/lit/ - Literature

Rupi Kaur comes close to his level of mediocrity

Bluebird

Read more
Search my poems

My poems (165)Titles list
Bluebird
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

The Crunch

too much
too little
too fat
too thin
or nobody.

laughter or
tears
haters
lovers

strangers with faces like
the backs of
thumb tacks
armies running through
streets of blood
waving winebottles
bayoneting and fucking
virgins.

or 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.
people just are not good to each other
one on one.

the rich are not good to the rich
the poor are not good to the poor.

we are afraid.

our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big-ass winners.

it hasn't told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.

or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone

untouched
unspoken to

watering a plant.

people are not good to each other.
people are not good to each other.
people are not good to each other.

I suppose they never will be.
I don't ask them to be.

but sometimes I think about
it.

the beads will swing
the clouds will cloud
and the killer will behead the child
like taking a bite out of an ice cream cone.

too much
too little

too fat
too thin
or nobody

more haters than lovers.

people are not good to each other.
perhaps if they were
our deaths would not be so sad.

meanwhile I look at young girls
stems
flowers of chance.

there must be a way.

surely there must be a way we have not yet
thought of.

who put this brain inside of me?

it cries
it demands
it says that there is a chance.

it will not say
"no."

Writing

often it is the only
thing
between you and
impossibility.
no drink,
no woman's love,
no wealth
can
match it.
nothing can save
you
except
writing.
it keeps the walls
from
failing.
the hordes from
closing in.
it blasts the
darkness.
writing is the
ultimate
psychiatrist,
the kindliest
god of all the
gods.
writing stalks
death.
it knows no
quit.
and writing
laughs
at itself,
at pain.
it is the last
expectation,
the last
explanation.
that's
what it
is.

>>20005716
You can't like Bukowski in /lit/ buko

>>20005716
Anyone inspired by Celine

The Shower

we like to shower afterwards
(I like the water hotter than she)
and her face is always soft and peaceful
and she'll wash me first
spread the soap over my balls
lift the balls
squeeze them,
then wash the cock:
"hey, this thing is still hard!"
then get all the hair down there,-
the belly, the back, the neck, the legs,
I grin grin grin,
and then I wash her. . .
first the ****, I
stand behind her, my cock in the cheeks of her ****
I gently soap up the **** hairs,
wash there with a soothing motion,
I linger perhaps longer than necessary,
then I get the backs of the legs, the ****,
the back, the neck, I turn her, kiss her,
soap up the breasts, get them and the belly, the neck,
the fronts of the legs, the ankles, the feet,
and then the ****, once more, for luck. . .
another kiss, and she gets out first,
toweling, sometimes singing while I stay in
turn the water on hotter
feeling the good times of love's miracle
I then get out. . .
it is usually mid-afternoon and quiet,
and getting dressed we talk about what else
there might be to do,
but being together solves most of it
for as long as those things stay solved
in the history of women and
man, it's different for each-
for me, it's splendid enough to remember
past the memories of pain and defeat and unhappiness:
when you take it away
do it slowly and easily
make it as if I were dying in my sleep instead of in
my life, amen.

So You Want To Be a Writer


So You Want To Be A Writer
if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

>>20005804
uh, this needs a trigger warning!!!

Crucifix In A Deathhand
yes, they begin out in a willow, I think
the starch mountains begin out in the willow
and keep right on going without regard for
pumas and nectarines
somehow these mountains are like
an old woman with a bad memory and
a shopping basket.
we are in a basin. that is the
idea. down in the sand and the alleys,
this land punched-in, cuffed-out, divided,
held like a crucifix in a deathhand,
this land bought, resold, bought again and
sold again, the wars long over,
the Spaniards all the way back in Spain
down in the thimble again, and now
real estaters, subdividers, landlords, freeway
engineers arguing. this is their land and
I walk on it, live on it a little while
near Hollywood here I see young men in rooms
listening to glazed recordings
and I think too of old men sick of music
sick of everything, and death like suicide
I think is sometimes voluntary, and to get your
hold on the land here it is best to return to the
Grand Central Market, see the old Mexican women,
the poor . . . I am sure you have seen these same women
many years before
arguing
with the same young Japanese clerks
witty, knowledgeable and golden
among their soaring store of oranges, apples
avocados, tomatoes, cucumbers -
and you know how these look, they do look good
as if you could eat them all
light a cigar and smoke away the bad world.
then it's best to go back to the bars, the same bars
wooden, stale, merciless, green
with the young policeman walking through
scared and looking for trouble,
and the beer is still bad

