A trip through the harsh poetry of Charles Bukowski

Bukowski was not our common poet. He was different. He was the poet of the ordinary life, of the social dirt, of the irreverence. This man was a rulebreaker - including breaking the "rules of writing". 

ah, christ, what a CREW:
more
poetry, always more
P O E T R Y.

(Charles Bukowski, "O We Are The Outcasts".)

The unadorned texts sometimes offend. But for good or for bad, one senses his sincerity. 

He said of humanity in "What Can We Do?".

when activated it's best at brutality,

selfishness, unjust judgments, murder.

About human beings in "The Genius Of The Crowd".

there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average

human being to supply any given army on any given day

Sometimes went for advice. 

beware the preachers

beware the knowers

beware those who are always reading books

beware those who either detest poverty

or are proud of it

Or got into generalizations in "Back luck with the girls".

good weather

is like

good women-

it doesn't always happen

and when it does

it doesn't

always last.

In "How Is Your Heart?", he talks from experience.

what matters most is

 how well you 

 walk through the

 fire.

And whispered a fascinating end in "Love and Fame and Death".

the way to end a poem like this

is to become suddenly

quiet.

You may like or hate Bukowski, but I'm sure will agree on this:

We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.

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