Reading Charles Bukowski now almost seven years beyond his death can only be compared to drinking many good good bottles of aged red French wine. Or are there other things to compare with the experience? Is that too corny? Sentimental? I suppose. What can one write? It is like seeing a giraffe kiss an anteater? Imagine their purple tongues coiling about. It is like exploring the oceans of Europa? Ah the radiation mirco-waving my skin. How to review a giant? It is the problem the Lilliputians had with Gulliver. Nevertheless, Bukowski has immense posthumous power. Bukowski's particular and unique point of view comes crisp and still clearly forward. So much can be said. So short a space. And each individual fan will have such a different take. So, it is obvious then, no matter if one likes it or not, Bukowski is literature. Perhaps it is best just to savor in so short a space as this. I guess, yes. In so many ways this is just a puff and an homage. So be it and so what. Readers are what keeps Bukowski alive. Here are my new favorites:
"Polish Sausage." In the poem "Polish Sausage" Bukowski relates a trip to meet some friends of an unidentified - her - up in the mountains. And when they, Bukowski and her, arrive, Bukowski finds the most banal world. He writes,
there was a young girl in the yard planting a young
tree.
there was a young man there
too.
we went inside and drank some beer.
there was a parrot with a very yellow
head.
there was a bag of dry cookies.
Who hasn't suffered such at the hands of the vapid lives of mediocre
hairless great apes? I have. I have too often. And then in the poem,
"Swinging from the Hook," Bukowski's ponders,
and then I get that thought I wonder why it is
that
I am allowed to drive my car at all?
it doesn't seem right that I am allowed to turn and
stop and start and speed just like
that old lady in the green Ford and blue hat I
saw a few hours ago….
Existence! Existence. Oh the suffering of we humans. Certainly, it doesn't
seem right that I sit here and type. I shudder. I should be an anteater
kissing a fire hydrant or a South American sloth bear. Or I should be a
rotting pear surrounded by vulture fruit flies. And then Oh Buk in heaven is
it like, is It, the Big Heaven like the incident in your poem, "Social
Butterfly." Is it? Oh are all the angels like all the human idiots?
Bukowski writes:
… it's best to keep acting, look
normal, hide in the crowd and stay our of sight and
the best way to hide is to act just like everybody else.
Grateful, Oh Bukowski, for bringing the lives of all of us humble readers
into focus, into the rhythm of the great wheel of life where death is as
beautiful as life. Bukowski writes in his poem, "The Strange Workings of the
Dark Life,"
thanks the bluebird
in the mouth of the cart
with tender whiskers
and the padded feet of
death.
Bukowski Unleashed, Bukowski Journal, No. 1.
- Edited by Rikki Hollywood. The
Price for Bukowski Journal No. 1 with free Bukowski & the Beats CD is $25.00
by US Cheque payable to R. Hollywood (price includes transaction charge to
convert US bucks to British pounds and postage to USA) or $20.00
international money order. Address is R. Hollywood, P. O. Box 11271 Wood
Green London, N22 4Bf UK. Or email bukzine@aol.com
This magazine was certainly a most pleasant surprise. It is perfect bound
and has a paper wrapper and an R. Cumb image of Bukowski on it. It is a 160
pages long. A treat. And oh. My opinion: one of the better things to happen
to Bukowski in recent times. Certainly there is a Bukowski industry in full
swing. Bukowski Unleashed, AKA, Bukowski Journal No. 1 is both hard core
literature, academic interpretation of the great one and fan-zine. On the
heady side is a most interesting well-researched and provocative long essay
by Neil Schiller called, "Social Mechanics and American Morality: the
meanings of nothingness in the prose and poetry of Charles Bukowski." There
are then other authors who relate personal memoirs and a fine section of the
editor's synopsis statements of the Buk's major books. There are reviews of
various related books, for instance Davie S. Zane and R. Crumb's
Introduction to Kafka, reviews of books about Buk, lists and comments about
Buk videos and movies and there are lots of caricatures of Bukowski. All
around solid and fun and useful to the fan and scholar, casual reader and
loyalist. Of course you get a CD free with the issue. I am listening to
Kerouac as I write (Burroughs, Ginsberg etc. plus the Buk on the CD). R.
Hollywood also deals in Buk books and like publications, has any number of
Buk's tapes available and has a monthly Buk list. For the serious Buk fan,
reader, for the amateur and beginner Bukster and for anyone interested in
any Bukoanlia: Bukowski Unleashed, Bukowski Journal, Number One is something you must hold in one of your hands. In the other hand, well, a beer, or a smoke or the tongue of a leopard ...whatever.
.
Michael Basinski
©2001 the-hold.com
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