>>20005892
2/2

it has an edge that already mixes with vomit and
decay, and you've got to be strong in the shadows
to ignore it, to ignore the poor and to ignore yourself
and the shopping bag between your legs
down there feeling good with its avocados and
oranges and fresh fish and wine bottles, who needs
a Fort Lauderdale winter?
25 years ago there used to be a **** there
with a film over one eye, who was too fat
and made little silver bells out of cigarette
tinfoil. the sun seemed warmer then
although this was probably not
true, and you take your shopping bag
outside and walk along the street
and the green beer hangs there
just above your stomach like
a short and shameful shawl, and
you look around and no longer
see any
old men.

Yes Yes

when God created love he didn't help most
when God created dogs He didn't help dogs
when God created plants that was average
when God created hate we had a standard utility
when God created me He created me
when God created the monkey He was asleep
when He created the giraffe He was drunk
when He created narcotics He was high
and when He created suicide He was low

when He created you lying in bed
He knew what He was doing
He was drunk and He was high
and He created the mountains and the sea and fire at the same time

He made some mistakes
but when He created you lying in bed
He came all over His Blessed Universe.

>>20005776
Damn so Bukowski is behind this type of formating

>>20006406
Poetry is composed like music, prose often like speaking.

Poets are very concious of rhythem and melody and flow and tempo

>>20006406
>>20006856
Relating to phonetics and consonance the way each letter and sound of a word interacts with the others in the vicinity

>>20005792
Is it kind of sad that they censor this? Like what the heck, they didn't censor cock, or context clues, and they didn't censor the general depressive sadness of some of the other poems, but someone thought a human cannot see the word, what I can only assume to be, vagina, that holey place we all come from?

>>20005716
houellebecq is basically bukowski but a little more sophisticated
please don't call me crazy I'm already tired

>>20005804
He's not wrong

in 100 years or so they will recognize him as one of the greats

Friend of mine started drinking everyday and never showering and chain smoking constantly because he idolizes bukowski. He's now just a full blown vagrant alcoholic. He stinks to high heaven and whenever he crashes at someone's place he's never invited back. His smell clings to the couch and he'll drain every bottle of alcohol if it isn't locked up. And he's still not a good writer. So I can't forgive Bukowski.

>>20008183
you're not crazy
you're dogshit fuckin retardo

>>20008400
Based

>le stoic smoker author
Cringe

He has a very eastern style poetic voice, like ancient Chinese zen writers, I wonder what his poetry would have been like if he was born 1500 and lived in mountain monastery or emperor palace

>>20005725
He is much better than that pajette. If you think his poetry is bad you haven’t read enough poetry and likely only hate him because of the edgelords who revere him

He is a very solid poet but a very mediocre novelist, aside from Ham on Rye I couldn’t recommend any of his novels. He writes like Miller or Burroughs but if all the juice was wrung out of it until it was nearly dry

>>20006406
>>20006856
I was referring to that instagram rupi kaur type of writing where almost every word is put into a new line

>>20005716
I hate free verse but he has SOVL

>>20008400
Its not Bukowski's fault you failed your friend

>>20010285
I gotta say I loved post office anon, very entertaining and the prose made it an absolute breeze to read. It’s the only book I’ve ever finished in a single day, sometimes I feel guilty that I wish more people wrote like that.

>>20010881
You can't save some people. You can't save most people in fact.

Did he ever say the nword?

>>20011355
No. Surprisingly he wasn't racist like a lot of people at that time. He identified with the African Americans on skid row a lot.

>>20005716
Burroughs

>>20011570
What is the appeal of Naked Lunch?
I read it. It seems like the most pretentious shit in the world.

>>20011558
>African Americans on skid row
those are the most racist people

>>20011623
What?
Maybe they're racist to whites,
but Bukowski identified with poor people and homeless people a lot as he was going from job to job, sometimes losing his house, several poems lost, etc.

