New Poems Book One - Charles Bukowski

 NEW POEMS BOOK ONE - CHARLES BUKOWSKI

Charles Bukowski was never an alcoholic as such, though he was certainly a drunkard. Let's just say he liked a bit of a drink and that he made a good drunk, if there can be such a thing? Bukowski knew how to drink. Often he would just shut himself up in his rented room, close the curtains, prop himself up on his bed and swig down bottles of the most noxious, cheapest wine he could find and drink himself into oblivion. He knew, however, to always lie on his side when slipping into unconsciousness so as not to end up choking on his own vomit. It's the little things in life such as this that are important and what differentiates the amateur from the professional. It's a sort of life skill, in a way. One that in the scheme of things is probably more important than being able to write. And Charles Bukowski certainly knew how to write, just as certainly as he knew how to drink.

New Poems Book One is part of an archive of  work that Bukowski left to be published after his death in 1994. It's a collection of random poems though I'd hazard a guess and say a fair few of them were originally written as vignettes and then edited into poems. Some of them are but cursory glances and wry observations but others are moments of reflection and illumination captured for eternity.

In one piece, entitled The Column, Bukowski describes how in 1942 at the age of 21 he's sitting on a park bench alongside a bunch of other bums when 'the war chariots' roll by, and how the soldiers on their way to war see him and hate him. Bukowski describes the soldiers yelling, cursing and screaming at him because they want him to be going with them. After the column passes, one of the old bums next to him asks Bukowski why he's not in the Service, at which Bukowski gets up and walks down to the public library where he sits down at a table and starts reading. The meaning of the book is too deep for him, however, so he puts it back on the shelf and walks back outside 'to wait'.

There are some who won't understand what Bukowski is talking about here but for those who do, it's like suddenly recognising a kindred spirit.

If you feel there's something wrong with the world, something you can see with your own eyes but that you can't put into words, then what do you do? Well, there's very little that you can do. How can you talk about it if you don't have the words? How do you explain not only to others but to yourself? And then one day if you finally have the words then who do you talk to if others don't share those words also? The answer is that you don't talk, you write. And that's exactly what Charles Bukowski did.

In a piece entitled Commerce, Bukowski remembers his father's words of 'work hard and you'll be appreciated' but later Bukowski learns that this is true only if you make much more for them than they pay you. 'America at work, where they rip out your intestines and your brain and your will and your spirit. They suck you dry, then throw you away. The capitalist system. The work ethic. The profit motive.'

In another piece entitled The Great Escape, Bukowski relays a conversation between himself and a colleague at work one day, where his colleague is comparing working for the postal service to a bucket full of crabs. Every now and then, his colleague tells him, a crab will climb on top of the others and begin to climb toward the top of the bucket and just as it's about to escape, another crab will grab it and pull it back down. Mid-conversation, a supervisor approaches Bukowski and his colleague and says 'you fellows were talking. There is no talking allowed on this job'.

Eleven and one-half years Bukowski has been working there so he gets up off his stool and climbs right up the supervisor, reaches up and pulls himself right out of there. 'It was so easy it was unbelievable,' Bukowski writes 'but none of the others followed me, And after that, whenever I had crab legs I thought about that place. I must have thought about that place maybe 5 or 6 times - before I switched to lobster.'

Bukowski became a writer and years later as he describes in another piece entitled About The Mail, people write to him to say that his books have helped them through tough times. And there was Bukowski thinking his writing was for the purpose of keeping him from going under but it now appears he's helped any number of others. 'Well, being helped happened to me too,' he writes, and then goes on to list those who he means: 'Celine, Dostoevsky, Fante, early Saroyan, Turgenev, Gorky, Sherwood Anderson, Robinson Jeffers, E E Cummings, Blake, Lawrence and many others.'

It's an interesting reading list, particularly in regard to his admission in The Column that he didn't understand the book he had pulled off the shelf at the library and therefore had 'to wait'. Waiting obviously paid off because once he was ready he devoured the most heaviest of books and this time understood their meaning. Consecutively his own writing came bursting out of him. Roaring out of him, even, as it should do if you're ever going to call yourself a writer.

