Poetry

[JW Frogen]

Perhaps for obvious reasons I love the drunk poet Charles Bukowski.

There is a stark down and out realism in his poetry, with no plea to God (not my style, but I admire the courage of going it alone) and a very savage humor.
The man knew how to loose without grace, which, in the end, made him win.

BEER
from: Love is A Mad Dog From Hell
I don't know how many bottles of beer
I have consumed while waiting for things
to get better
I dont know how much wine and whisky
and beer
mostly beer
I have consumed after
splits with women-
waiting for the phone to ring
waiting for the sound of footsteps,
and the phone to ring
waiting for the sounds of footsteps,
and the phone never rings
until much later
and the footsteps never arrive
until much later
when my stomach is coming up
out of my mouth
they arrive as fresh as spring flowers:
"what the hell have you done to yourself?
it will be 3 days before you can fuck me!"

the female is durable
she lives seven and one half years longer
than the male, and she drinks very little beer
because she knows its bad for the figure.

while we are going mad
they are out
dancing and laughing
with horney cowboys.

well, there's beer
sacks and sacks of empty beer bottles
and when you pick one up
the bottle fall through the wet bottom
of the paper sack
rolling
clanking
spilling gray wet ash
and stale beer,
or the sacks fall over at 4 a.m.
in the morning
making the only sound in your life.

beer
rivers and seas of beer
the radio singing love songs
as the phone remains silent
and the walls stand
straight up and down
and beer is all there is.

[Jovial Monk]

I would call it bleak and full of self-pity.

[JW Frogen]

There is always an element of that in Bukowski as well, though the pity is often turned on it’s head and becomes self parody, when it does his counterpoint distillates into dry-tears for the sad nature of human nature. (Like much great humor, it tip toes a tap dance on tragedy.)

Bukoskwi, like a religious prophet without a God, often turned bleak reality into a laugh, a good fuck, or an archetype of human life.

Perhaps this is why this drunken bum died in a big house in Hollywood Hills with movie stars knocking at his door?

[JW Frogen]

Buk on writers block.

8 Count


from my bed
I watch
3 birds
on a telephone
wire.
one flies
off.
then
another.
one is left,
then
it too
is gone.
my typewriter is
tombstone
still.
and I am
reduced to bird
watching.
just thought I'd
let you
know,
fucker.

[JW Frogen]

Or for the forum habituate:

Be Kind

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.

[Hebe]

Terrific - but is it poetry? If it is, what makes it poetry? Just the format? I've been wondering for a long time how to define a poem. He sure has a way with words though - and thoughts.

(And shouldn't that last word be ITH?)

[JW Frogen]

I agree Hebe, ("agree-Hebe" that is a poem!) when I first read him I thought, "What the fuck is this?"

I am not sure everything should have a definition; maybe he is just speaking to us honestly?

But to be temporarily literary, my opinion is this, a good poem makes you feel it; good prose makes you think about it.

[JW Frogen]

Do both and you have art, a word that has no definition but all the meaning in the world.

"Ith"

[Hebe]

I agree Hebe, ("agree-Hebe" that is a poem!) when I first read him I thought, "What the fuck is this?"

I am not sure everything should have a definition; maybe he is just speaking to us honestly?

But to be temporarily literary, my opinion is this, a good poem makes you feel it; good prose makes you think about it.

I think you may have hit on it. I'm very impressed. The definitions I looked up all spoke about "feelings put into words", and I thought WTF?*? But that makes sense. And it overcomes the form problem - thought Shakespeare managed to get it pretty well into iambic pentameter, and there lazy buggers don't.

*There was a time when you'd never get a librarian saying "fuck", but in today's Public Service standards have slipped badly as words increasingly fail us.

[JW Frogen]

*There was a time when you'd never get a librarian saying "fuck", but in today's Public Service standards have slipped badly as words increasingly fail us.

I love it when my tax dollars go to sin.