>>20008400
He was never gonna make it judging from him taking bukowskis advice to "being a good writer is to drink smoke fuck" too literal. It's about experience and not following the "healthy" things normie rules who are scared to light a cigarette, but if you think smoking and drinking makes you a good writer on its own you are borderline retarded or at least 100 iq midwit and will never write anything good

>>20005804
one of the worst poems ive ever read

>>20005804
It’s based because it makes people like >>20011846 seethe.

>>20005716
Bukowksi is trash.

>>20011962
it's awful period

why does /lit/ dislike buk? is it because this place is full of low test faggotrons?

I loved Ham on Rye, Factotem, and Post Office. Authentic cynicism without all the cope that usually comes with it is refreshing. The poems make me cringe though.

>>20012146
because its 15 year old edgy tier literature

>>20012155
not really. you sound sheltered and gay.

>>20012128
What about it is awful?
The poem hinges on this section:

""don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it."""

What parts of the poem do you disagree with? What don't you like about it?

>>20012248
it's a trash poem stylistically and the 'message' is some vague subjective platitude about being boring...

>>20005804
>if you have to sit there and
>rewrite it again and again,
>don't do it.

This is literally the worst advice of all time. Writing IS rewriting.

>Don’t get discouraged because there’s a lot of mechanical work to writing. There is, and you can’t get out of it. I rewrote the first part of A Farewell to Arms at least fifty times. You’ve got to work it over. The first draft of anything is shit. When you first start to write you get all the kick and the reader gets none, but after you learn to work it’s your object to convey everything to the reader so that he remembers it not as a story he had read but something that happened to himself.

>>20012269
Perfecting your work isnt the same as trying to force a voice that isnt there

>>20012146
hit the nail on the head

>>20011688
>>20011623
>>20011355
He wrote this story about how he was working in a meat processing factory or something with blacks and he talks about he was malnourished and they kept teasing him and he was trying to work harder than them and eventually he got fired or something. Pretty nice story, don't remember the name though.

Out of all the volumes and volumes of Charles Bukowski poems there are maybe enough good ones to fill a couple dozen pages. His earlier stuff is his best. His constant poems about writing poetry are awful. He didn't have much to say, really. It was a lot of repetitive dog shit.

>>20005716
hes like Bret Easton Ellis on steroids/drugs.
he so based...

>>20012252
Would you agree that generally there are alot of bad books in libraries?

against the wall, the firing squad ready.
then he got a reprieve.
suppose they had shot Dostoevsky?
before he wrote all that?
I suppose it wouldn't have
mattered
not directly.
there are billions of people who have
never read him and never
will.
but as a young man I know that he
got me through the factories,
past the whores,
lifted me high through the night
and put me down
in a better
place.
even while in the bar
drinking with the other
derelicts,
I was glad they gave Dostoevsky a
reprieve,
it gave me one,
allowed me to look directly at those
rancid faces
in my world,
death pointing its finger,
I held fast,
an immaculate drunk
sharing the stinking dark with
my
brothers.

2 Flies

The flies are angry bits of life;
why are they so angry?
it seems they want more,
it seems almost as if they
are angry
that they are flies;
it is not my fault;
I sit in the room
with them
and they taunt me
with their agony;
it is as if they were
loose chunks of soul
left out of somewhere;
I try to read a paper
but they will not let me
be;
one seems to go in half-circles
high along the wall,
throwing a miserable sound
upon my head;
the other one, the smaller one
stays near and teases my hand,
saying nothing,
rising, dropping
crawling near;
what god puts these
lost things upon me?
other men suffer dictates of
empire, tragic love…
I suffer
insects…
I wave at the little one
which only seems to revive
his impulse to challenge:
he circles swifter,
nearer, even making
a fly-sound,
and one above
catching a sense of the new
whirling, he too, in excitement,
speeds his flight,
drops down suddenly
in a cuff of noise
and they join
in circling my hand,
strumming the base
of the lampshade
until some man-thing
in me
will take no more
unholiness
and I strike
with the rolled-up-paper -
missing! -
striking,
striking,
they break in discord,
some message lost between them,
and I get the big one
first, and he kicks on his back
flicking his legs
like an angry ****,
and I come down again
with my paper club
and he is a smear
of fly-ugliness;
the little one circles high
now, quiet and swift,
almost invisible;
he does not come near
my hand again;
he is tamed and
inaccessible; I leave
him be, he leaves me
be;
the paper, of course,
is ruined;
something has happened,
something has soiled my
day,
sometimes it does not
take man
or a woman,
only something alive;
I sit and watch
the small one;
we are woven together
in the air
and the living;
it is late
for both of us.