Bukowski can be a divisive figure. His writing appeals to some but to others it repels. It's undeniable, however, that when he's good he's very, very good indeed. The main problem with him was that he was never consistently good and sometimes came across as a sexist, negative boor. Happily, there's no such problems here in this particular book.

John Serpico

The Captain Is Out To Lunch And The Sailors Have Taken Over The Ship - Charles Bukowski

THE CAPTAIN IS OUT TO LUNCH AND THE SAILORS HAVE TAKEN OVER THE SHIP - CHARLES BUKOWSKI

Written in the style of his classic newspaper columns disguised as diary entries, The Captain Is Out To Lunch And The Sailors Have Taken Over The Ship was published in 1988, four years after Charles Bukowski's death and was the last thing he ever wrote. Bukowski was 71 years-old and having survived the senselessness of life he was only too aware that the end was fast approaching. What then to do with the finite time left to a man? Never mind 'to be or not to be', that is the question.  Having spent his life drinking and fighting and in the spaces in-between working dead end jobs, going hungry, reading books and writing, Bukowski gets to wondering what is a life well spent? 'Most people's deaths are a sham. There's nothing left to die.' Bukowski writes 'Sometimes I feel as if we are all trapped in a movie. We know our lines, where to walk, how to act, only there is no camera. Yet, we can't break out of the movie. And it's a bad one.'

Has Bukowski's life been a wasted one? Hardly. At least no more wasted than anyone else's. His life's saving grace, of course, has been his writing and it's that flame that he has kept alight through the thick and thin right up to the point of where he is at the age of 71. 'The whole world is a sack of shit ripping open. I can't save it. But I've gotten many letters from people who claim that my writing has saved their asses. But I didn't write for that, I wrote it to save my own ass. I was a fool. And yet, even when I was a fool I knew that I wasn't a complete fool. I had some little corner of me that I was protecting, there was something there.'

Bukowski is hardly a role model and his cynicism is often over-bearing but there are aspects to him that are identifiable particularly in regard to his love of 'the word' and his respect for the masters of it. The Great Writers. The Great Novelists. They are the only people he's ever really respected and the inspiration he has derived from them is the fuel to his own creativity. They were the keys to the unlocking of the doors to his own writing and to the release of the words that have subsequently poured forth. It was they who first lit the fire he has shielded and kept alight his whole life. This, in my eyes, is a significant point because in my own small way I have also endeavoured to keep a little flame alight. A candle lit to the act of writing.

On leaving school at aged 16 I can guarantee that most of my peer group never used a pen again and the closest most would get to writing anything nowadays would be when sending a text message or some kind of work-related report. I guarantee it. Whether it's actually important or not I don't know but I feel that once you discover something of some semblance of good within yourself you should try at least to keep it alive. This is what I think Bukowski is saying and it's this that he ruminates on in this book alongside horse racing, humankind, readers, specific writers, workers, gamblers, life, death, the universe and everything therein.

Whereby in the past Bukowski would always use a typewriter, at this late stage in his life he uses a computer of which he extols its virtues. No dyed-in-the-wool traditionalist he possessed of misguided notions of the purity of the soul transferred through the click clack of tapped keys. No, a computer makes the act of writing that much easier that subsequently makes for an easier life. As he said, he might be a fool but he's not a complete fool.

At one point in the book Bukowski writes about him and his wife being invited to a concert by a millionaire rock musician who reads his books and how during the set the rock star announces to the audience of 25,000 people "This concert is dedicated to Linda and Charles Bukowski!" 25,000 people then cheer as if they know who the Bukowski's are. It's great that rock stars read his work, Bukowski thinks, but so too do men in jails and madhouses. So what's the difference? Though he doesn't name them, the band that Bukowski is referring to can only be U2 whom he describes as being 'simplistic' and what a very apt description, it must be said.

