Bukowski's "mine" (1 Viewer)

[jddougher]

I re-read this poem today. It's in The Days Run Away...

I love it.

-----------------

mine

She lays like a lump
I can feel the great empty mountain
of her head.
But she is alive. She yawns and
scratches her nose and
pulls up the cover.
Soon I will kiss her goodnight
and we will sleep.
and far away is Scotland
and under the ground the
gophers run.
I hear engines in the night
and through the sky a white
hand whirls:
good night, dear, good night.

------------
Does anyone know whom Bukowski wrote this about?

I remember when I was a young man trying to be a poet, I held this poem in high esteem. The lines "and far away is Scotland / and under the ground the / gophers run" was maddeningly great to me. It was maddening because I wasn't sure how Bukowski could come up with those lines, which seem to have no obvious connection to one another. This, I thought, was why Bukowski was Bukowski and the rest of us were the rest of us.

Scotland and gophers? Please, help us. Help us to understand this juxtaposition.

Probably Bukowski could not help us. Did these lines come from some intense state of inebriation? To the reader, I suggest, they are delightfully appropriate. But why?

If I were able to interview Bukowski now, I would attempt to focus on such associative elements in his verse. He may very well have had no patience for such ruminations. But I suspect he would have.

 

[Skygazer]

I re-read this poem today. It's in The Days Run Away...
I love it.
mine
Does anyone know whom Bukowski wrote this about?

? Jane CooneyBaker
Just a guess, but given the book is dedicated to "Jane" and the poem that comes on the nest page called " Freedom" to me, is also about Jane, but am probably wrong, just think it's her.

Plus, being a grammar geek here, although like the poem, the first line should be; "lies like a lump" I think? but poets get to play around with grammar, s'pose.

 

[Purple Stickpin]

Jane Cooney Baker is certainly the most likely candidate. The line
"Soon I will kiss her goodnight
and we will sleep"
certainly reads as if they would sleep together.

The only other candidate I can think of would be his daughter, Marina.

 

[roni]

given it's the same 'mine' as this one (1957), Jane is a good bet, while we can rule out Marina.

 

[mjp]

He may very well have had no patience for such ruminations. But I suspect he would have.

He did not enjoy ruminating on such things with interviewers, as almost all of his interviews demonstrate. After the 1960s it would have been very difficult to get him to talk about his poetry in the way you would have liked to talk to him about it.