>>20005716
For poetry? Dunno. For prose? Delicious Tacos.

If you have any of his posthumous poetry collections, they're likely heavily rewritten/expurgated versions that have little to do with Bukowski.

This is from 2013:
https://mjpbooks.com/blog/the-senseless-tragic-rape-of-charles-bukowskis-ghost-by-john-martins-black-sparrow-press/

Some later articles from 2017 and 2018:
https://www.mhpbooks.com/posthumous-charles-bukowski-poems-are-finally-100-dolphin-free/
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/charles-bukowskis-posthumous-poetry-as-the-spirit-wanes-shit-happens/

>>20005716
Haven’t read any of his novels. However, I love his poetry.

>>20008400
Give him a Hemingway book to end it.

>>20014871
damn thats good to know.

>>20013663
>Would you agree that generally there are alot of bad books in libraries?
I was at the library today and there were 100s and 100s maybe 1000s and 1000s of pure there is no series of words to describe the vile worthlessness I suppose sometimes shit can have value but anyway shit.

Shelves and shelves and rows and rows of spiritual death and childish retardation. I suppose to be fair it is incredibly difficult to write a work of fiction of value or importance. And i suppose it better for the public to slurp this slop from here rather than each by their own copy desecrating even more of gods paper and ink.

But to think all this dummy poison was purchased with tax payer funds, this was my communities idea of Alexandria, this the towns living museum to the written word. A conspiricy to dumb and demoralize the citizens, to mock the wretchedness of mychorts illteracy and illtaste, to blaspheme the democracy of pigs. To hate God and Nature so much as to fill my towns temple with the endless detritus of humanities most lessers. To scientifically so strongly tempt the possibility of.

Racks and racks and racks of pointless worthless aboherent deathly books. Who are these creatures that, write, these, who are these creatures that publish these, who are these creatures that read these. Guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty innocent pleasures I suppose.

My fellow man and woman are average, simple humble hard working folks, the world is big and scary and strange. Technology has crept up at the speed of light and engulfed us in it's ceaseless tear. My fellow man and woman require a refuge. Average, simple, humble, hardworking thoughts. At last I understand, and I forgive all.

Also they have a little alcove use book store, $.50 soft back $1.00 hard cover, today I got a small volume of 4 ancient Greek plays, Hamlet, and Candide. I left Romeo and Juliet there. Something about Romeo and Juliet doesn't get me excited, I don't know if it's one of the earlyliest works of lit I encounterd, and was in an uncomfortable state of being for various reasons as a youth when learning it, along with in that class watching the baz lehruman film, as well as the names tibault and marcutio always not tasting plesent for me, as well as I don't know, is there a lack of great poetry as compared to hamlet, or wisdom from say Ceaser or king leer, maybe I should have gotten it to read it. The library does have a great many art books that I do enjoy however, Botticelli pretty much brought me to tears today, and some others reinvigorated my motivation to paint, I was reminded hoe experiencing the greatest art can be one of the greatest inspirations to creating art, for you experience first hand, it's power and value and worth, it eggs you on to try to play it's game.

But what do you guys think of Romeo and Juliet, is it actually poetically, texturally, wisdomically, sublimley, substantial? Is it meant to be an overblown farce

>>20015861
I will try to find the botticelli portrait that made me cry

>>20013663
Yes, because Bukowski is in them.

>>20016369
Never mind, must have been an example of one of his contemporaries in the book, I will find out soon enough

Alone With Everybody

the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.

nobody ever finds
the one.

the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills.

He's hated by people who can't into free verse, but his poems still evoke vivid emotions and scenery, which is the entire point of poetry

>B-But it doesn't RHYME!!!

get fucked bitchboy

Let It Enfold You

Either peace or happiness,
let it enfold you

when I was a young man
I felt these things were
dumb, unsophisticated.
I had bad blood, a twisted
mind, a precarious
upbringing.

