Bukowski: “These Words I Write Keep Me From Total Madness”

On a whim, I decided to check out the poet and novelist, Henry Charles Bukowski. Actually, the whim was provoked by me watching the movie “Sideways”, where hapless Miles bemoans his sorry existence to Jack, who tries to cheer him up after Miles’ book was rejected for the third (fourth?) time:

Miles: “Half my life is over, and I have nothing to show for it. Nothing. I’m a thumb print on the window of a skyscraper. I’m a smudge of excrement on a tissue surging out to sea with a million tons of raw sewage.”
Jack: “See? Right there. Just what you just said? That is beautiful. ‘A smudge of excrement surging out to sea.’ I could never write that.”
Miles: “Neither could I, actually. I think it’s Bukowski.”

In pursuit of more scatological contemplations, I suppose, I trekked down to the local Borders book store, and to my absolute surprise (and horror), spent half an afternoon sitting on the floor of the “Poetry” section consuming poem after poem, mesmerized by Bukowski’s raw, outrageous writings describing his depraved, alcoholic-induced existence (among his more tame occupations, he wrote a column for a local alternative newspaper called “Notes of a Dirty Old Man”).

After my afternoon of debauchery at Borders, I rented the recent documentary “Bukowski: Born Into This”, and loved it. Turns out Bukowski became fairly good friends with Bono and Sean Penn, and a bunch of other famous people (although Bukowski was generally snubbed by the mainstream literary establishment). The documentary was well done, and showed how disgustingly ugly, but irresistibly pathetic, Bukowski was in all his shameless glory.

I’m frankly shocked that I enjoyed reading Bukowski as much as I did, and am feeling sheepish announcing my fandom (to the entire Internet), because I wonder what conclusions people draw about people who like Bukowski’s work. I’m thus reminded of my high school years when I would instantly lose all respect for a person upon learning that his or her favorite band was “Huey Lewis and the News” or “Mike and the Mechanics”.

At the risk of associating myself with a depraved misogynistic alcoholic, I recommend reading a bit of Bukowski.

Here is one of my favorite of Bukowski’s poems:

“The 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?