Thanks, Hank
Fifteen years ago today, Charles Bukowski died. He was old and broken and leukemia ravaged his body, but almost to the end, he wrote—completing the novel Pulp shortly before he died. For a man who had spent so much of his life as a loser, he left behind a striking legacy: six novels, hundreds of short stories and thousands of poems, with 60 books in print at one point or another.
I had just turned 28 at the time, slouching toward the end of probably the most turbulent decade of my life (but, hey, it’s still early…) and I remember regarding his passing with almost casual acceptance. He had been an object of great interest to me in my younger years, not as a hero per se, but as a force, a looming figure who, like Hunter Thompson and William Burroughs, had forever transformed post-World War 2 literature, yet still traced his literary bloodline to past greats.
Even so, his death didn’t affect me at the time on any deep visceral level. He was 73 and had lived a hard life, so it was something of a miracle to me that he had lived as long as he had. For as long as I could remember, he’d been an old man.
But, as I’ve grown older myself—and become hyper-aware of the falling sands in the hour-glass—I’ve gone back and rediscovered a wealth of his work written in the later years of his life. His anger and energy were as vibrant in his 50s and 60s as they ever were in his earlier years. Toward the end of his life, he often reflected on his mortality, but the fight never ebbed:
well, they said it would come to
this: old, talent gone. fumbling for
the word
hearing the dark
footsteps, I turn
look behind me…
not yet, old dog…
soon enough.
now
they sit talking about
me: “yes, it’s happened, he’s
finished… it’s
sad…”
“he never had a great deal, did
he?”
“well, no, but now…”
now
they are celebrating my demise
in taverns I no longer
frequent.
now
I drink alone
at this malfunctioning
machine
as the shadows assume
shapes
I fight the slow
retreat
now
my once-promise
dwindling,
dwindling
now
lighting new cigarettes
pouring more
drinks
it has been a beautiful
fight
still
is.
On March 9, 1994, Bukowski finally lost the fight. For the rest of us, the fight goes on.
It’s not everyone who can draw courage from such a flawed and often repulsive example.
But for me, it helps.
AuthorScoop
March 9th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
This is wonderful, especially for me, in that early on, I decided Bukowski was the beginning and end of modern poetry. And this was very bad news. I read a little and concluded it was all a raw-edged tag chewing up the back of my neck. So I shrugged off the whole works and didn’t rediscover poetry, and ultimately Bukowski, until very recently. I see it all much differently now.
He was quite something.
Terrific piece, William.
March 10th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Yes it is a great piece. Really is. And it’s hard to like his poetry, but like it I do until it demands more heart in me than I can sacrifice.
But then that’s the problem with good poets. They just don’t let you “like them.” They never leave you in enough peace to give you an arm’s length from your own already tormented existence. They demand your sufferage, your empathy, your soul, thus you either love them or hate them or both. I rarely avoid poets in conversaton, but I’ll avoid their poetry like the plague. Because I can’t comfort them, they are to me like a beautiful opera, beyond my ability to change the outcome. Like Verdi, their music’s too beautifully wrenching to sit through.