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

[1fsh2fsh]

The last part of the poem was also printed inside of Buks funeral announcment. A fine poem.

 

[justin grimbol]

i always cry when i finish ham on rye. factotum is the book i read to get me through hard times though.

 

[Purple Stickpin]

Factotum is by far his funniest and best novel, in my meager opinion. It just screams to be held and read over and over again.

 

[the stone]

"I just don't like people...I only like myself. There's something wrong with me. I don't know what it is but I'm not gonna try to cure it."

this was a buk quote in some interview i saw recently. hilarious! also, the whole 'apostrophes' interview. vintage buk

 

[Faulkner's Dick]

I think I posted in this thread forever ago, but Ham On Rye is still a personal favorite, even after now reading a good bulk of his collective work. Some of the short stories from Ordinary Tales of Madness come kind of close, though. I liked the one about the old man dying.

 

[jabble]

I forgot where I parked my car and I walked along. I walked along and walked along in the rain. I got to a bar. Went in. For a rainy night, the place was quite crowded. I could only find one seat. There was a young woman sitting there. Nothing special but I thought I'd try it.
"Hey baby, I'm a writer. I'm a great writer!"
She turned her face full towards me. I could see her hatred shaping up beneath her flesh.
"HEY BUDDY!" she screamed so the whole bar could hear: "WILL YOU PLEASE, WILL YOU PULLLEEEEZ STOP BUGGING ME?"
The bartender stood waiting for my order.
"Double scotch with water."

 

[entwinedmonkeys]

"the crunch" and "man mowing the lawn across the way from me"
"layover" makes me cry, though.

 

[BUK72]

"marina:" from Mockingbird hits me hard everytime I read it.
I think that Bukowski was never more vunerable than when he wrote about his daughter.

 

[Dodd]

Definitely Ham on Rye had to be his most personal (well, they're all personal, but this one is a bit more so). The belting he got by his pop for not doing the lawn right was pretty awful and cruel.

 

[j.temperance]

Iv only starting reading alot of his poems,but this one stuck out from love is a dog from hell!

escape

escape from the black widow spider
is a miracle as great as art.
what a web she can weave
slowly drawing you to her
she'll embrace you
then when she's satisfied
she'll kill you
still in her embrace
and suck the blood from you.
I escaped my black widow
because she had too many males
in her web
and while she was embracing one
and then the other and then
another
I worked free
got out
to where I was before.
she'll miss me
not my love
but the taste of my blood,
but she's good, she'll find other
blood;
she's so good that I almost miss my death,
but not quite;
I've escaped. I view the other
webs now.

 

[Kanex]

Ham on Rye most definitely.

 

[roni]

The last part of the poem was also printed inside of Buks funeral announcment.

right.




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(as always: click on the image!)

 

[gregormilligan]

Tonight, sitting up all night while drinking whisky, rum, beer and multiple screwdrivers, listening to Tom Waits, I finished off Betting On The Muse. And reading the last few poems in it made me so sad, but so happy at the same time. Just reading Hank writing towards the end of his life, knowing he was going to die soon, is so sad and poignant and heartfelt and it just further affirms how powerful his writing was.

 

[reasonknot]

I always enjoy 'Like A Dolphin'. Here is part of it:

the old songs still play.
hand to my chin, I dream of
nothing while my lost childhood
leaps like a dolphin
in the frozen sea.

Seems a little sad but straight from the heart.

 

[jabble]

he walked up and down the aisle. barefooted.
"Mr. Skorski," the stewardess told him, "please stay in your seat."
"Graziano. the Rock. and who the hell stole my shoes and socks? I'll bust 'em in half."
He vomited there in the aisle and an old woman actually hissed at him like a snake.
"Mr Skorski," the stewardess told him, "I insist that you go to your seat!".
Dan grabbed her by the wrist.
"I Like you. I think I'll RAPE you right here in the aisle. think of it! RAPE in the sky! you'll LOVE it! ex-boxer, Rocky Graziano rapes stewardess while passing over Illinois! come 'ere!"
Dan grabbed her about the waist. her face was atrociously blank and stupid; young, egotistical and ugly. she had the IQ of a titmouse and no tits. but she was strong. she broke away and ran to the pilot's compartment.
Dan vomited just a bit, went over and sat down.

The Stupid Christs

 

[Bill Sikes]

recess bells of school

Listened and memorized from the Hostage tape, however read it from the recently published book and it wasn't the same - some words were changed.

 

[jabble]

The Great Zen Wedding

I got my photos taken all over again. Fingerprinted all over again.
They took me down to the drunk tank, opened that door. After that it was just a matter of looking for floorspace among the 150 men in the room. One shitpot. Vomit and piss everywhere. I found a spot among my fellow men. I was Charles Bukowski, features in the literary archives in the University of California at Santa Barbara. Somebody there thought I was a genius. I stretched out on the Boards. Heard a young voice. A boy's voice.
"Mista, I'll suck your dick for a quarter!"
They were supposed to take all your change, bills, ident, keys, knives, so forth, plus cigarettes, and then you had the property slip. Which you either lost or sold or had stolen from you. But there was always money and cigarettes about.
"Sorry, lad," I told him, "they took my last penny."