At the after-show party in the VIP bar Bukowski wonders what he's doing there among the rich and famous who though he doesn't dislike at all, he knows he has very little in common with and is not impressed by. In fact the one person he finds he has something in common with and has respect for is the huge black bartender who Bukowski at first light-heartedly offers outside for a fight. The bartender, however, actually knows who Bukowski is from reading his Notes Of A Dirty Old Man columns of old in the LA free press. "Well, I'll be god-damned," Bukowski says and they shake hands. The fight was off. For Bukowski, meeting this bartender is better than meeting Bono and the various actors and film directors also present.

The Captain Is Out To lunch And The Sailors Have Taken Over The Ship is illustrated throughout with pictures drawn by Robert Crumb - another so-called derelict loser from the Sixties of a life mis-spent - and it's a perfect match. Crumb obviously knows where Bukowski's coming from and captures him perfectly in his classic black-and-white pen and ink style that makes for the book being even better, more of a novelty, and even more worthy of reading.

John Serpico

Post Office - Charles Bukowski

POST OFFICE – CHARLES BUKOWSKI

When I first read Post Office by Charles Bukowski as a teenager I didn't really rate it. Reading it again years later, however, I appreciate it much more and am duly impressed. Why might this be? Age and experience, I presume? As a teenager I would have had little concept of the world of work apart from the fact that I didn't wish to get too heavily involved in it. Having now worked at a variety of jobs of the kind that Bukowski writes about in Post Office, I can now understand where he's coming from. In addition, now that I know a bit more about Bukowski and thanks to YouTube have now heard his beautiful voice, I appreciate him much more as a writer.

Post Office is a book that probably everyone should read, particularly those stuck in low-paid, menial, exploitative jobs. And believe me, that's a lot of people. Bukowski nails it again and again by highlighting all the small but universal things that come with having a crap job. The low pay (of course), the impossible hours, the petty rules, the strict productivity, the impossibility of saving anything from the low wages, the overtime to make ends meet, the mealy-minded managers, the constant tiredness, the resultant ill health, the high turnover of staff, the cretinous work colleagues, the constant fear and threat of dismissal, the repetitiveness, the stupidity, etc, etc.

That's not to say it's all doom and gloom because when you're working in a low-paid, menial job there is always a dark humour to it. For those who have a sense of the ridiculous there is never ending laughter to be had either at your own expense or the expense of those in job positions above that of your own.

And so it is with Bukowski's Post Office. There is a sense of humour that pervades the whole book be it when he's writing about his job or when he's relaying comic tales from his social life. Alongside this there is also madness, sadness, celebration and hope. All the stuff of life, essentially.

Bukowski weathers the storm and at the end makes his move to a better life by resigning from his job after enduring it for twelve long years. Not to move into better employment but to move away from employment altogether for the sake of his health, his sanity, his soul – and for the hell of it.

'Maybe I'll write a novel,' Bukowski thinks to himself. And so he did, and he called it Post Office.

There's a quote by Charles Bukowski where he says: 'How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 8.30am by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?'

Is this not a universal truth? There are jobs that can be enjoyed, of course, and there is such a thing as the dignity of labour but when you're talking about low-paid, menial, exploitative jobs this all goes out the window. The tragedy of it is that a huge swath of people have no other option but to work in such jobs if they wish to survive in the world. You work or you starve. You work or you lose your home. You work or you die. Or so we're led to believe. The even greater tragedy of it is that still to this day nothing is very different to how it's always been and in many ways is actually even worse now.

It's just the way it is, you might say? And you wouldn't be wrong. But does that mean it's just the way it's always going to be? Does that mean it must only get worse, with all those stuck in the drudgery of rubbish jobs being ground down ever further year after year, generation after generation?

