What sometimes did happen is that Bukowski sent Martin a poem and later on -usually a month or two- a revised version of the same poem (without a word of warning). Martin used one of the versions while B. was alive and then used the second version (which Bukowski had revised years ago, probably changing the title) in a posthumous collection.
Indeed, we have examples of the same poem - in sometimes quite different form - in two separate manuscripts. I intend to put up a page of examples of those when I finish the latest manuscript additions (a long time from now).
But in comparing those different versions I think you'll find that though they may have been different, they were still
Bukowski. This co-opting of
big grey balloon things, heavy, is most definitely
not Bukowski:
elephants in the zoo
in the afternoon
they lean against
one another
and you can see how much
they like the sun.
Pleasures of the Damned - 2007
That is simply, and undeniably, the diminishing of his work. The dumbing down of his genius for laying out a scene and making the reader feel something. Even if that something is trivial.
Shit like
elephants in the zoo is inexcusable and should be pointed out and dismissed for what it is: Martin's ham-handed
bullshit.
Let me be clear here; my intention in building the database and making these manuscripts available in one place was never to prove or disprove anything about Martin. My opinion on what Martin did is a
result of the work, not the reason for it. I did not go into it with the intention of bringing what I can only describe as
carnage to light. That just happened by itself.
And at this point in time, I'm afraid that I'm way beyond being able to give Martin the benefit of the doubt where these differences are concerned. Quite the opposite; now I assume that the changes were made at Black Sparrow. If not by Martin himself, by someone who worked for him. Someone who was not Bukowski.