways? ...

 

[Stavrogin]

Yep, 'Bluebird'. Maybe you've been introduced to Bukowski by film, novel, or short story but his poems are truly his 'bones.' As old as I am I'm sadly reminded of an on-line read of roll the dice that inspired me to dig deeper into Buk, the writer. Feel like I missed the right connection not having read Buk much earlier in life. The internet is truly a miracle that is easy to take for granted. We use to turn to God for answers, now we turn to google.

 

[Ponder]

I awakened depressed. I looked up at the ceiling, at the cracks in the
ceiling. I saw a buffalo running over something. I think it was me.
Then I saw a snake with a rabbit in his mouth. The sun came through
the rips in the shade and formed a swastika on my belly. My bunghole
itched. Were my hemorrhoids coming back? My neck was stiff
and my mouth tasted like sour milk.

what story is that from?

The story of his life, I presume.

Pulp.

 

[zoom man]

All of the ones you've all mentioned here move me too.
Flipping through Pleasures of the Damned, looking for the poem about the swan in the park,
floating dead in the pond and it's spring....
I feel like typing it out so of course can't find it
(it's raining outside my window here and it's a beautiful thing),
but seeing all the other titles,
well, I could probably pick a passage from each.
I mean the man can move me with an ode to his goddamned shoelace :o

 

[HiddenFormula]

I Was Born to Hustle Roses Down the Avenues of the Dead

While reading through parts of 'Roominghouse Madrigals' today and I came across this one. I'll admit I found it a bit awkward to start, but once it really got going it really stirred me up. (the name alone is a work of poetic genius!)

I Was Born to Hustle Roses Down the Avenues of the Dead

1

rivergut girlriver damn drowned
people going in and out of books and
doors and graves people dressed in pink
getting haircuts and tired and dogs and
Vivaldi

2

you missed a cat argument the grey was
tired mad flipping tail and he monkied
with the black one who didn't want to
be bothered and then the black one
chased the grey one pawed it once the
grey one said yow
ran away stopped scratched its ear
flicked at a straw popped in air and
ran off defeated and planning as a
white one (another one) ran along the
other side of the fence chasing a
grasshopper as somebody shot Mr
Kennedy.

3

the best way to explain about the meaning
of concourse is to forget all about
it or any meaning at all
is
just something that grows or does not
grow lives a while and dies a long time
life is weak, the rope around a man's
neck is stronger than the man because
it does not suffer it does not
listen to Brahms but Brahms can get
to be a bore and even insufferable when
you are locked in a cage with
sticks almost forever.
I remember my old
man raged because I did not sweat
when I mowed his lawn twice over
while the lucky guys played football
or jacked-off in the garage, he threw a
2 by 4 at the back of one of my legs
the left one, I have a bloodvessel that
juts out an inch there now and I
picked up the log and threw it into
his beautiful roses and limped around
and finished the lawn not sweating
and 25 years later I buried him. it
cost me a grand: he was stronger
than I was.

4

I see the river now I see
the river now grassfish
limping through milkblue
she is taking off he stockings
she is beginning to cry.
my car needs 2 new
front tires.

 

[Ponder]

Flipping through Pleasures of the Damned, looking for the poem about the swan in the park,
floating dead in the pond and it's spring....
I feel like typing it out so of course can't find it

spring swan

swans die in the Spring too
and there it floated
dead on a Sunday
sideways
circling in the current
and I walked to the rotunda
and overhead
gods in chariots
dogs, women
circled,
and death
ran down my throat
like a mouse,
and I heard the people coming
with their picnic bags
and laughter,
and I felt guilty
for the swan
as if death
were a thing of shame
and like a fool I
walked away
and left them
my beautiful swan.

© Charles Bukowski

 

[Short Bus]

I am always amused and pleased when Buk mentions his admiration and fondness for cats.
My 3 cats don't seem to care either way.