There must be some kind of way out of the poverty trap, surely? And there is. For the individual – on their own – there are indeed ways to strike out for a better life. In Post Office, Bukowski writes his way out using the subject of his job at the post office as source material, along with tales of his life in the gutter as he looks up at the stars. And that's fine. That's all well and good. But rather than individuals escaping one at a time, what is really required is for there to be a mass breakout, for everyone to escape en masse and for there to be no-one left behind. For until all are free, none are free.

That is the dream...

John Serpico

Factotum - Charles Bukowski

FACTOTUM - CHARLES BUKOWSKI

I didn't know what the word 'factotum' meant so I googled it and lo and behold, it means 'a person who does all kinds of work'. You learn something new every day.

Factotum is also the title of Charles Bukowski's second novel, published in 1975 though set just at the end of World War Two. It chronicles him (or rather, his alter ego Henry Chinaski) going from one dead end job to another, maintaining a healthy drinking habit along with the inevitable hangovers. Going from one cheap boarding house and rented room to another, encountering and more often than not doing his best to avoid all the people in a similar situation to himself. It's a bleak, miserable and depressing story but for all that, it has its moments.

Chinaski's a writer and it's from his writing that he wants to make a living but that's easier said than done. His constant drunkenness thwarts him from holding down any job for very long but that's okay because there's always another equally rubbish job to move on to. Or at least there was in those days.

What's more troubling and far more depressing than the world as depicted in Factotum is that nowadays if anyone gets a rubbish job - and there are plenty out there that can suck the life, the blood and the soul from you and all for a basic minimum wage - then they cling to it like a drowning man to a raft in an ocean of circling sharks. It's a constant state of despair battered further by the imposition of austerity measures whilst the rich get richer. Is it any wonder that when there's a riot, alongside lobbing bricks at police, people make a grab for a few commodities out of smashed shop windows?

Chinaski's actually a very funny guy, talking to those he encounters with short, wry comments loaded with an awareness of the absurdity of the situation they're all in. There's also a cruel, mocking element to many of his comments as if to say 'At least I know this is all fucked up, which is more than you seem to'.

There's also, however, a respect for those ducking and diving in a bid to get by and for those who are genuinely witty without even having to try. Respect is also shown to those possessed of a similar awareness, even if they're drowning it in booze as he is doing: "Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn't have you by the throat."

One of the high points of Chinaski's confessions is when he receives a letter from a New York-based magazine he admires by the name of Frontfire that he's been sending countless stories to in the hope of being published. Receiving rejection slips is the norm until one day he returns home from another day at another rubbish job to find an envelope addressed to him containing an acceptance slip for one of his stories (entitled My Beerdrunk Soul Is Sadder Than All The Dead Christmas Trees Of The World).

It's his very first acceptance slip and he can hardly believe it: "From the number one literary magazine in America. Never had the world looked so good, so full of promise." It's a very sweet moment but is countered later on in the book when he tries to get a job as a reporter with a Los Angeles newspaper. He fills out an application form and surprisingly gets a telephone call back from them:"Mr Chinaski?" "Yes?" "This is the Times Building." "Yes?" "We've reviewed your application and would like to employ you." "Reporter?" "No, maintenance man and janitor."

It's yet another depressing episode being added to the pile though coloured with a sense of humour to help swill the bitterness down.

Whilst employed at another rubbish job, he's called into the office one day by the boss of the company who is sat there with another man, both smoking expensive cigars.

"This is my friend, Carson Gentry," says the boss to Chinaski "Mr Gentry is a writer too. He is very interested in writing. I told him that you were a writer and he wanted to meet you. You don't mind, do you?"

"No I don't mind," Chinaski replies.

The two men both sit there looking at Chinaski as they smoke their cigars. Minutes pass. They inhale, exhale, and continue to look at him without saying a word.

"Do you mind if I leave?" Chinaski asks. "It's all right," says the boss.

Walking home later on, Chinaski ponders the difference between him and the two men smoking their cigars who have sat there looking at him in silence. "Were they that much more clever than I?" he wonders. He concludes the only difference is money, and the desire to accumulate it, along with the will to bleed and burn your fellow man and build an empire upon the broken bodies and lives of helpless men, women and children.

