What is your favorite Charles Bukowski poem?

Answer 1

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Charles Bukowski is my favorite poet. I'm glad to see a question about him. the crunch (2) is my favorite poem by him, it's in "what matters most is how well you walk through the fire."

"and the beads swing and the clouds obscure
and dogs piss upon rose bushes
the killer beheads the child like taking a bite
out of an ice cream cone
while the ocean comes in and goes out
in and out
in the thrall of a senseless moon."

Source(s):

what matters most is how well you walk through the fire.

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Asker's Comment:

I met a genius on the train today . . .

Answer 2

I have read maybe ten things by him and felt like I was reading a diary by Hallmark Cards. I tend to react badly to anything I perceive as beat influenced (Jack Kerouac makes me nauseous.) and while some argue that Bulowski is not a beat, if it walks like a duck and sounds like a duck...

I LOVE the composer-actor-musician Tom Waits however and although he has read many Bukowski poems aloud to his deficit, there is one time he makes it work, although probably I am being taken in by the twilight zone mood music he adds to the verse.

The piece is called Nirvana. Below is Tom Wait's version. I suspect, given that it is Bukowski, that it must have been edited for sense.

Source(s):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-yuYFuc2…

Answer 3

there are so many great ones.

the one that always stood out to me was "poem for my daughter."