Come On In!

New Poems

Charles Bukowski

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781847676733
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry

Bukowski's unmistakable charisma – an ex-down-and-outer who wrote of booze and loneliness in maverick, confident free verse – made him one of the world's most popular poets long before he died in 1994. More than a decade later, death has not slowed his production. This collection is selected from an archive of verse that the author left to be published after his death. It includes poems of love and sex, advice to so-called losers (as he once was) to have confidence in themselves (as he did), gambling laments and humbling poems accepting his own imminent ultimate full stop.

it’s a lonely world
of frightened people.

a note upon modern poesy

poetry has come a long way, though very slowly;

you aren’t as old as I am

and I can remember reading

magazines where at the end of a poem

it said:

Paris, 1928.

that seemed to make a

difference, and so, those who could afford to

(and some who couldn’t)

went to

PARIS

and wrote.

I am also old enough so that I remember when poems

made many references to the Greek and Roman

gods.

if you didn’t know your gods you weren’t a very good

writer.

also, if you couldn’t slip in a line of

Spanish, French or

Italian,

you certainly weren’t a very good

writer.

5 or 6 decades ago,

maybe 7,

some poets started using

“i” for “I”

or

“&” for “and.”

many still use a small

“i” and many more continue to use the

“&”

feeling that this is

poetically quite effective and

up-to-date.

also, the oldest notion still in vogue is

that if you can’t understand a poem then

it almost certainly is a

good one.

poetry is still moving slowly forward, I guess,

and when your average garage mechanics

start bringing books of poesy to read

on their lunch breaks

then we’ll know for sure we’re moving in

the right

direction.

&

of this

i

am sure.

the end of an era

he lived in the Village

in New York

in the old days

and only after he died

did he get a write-up

in a snob magazine,

a magazine which had

never printed his

poems.

he came from the days

when poets called

themselves

Bohemians.

he wore a beret and a

scarf

and hung around the

cafés,

bummed drinks,

sometimes got a

night’s lodging from the

rich

(just for

laughs)

but mostly

he slept in the alleys

at night.

the whores knew him

well

and gave him

little

hand-outs.

he was a communist

or a

socialist

depending upon what

he was

reading

at that

moment.

it was 1939

and he had a

burning hatred

in his heart

for the

Nazis.

when he

recited his poems

in the street

he always

ended up

frothing about the

Nazis.

he passed out

little stapled

pages

of his

poems

and

he wrote

with a

simple

intensity.

he was good

but not

great.

and even the good poems

were not

that

good.

anyhow

he was an

attraction;

the tourists always

asked for

him.

he was always

in love

with some

new whore.

he had a

real

soul

and the usual

real

needs.

he stank

and wore cast-off clothes

and he screamed

when he spoke

but

at least

he wasn’t anybody

but

himself.

the Village was

his

Paris.

but unlike

Henry Miller

who made...