All that Chinaski wants is to be a writer, a problem being, however, that almost everybody thought they could be a writer too. Almost everybody used words and could write them down, meaning almost everybody could indeed be a writer if they chose to. Fortunately, Chinaski thinks to himself, most men aren't writers and some men - many men - unfortunately aren't anything at all.

His dream is realised in the end, of course, and Chinaski (Bukowski) over thirty years has thirty-two books of his poetry published, five books of his short stories, four novels, plus the screenplay to the film Barfly starring Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway. Factotum too has been made into a film starring Matt Dillon (which is up on YouTube, as is Barfly).

Factotum is bleak, miserable and depressing though within its pages are glimmers of hope and rays of light and that's much better and much more than a lot of other books I could mention.

John Serpico

Notes Of A Dirty Old Man - Charles Bukowski

NOTES OF A DIRTY OLD MAN -
 CHARLES BUKOWSKI

It was the sex fuhrer/tattooed beat messiah Zodiac Mindwarp himself who first introduced me to Charles Bukowski's Notes Of A Dirty Old Man when many years ago he advised that this particular book was his bible. I promptly sought out Bukowski's works and read two of his novels, Post Office and The Most Beautiful Girl In Town but I must admit I wasn't overly enamoured by them. Perhaps my expectations were too high? Or perhaps at that time I was? They weren't bad books in the slightest but they just didn't grab me.

Years later, I finally get round to reading the specific book Zodiac was referring to and I'm flabbergasted by just how good it is. Titter ye not, as Frankie Howard would say. Bukowski's writing explodes, pops and fizzes like a firework. In fact, almost every sentence in every paragraph explodes, pops and fizzes with a new thought, a new idea or a new turn of phrase as if he was writing for his life and in many ways I guess he actually was. He was writing for his rent, for his next meal and to be able to get drunk - and not necessarily in that order. He was writing to survive.

Notes Of A Dirty Old Man is a collection of the columns Bukowski wrote for a free alternative newspaper in Los Angeles during the late Sixties by the name of Open City. It's here that he was given free rein to write about anything he wished and it's here that he found his true voice.

'One day after the races, I sat down and wrote the heading, opened a beer, and the writing got done by itself', as he explains in the introduction 'There seemed to be no pressures. Just sit by the window, lift the beer and let it come. Think of it yourself: absolute freedom to write anything you please. Hit the typer on a Friday or a Saturday or a Sunday and by Wednesday the thing is all over the city. People come to my door - too many of them really - and tell me that Notes turns them on. A doctor comes to my door: "I read your column and I think that I can help you. I used to be a psychiatrist".'

It's from here that Bukowski created his art, delivered in a certain style that's clearly been much copied but never bettered. There's a world weariness in his writing that can be a little depressing at times as though he's down with the blues and the only way out is to have another drink but - and it's a big but - when he's relaying anecdotes about meeting Neal Cassidy (of Kerouac's On The Road fame) or delivering tales of drunken escapades with fellow barflies, or giving state of the Union addresses, Bukowski is utterly brilliant.

'What is not in the open street is false derived, that is to say, literature,' said Henry Miller. Bukowski, however, was not so much writing of the open street but of the bars and the gutters. 'We are all of us in the gutter,' said Oscar Wilde (or was that Chrissie Hynde?) 'But some of us are looking at the stars.' Bukowski wasn't looking at the stars but rather his gaze was fixed firmly upon a bottle of beer, a bottle of wine or on occasion a bottle of whisky. This is where he drew his inspiration: from these bottles and from the life associated with the continuous consumption of the cheapest varieties of the contents therein.

I'm not sure I'd like to emulate Bukowski's lifestyle or tread the same path he took (for one thing, I couldn't manage the hangovers) but as an example of how to write attention grabbing columns and as an insight into the strata of American society he was very much a part of, I'd say Bukowski's Notes Of A Dirty Old Man cannot be beaten.

John Serpico