I think I have a New Favorite Poem (1 Viewer)

esart

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Hi All. I haven't been here in a while. I've been busy. Excuse the absence, but I'm still alive unfortunately. Anyway.

The Crunch
has always been my favorite poem. Not that it's not anymore, but today I was reading Something For The Touts, The Nuns, The Grocery Clerks And You and I don't remember reading it before. Not really anyway. It's fucking brilliant.

I haven't been reading much Bukowski lately, but today I was poking around. I was actually looking for a line about winter. I send out newsletters and usually use a line from one of his poems in the upper left corner instead of an email description, and since my newsletters are seasonal, I try to loosely base them on the weather or some such. I decided that I'm going to use something from Winterlost, but I don't know what lines I'll be using yet.

So, just checking in.

Now everybody go read the "Nuns" poem!
 
I think that's one of his great poems. It's got some great lines such as, "...some men doing it at Palm Springs laying it into butterblondes with Cadillac souls...", and, " ... the day of the bosses, yellow men with bad breath and big feet, men who look like frogs, hyenas, men who walk as if melody had never been invented...", etc.etc. No wonder, you like it.
 
That wound up being in half a dozen books, but I always thought it was funny that he didn't even remember it...

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I was just going to quote that second one. That's a great one, but yes, there are some great lines in there.

Another one:

"...the signs in bullrings like diamonds hollering
Mother Capri, violets coming out of the ground
telling you to forget the dead armies and the loves
that robbed you."
 
Those are great lines too. There's so many great lines in that poem. I don't understand how he could forget about having written the poem.
 
Something for the Touts ... is one of Bukowskis all-time-greats.

Beside the content I always loved the rhythm. I have the impression it's very symphonic, like you can almost feel the music through Bukowski was listening to while writing this poem.

That he couldn't remember writing it is like Beethoven listening to the beginning of his 5th and saying: "Oh I wrote that? Well, not bad ..."
 
one of my faves too - so many great lines - "the rain on the window trying to get through to you"

he gives a great reading of it on "90 minutes" disc -


Those are great lines too. There's so many great lines in that poem. I don't understand how he could forget about having written the poem.

Because he was a natural genius.

and/or because he was drunk :DD
 
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I was just going to quote that second one. That's a great one, but yes, there are some great lines in there.

Another one:

"...the signs in bullrings like diamonds hollering
Mother Capri, violets coming out of the ground
telling you to forget the dead armies and the loves
that robbed you."

That quote always reminds me of Bob Dylan's equally great lines in the last verse of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" from the same year as "Something for the Touts..." was written:

"Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you
Forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you
The vagabond who’s rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore
Strike another match, go start anew
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue"
 
after re-listening to that - that poem is packed with more brilliant lines than maybe any other of his that i can think of!

it just keeps going and going. and i love his reading cause he really seems to get into it.
 
what's that from?

btw i didn't know "fagged" was a word - extremely tired; exhausted.

i thought it was a mispronounce of something in the reading i posted.
 
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Everything and nothing...so good.

I am pretty sure I use that "everything and nothing" bit in the little art movie I have been making. Quoting Bukowski and not even knowing it. Ha!

...It's actually a pretty ethereal concept really. That's how I use it anyway. But it applies to the harsh realities in the poem just as much as anything. Perhaps more.
 
The first reading-version, from the LP or somesuch, when he was rather young is compelling, intense and fresh, in a way. Sounds like he wrote right before stepping up to the mike.

It may well be from the Cold Turkey Press Special, but is´nt it also the same version of the poem we find on the Bukowski At Bellevue VHS/DVD?
 
btw i didn't know "fagged" was a word - extremely tired; exhausted.
"checkerboard days with moves and countermoves, fagged interest, with as much sense in defeat as in victory;..."

So fagged interest is an advantage you had to work really hard for?
 
I think it means a loss of interest. If defeat and victory are about the same, why bother making moves to try to win?

Don't try
. So to speak. Whatever's going to happen is going to happen.
 

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