THE SUN, THE BUSHES, THE HELL OF IT - The Little Magazine Issue No. 2 & 3, 1972 (1 Viewer)

[Days runaway]

Arrived today and --as promised--here are Bukowski's contributions. I really like " Brainless Eyes" ( wherein Bukowski provides the reader with a typical day--morning noon and night) and thought it was uncollected until I noticed ( in your database ) that it has been collected in the 2007 book "The People Look Like Flowers At Last". . amazing that such a well written memorable poem ( in my humble opinion) had to wait 35 years before being collected. I believe the poem first appeared in this issue ( not in your Buk Mag database). Don't know much about the other poem but assumed it was never collected?

--Days

 

[zobraks]

for keeping your promise, Days.

amazing that such a well written memorable poem ( in my humble opinion) had to wait 35 years before being collected.

It must have been in the infamous "archive of unpublished work that Charles Bukowski left to be published after his death" (because Martin didn't want to flood the market).

 

[David]

amazing that such a well written memorable poem ( in my humble opinion) had to wait 35 years before being collected.

You should note that the poem had to wait thirty-five years not to be collected but to be butchered. The following changes have been made in The People Look Like Flowers at Last:
In stanza two, line 5 has been changed from "and victory is celebrated" to "and victory is celebrated only"
lines five to end changed from "and victory is celebrated/by indecent ladies/with tight twats/and brainless eyes" to "and victory is celebrated only/by indecent ladies/with spread legs/and brainless eyes" [some of the best lines of the poem have been changed to a PG-13 rating]
Stanza three changed from "at noon/say at noon you know/say at noon/something happens finally" to "at noon,/say at noon,/something happens/finally
4 is changed from "the traffic moves through/the signal changes" to "the signal changes/the traffic moves through"
5 is changed from "life is not the miracle" to "life itself is not the miracle"
6 is changed from "and all the guns and murder and treachery/of the continents and the friends and the loves/and the people/move through you" changed to "and the murder and treachery/of friends and lovers/and all the people/move through you"
7 is changed from "pain is the joy of knowing/the unkindest truths/that arrive without searching" to "pain is the joy of knowing/the unkindest truth/that arrives without/warning"
8 is changed from "all life is being alone/all death is being alone" to "life is being alone/death is being alone"

 

[Erik]

Thru the "brainless eyes" of John Martin "tight twats" is edited to "spread legs."
Both meaning and aliteration lost.

It never, never ends.

Thanks for rescuing another poem from the butcher!

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Those are very, very good. Thank you for sharing. This is the period I always felt he was just nailing it, more than the earlier stuff and better than some of the stuff that came later. And this is also the time he's still writing really great shorts, which I love as much as the poems... And a good part of what's going on is still outside of BSP at this point.