Charles Bukowski - The Continual Condition

Today is Charles Bukowski's birthday. He's been dead for 16 years. The passage of time, while unremarkable on many levels, continues to blow me away when you consider how fast it all goes down the drain. While Bukowski has been dead for some time, his estate continues to publish books of his poetry. I guess he was on a tear there, you know. Bukowski is an almost completely artless poetry writer, but they are funny and insightful and worth reading.

Here's some good ones from The Continual Condition, the most recently released volume of the never ending stream of his previously unpublished poems.

from this flag not waiving fondly

now it's computers and more computers
and soon everybody will have one,
3-year-olds will have computers
and everybody will know everything
about everybody else
long before they meet them
and so they won't want to meet them.
nobody will want to meet anybody
else ever again
and everybody will be
a recluse
like I am now.

from heavy dogs in cement shoes

I never consider a man
insane
when he disagrees or acts
contrary to
the few things I believe
have value.
I then only consider him
to be
a dull and dumb
fellow
more to be avoided
than to be
attacked.

from moving toward age 73

yes, it's true-I'm mellowing.
in the old days
to cross my room you'd have to
step around and between empty
bottles.
now after I empty them
I stack them neatly in paper
cartons.
I'm a good citizen now, I save
the bottles for the city of Los
Angeles to
recycle.
and I haven't seen the inside
of a drunk tank for a good ten
years.
(I lock the door when I drink
and only inflict damage upon
myself.)
boring, isn't it?
but not too bad, listening to
Mahler as the walls
dance.
as a recluse it's enough for
me.
so now I'm turning the streets back
over to you,
tough guy.