 

[zoom man]

Thanks Ponder, that's certainly the one I meant.
And yes Jimmy Snerp, any of the cat poems,
One for the Old Boy jumps up front for me.
And of course any of the ones about Jane,
and any of the ones about __________

 

[nervas]

Yep, 'Bluebird'.

I always find it interesting when someone says "bluebird." Not that it affected them or anything, but what I mean is this. 99.9% of people I meet, or interact with have never even heard of Bukowski. However, anytime I come across that rare breed that smiles, or joins the conversation when I mention Bukowski always mentions "bluebird." It's almost as if it were one of his top 10 hits. Though, maybe more like a #1 single, because in the 19 years I have been reading Bukowski, the 15-20 people I've randomly met that acknowledge his existence always ask, "oh my god! have you ever read bluebird." I love the poem as well, not my favorite, nor does it affect me more than others, but I just find it interesting that so many people do relate to it in the way they do. Maybe that's a whole nother thread, what was Buk's most famous piece... I'm sure that could prove to be very debatable...

 

[chronic]

Even though it's probably one of the most popular Bukowski poems, I always felt the The Bluebird seemed a little weak and mediocre... almost cute. Not one of my favorites.

I'll take The Mockingbird over The Bluebird any day.

 

[Purple Stickpin]

I agree that it's a bit too cute for my tastes, but I wouldn't use the words weak or mediocre. I do think that it represents something of a cross-over to what many people think poetry ought to be. It's more mainstream than many of his works.

I wouldn't put it in my top 100.

Then again, my favorite works are All the Assholes in the World and Mine, Life and Death in the Charity Ward, Horsemeat and such.

 

[Black Swan]

In Bluebird, Bukowski reveals something about himself that is usually well hidden. That is what is touching to me. Although, that does not make it his best poem.

 

[chronic]

Maybe I should have said "weak for Bukowski." I just think it's one of his more middling poems, but apparently it speaks to a lot of people, so what do I know?

 

[mjp]

You guys aren't mainstream enough to appreciate a good mainstream poem by a mainstream writer! Jesus.

 

[Gerard K H Love]

Thank you Purple Stickpin, The Mockingbird is one of my favorites. Bluebird is like chronic says, "weak for Bukowski".

Oh, and I am mainstream conservative.

 

[Black Swan]

One of my favorites is this one.


Something For The Touts, The Nuns, The Grocery Clerks, And You . . .


we have everything and we have nothing
and some men do it in churches
and some men do it by tearing butterflies
in half
and some men do it in Palm Springs
laying it into butterblondes
with Cadillac souls
Cadillacs and butterflies
nothing and everything,
the face melting down to the last puff
in a cellar in Corpus Christi.
there's something for the touts, the nuns,
the grocery clerks and you . . .
something at 8 a.m., something in the library
something in the river,
everything and nothing.
in the slaughterhouse it comes running along
the ceiling on a hook, and you swing it --
one
two
three...

Charles Bukowski

 

[Gerard K H Love]

I don't know where I saw this line before:

and some men do it in Palm Springs
laying it into butterblondes
with Cadillac souls

It has caught my attention before but according to the poem database I don't own anything that has that poem. Is that in Pleasures of the Damned ?

I've known some girls that were butter blondes, rich, creamy, and delicious girls. The kind you can easily spread once you soften them up a bit.

After several years as a Cadillac sales manager that line gives a little more definition to what we always called the Cadillac mystique.

 

[Black Swan]

Hi Gerard,

I know that the poem is in Burning In Water Drowning in Flames,
page 67.
Also in Pleasure of the Damned, but I do not have that one, yet.

 

[nervas]

I agree that it's a bit too cute I do think that it represents something of a cross-over to what many people think poetry ought to be.

Yeh, I think you hit it for me Purple... It is somehow like a crossover hit. I think people find it easy to read, easy to digest.

 

[roni]

In Bluebird, Bukowski reveals something about himself that is usually well hidden. [...]

