Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Born into This

There is a new Charles Bukowski movie out.

I saw it

while my friend

who went with me

slept.

It is pretty good.

Here's a standard review:

Many consider Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century. His poems were simple, raw, and brought the hoity-toity art of poetry down to the masses. He was notorious for drinking, cussing, womanizing, and fighting, which undoubtedly increased his popularity over the years.

Bukowski: Born into This is an excellent introduction to Bukowski. It demonstrates who he is, how he came to be, and best of all, it has lots of footage of the Bukowski himself reading his poems. His voice is raw, hoarse, and he lingers slowly over his words. He gracefully, almost tenderly reads his works, which contrasts sharply with the blunt, dark imagery of his words.

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 pur 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?

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

bukowski to buddhism, some kind of range here.

9:49 AM  
Blogger oZ said...

Bukowski's last night of the earth poems are pretty wise. maybe not Buddha wise, but certainly bubba wise.

8:59 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Bukowski was a total buttuski.

3:38 PM  
Blogger oZ said...

Probably. And, your point is?

12:21 PM  

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