I was hard as granite, I
leered at the
sun.
I trusted no man and
especially no
woman.
I was living a hell in
small rooms, I broke
things, smashed things,
walked through glass,
cursed.
I challenged everything,
was continually being
evicted, jailed, in and
out of fights, in and out
of my mind.
women were something
to screw and rail
at, I had no male
friends,

I changed jobs and
cities, I hated holidays,
babies, history,
newspapers, museums,
grandmothers,
marriage, movies,
spiders, garbagemen,
english accents,spain,
france,italy,walnuts and
the color
orange.
algebra angred me,
opera sickened me,
charlie chaplin was a
fake
and flowers were for
pansies.
peace and happiness to me
were signs of
inferiority,
tenants of the weak
and
addled
mind.

but as I went on with
my alley fights,
my suicidal years,
my passage through
any number of
women-it gradually
began to occur to
me
that I wasn't different
from the
others, I was the same,
they were all fulsome
with hatred,
glossed over with petty
grievances,
the men I fought in
alleys had hearts of stone.
everybody was nudging,
inching, cheating for
some insignificant
advantage,
the lie was the
weapon and the
plot was
empty,
darkness was the
dictator.

Cntd

>>20020127

cautiously, I allowed
myself to feel good
at times.
I found moments of
peace in cheap
rooms
just staring at the
knobs of some
dresser
or listening to the
rain in the
dark.
the less I needed
the better I
felt.
maybe the other life had worn me
down.
I no longer found
glamour
in topping somebody
in conversation.
or in mounting the
body of some poor
drunken female
whose life had
slipped away into
sorrow.

I could never accept
life as it was,
i could never gobble
down all its
poisons
but there were parts,
tenuous magic parts
open for the
asking.
I re formulated
I don't know when,
date, time, all
that
but the change
occurred.
something in me
relaxed, smoothed
out.
i no longer had to
prove that I was a
man,

I didn't have to prove
anything.
I began to see things:
coffee cups lined up
behind a counter in a
cafe.
or a dog walking along
a sidewalk.
or the way the mouse
on my dresser top
stopped there
with its body,
its ears,
its nose,
it was fixed,
a bit of life
caught within itself
and its eyes looked
at me
and they were
beautiful.
then- it was
gone.

I began to feel good,
I began to feel good
in the worst situations
and there were plenty
of those.
like say, the boss
behind his desk,
he is going to have
to fire me.

I've missed too many
days.
he is dressed in a
suit, necktie, glasses,
he says, 'I am going
to have to let you go'

'it's all right' I tell
him.

Cntd

>>20020134


The knife got near my
throat again,
I almost turned on the
gas
again
but when the good
moments arrived
again
I didn't fight them off
like an alley
adversary.
I let them take me,
I luxuriated in them,
I made them welcome
home.
I even looked into
the mirror
once having thought
myself to be
ugly,
I now liked what
I saw, almost
handsome, yes,
a bit ripped and
ragged,
scares, lumps,
odd turns,
but all in all,
not too bad,
almost handsome,
better at least than
some of those movie
star faces
like the cheeks of
a baby's
butt.

and finally I discovered
real feelings of
others,
unheralded,
like lately,
like this morning,
as I was leaving,
for the track,
i saw my wife in bed,
just the
shape of
her head there
(not forgetting
centuries of the living
and the dead and
the dying,
the pyramids,
Mozart dead
but his music still
there in the
room, weeds growing,
the earth turning,
the tote board waiting for
me)
I saw the shape of my
wife's head,
she so still,
I ached for her life,
just being there
under the
covers.

I kissed her in the
forehead,
got down the stairway,
got outside,
got into my marvelous
car,
fixed the seatbelt,
backed out the
drive.
feeling warm to
the fingertips,
down to my
foot on the gas
pedal,
I entered the world
once
more,
drove down the
hill
past the houses
full and empty
of
people,
I saw the mailman,
honked,
he waved
back
at me.

Stop posting these shitty sophomoric poems no one cares faggot. Bukowski sucks. Read more.

no u

https://youtu.be/pUeGsTjIj0A
Time to settle it once and for all, who was in the wrong here?

>>20021665
nothing more embarrassing than a man who can't control himself with alcohol acting like a hardass to someone physically weaker than him.

>>20022157
Seemed like a weird situation though, was that his wife?