I don't find it so "well hidden" in his other writing. I find it pretty obvious, if one only reads with some sensibility. So I'm not particularly fond of the 'Bluebird', but I can see, where people relate to it.



My favs are very often the great dark depressing ones:

Old Man Dead in a Room

The Tragedy of the Leaves

remains

The Rent's high too

and such.

 

[HiddenFormula]

Oh I forgot to mention The Crunch. For me it was one of the first Buk poems I read and the first that totally blew me away. Really fucking good! everytime I read the poem it's like experiencing it for the first time. Sadly I have to fight the voice of Bo-no:cool: in my head everytime I read it - argh.

"...an old guy in a cheap room
with a photograph of M. Monroe.

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

people so tired
mutilated
either by love or no love."

Love that part.

 

[roni]

Oh yeah, The Crunch!

"People are just not good to each other!"
(There's a version from the 70s somewhere, where Buk reads it.)

And let's not forget The Shoelace!

 

[Black Swan]

obvious, if one only reads with some sensibility.

Yeah , when one reads with sensibility, where as in bluebird, he tells it as it is. :cool:

 

[HiddenFormula]

Dreamlessly

old grey-haired waitresses
in cafes at night
have given it up,
and as i walk down sidewalks of
light and look into windows
of nursing homes
I can see that it is no longer
with them.
I see people sitting on park benches
and i can see by the way they
sit and look
that it is gone.

I see people driving cars
and I see by the way
they drive their cars
that they neither love nor are
loved -
nor do they consider
sex. it is all forgotten
like an old movie.

I see people in department stores and
supermarkets
walking down aisles
buying things
and i can see by the way their clothing
fits them and by the way they walk
and by their faces and their eyes
that they care for nothing
and that nothing cares
for them.

I see a hundred people a day
who have given up
entirely.

if I go to the racetrack
or a sporting event
I can see thousands
that feel for nothing or
no one
and get no feeling
back.

everywhere I see those who
crave nothing but
food, shelter, and
clothing; they concentrate
on that,
dreamlessly

I do not understand why these people do not
vanish
I do not understand why these people do not
expire
why the clouds
do not murder them
or why the dogs
do not murder them
or why the flowers and the children
do not murder them,
I do not understand.

I suppose they are murdered
yet i can't adjust to the
fact of them
because they are so many.

each day,
each night,
there are more of them
in the subways and
in the buildings and
in the parks

they feel no terror
at not loving
or at not
being loved

so many many many
of my fellow

creatures

 

[Justcuriousisall]

pleasures of the damned!!!!!!!

 

[Stavrogin]

In Bluebird, Bukowski reveals something about himself that is usually well hidden. That is what is touching to me. Although, that does not make it his best poem.

No one knows what it's like

To be the bad man

To be the sad man

Behind blue eyes

I've battled Pope, Crane, Yeats, Keats, Byron, Richmond, Thomas and such and Bluebird for me hits true. Perhaps not his best poem (won't argue with that) but it cuts through. We may argue the finer points of Buk as myth versus reality but we have to agree this motherfucker tried his best to put it ALL on paper. White boys don't get the blues? please. From a technical standpoint Hollywood is his best written book, but who names that amongst their faves?

 

[yojimbo]

I Think my favourite Bukowski piece is the poem Roll The Dice, it's truly inspiring, whenever i feel i shouldn't try anymore, i read that poem again, also can relate to it's main theme, which i'm quite fond, one man against all odds, in few lines, he was able to describe his whole life, there never was any chance for Bukowsky yet he always moved to the next thing, kept going.

 

[esart]

The Crunch

 

[chronic]

(Old forum attachment ID is incorrect, see thumbnails.)

 

[Purple Stickpin]

I've always liked that one too. Interesting that it's indicated as copyright 1972 (from Mockingbird...) when it came out in this exact form as the 1970 NYG.