Poet Laureate of Skid Row

Henry Charles Bukowski (August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) was an influential Los Angeles poet and novelist. Bukowski's writing was heavily influenced by the geography and atmosphere of his home city of Los Angeles. He is often mentioned as an influence by contemporary authors, and his style is frequently imitated. A prolific author, Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories, and six novels, eventually having more than fifty books in print. He is often remembered as "The Poet Laureate of Skid Row

Bukowski died of leukemia on March 9th, 1994 in San Pedro, California, at the age of 73, shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp. The funeral rites were conducted by Buddhist monks. His gravestone reads: "Don't Try".

Film and television

Henry Charles Bukowski and his works have been the subject of several films. The earliest is "Tales of ordinary madness" (original title: Storie di ordinaria follia) by Italian director Marco Ferreri and starring Ben Gazzara and Ornella Muti. The movie, which is largely based on some of Bukowski´s tales, was not very commercially successful, possibly because of its uncompromising style.

Next came his own autobiographical screenplay for the 1987 film Barfly. In the documentary, Bukowski: Born Into This, he offers his opinion that the Mickey Rourke portrayal of him in Barfly was "misdone".

2005 saw the release of the movie Factotum starring Matt Dillon; the movie is based on the novel of the same name, which centers on Henry Chinaski, the fictional alter-ego of Bukowski, as he struggles from one job to the next, all the while pursuing his true interests: alcohol, women and writing. This latter film appears to be a second attempt at verisimilitude in depicting a portion of his life even though it makes no pretense of occurring in the appropriate decade. Whereas in Barfly the focus is more on women, drinking and bare-knuckle boxing, in Factotum it is the writing which receives greater emphasis.

In February 2007 it was announced that Gabor Csupo will be producing How the Dead Love, an animated film which will use four of Bukowski's short stories. There are rumors that Johnny Depp will voice this film's main character and will also produce the film with Csupo via Depp's production company, Infinitum Nihil.

Bukowski is also mentioned in a scene in the movie Glory Daze, starring Ben Affleck.

He was mentioned in Adult Swim, as one of their poet choices.

He is mentioned in Peep Show; while Jeremy is buying items from a supermarket, drunk, he claims he must look like Bukowski.

He is mentioned by Paul Giamatti as the character Miles in Alexander Payne's "Sideways" (2004).

Bukowski is also mentioned on Gilmore Girls, when Rory, Jess and Paris discuss literature (Season 2, Episode 'There's the Rub').

Californication, a dark comedy which began airing on Showtime on August 13, 2007, makes several direct and indirect references to Bukowski and his life. The show is set in Los Angeles and the main character, played by David Duchovny, is a misanthropic, struggling writer with addictions to alcohol and women.

And following are some of his poems, which kind of speak for themselves:

the riots

I've watched this city burn
twice in my lifetime
and the most notable thing
was the arrival of the
politicians in the
aftermath
proclaiming the wrongs of
the system
and demanding new
policies toward and for the
poor.
nothing was corrected last time.
nothing will be corrected this time.
the poor will remain poor.
the unemployed will remainso.
the homeless will remain
homeless
and the politicians,
fat upon the land, will live
very well.

5/5/1992


a smile to remember

we had goldfish
and they circled around and around
in the bowl on the table near the heavy drapes
covering the picture window and
my mother, always smiling, wanting us all
to be happy, told me,
"be happy Henry!"
and she was right:
it's better to be happy if youcan
but my father continued to beat her
and me
several times a week
while
raging inside his 6-foot-two frame
because he couldn't
understand what was attacking him
from within.
my mother,
poor fish,
wanting to be happy,
beaten two or three times a
week,
telling me to be happy:
"Henry, smile!
why don't you ever smile?"
and then she would smile,
to show me how,
and it was the
saddest smile I ever saw

one day the goldfish died,
all five of them,
they floated on the water,
on their sides, their
eyes still open,
and when my father got home
he threw them to the cat
there on the kitchen floor
and we watched as my mother
smiled

©2001 Linda Lee Bukowski reprinted with permission of Black Sparrow Press


back to the machine gun

I awaken about noon
and go out to get the mail
in my old torn bathrobe.
I'm hung over
hair down in my eyes
barefoot
gingerly walking
n the small sharp rocks
in my path
still afraid of pain
behind my four-day beard.

the young housewife next door
shakes a rug
out of her window
and sees me:
"hello, Hank!"
god damn!
it's almost like being shot
in the ass
with a .22

"hello," I say
gathering up my Visa card bill,
my Pennysaver coupons,
a Dept. of Water and Power
past-due notice,
a letter from the mortgage people
plus a demand from
the Weed Abatement Department
giving me 30 days
to clean up my act.

I mince back again
over the small sharp rocks
thinking,
maybe I'd better write something
tonight,
they all seem
to be closing in.
there's only one way
to handle those motherfuckers.
the night harness races
will have to wait.

©2001 Linda Lee Bukowski reprinted with permission of Black Sparrow Press


Carson McCullers

she died of alcoholism
wrapped in a blanket
on a deck chair
on an ocean
steamer.

all her books of
terrified loneliness
all her books about
the cruelty
of loveless love
were all that was left
of her
as the strolling vacationer
discovered her body
notified the captain
and she was quickly dispatched
to somewhere else
on the ship
as everything
continued just
as
she had written it

©2001 Linda Lee Bukowski reprinted with permission of Black Sparrow Press


congrats, Chinaski

as I near 70
I get letters,
cards,
little gifts
from strange people.
congratulations,
they tell
me,
congratulations

I know what they mean:
the way I have lived
I should have been dead in half
that time
I have piled myself
with a mass of
grand abuse,
been
careless toward myself
almost to the point of
madness,
I am still here
leaning toward this machine
in this smoke-filled room,
this large blue trash
can to my
left
full of empty
containers
the doctors have
no answers
and the gods are
silent

congratulations,
death,
on your patience.
I have helped you
all thatI can
now one more poem
and a walk out on the balcony,
such a fine night there

I am dressed in shorts and stockings,
gently scratch my old
belly,
look out there
look off there
where dark meets dark
it's been one hell of a crazy
ballgame

from "Third Lung Review" - 1992


curtain

the final curtain
on one of the longest running
musicals ever,
some people claim to have
seen it over one hundred times.

I saw it on the tv news,
that final curtain:
flowers, cheers, tears, a thunderous
accolade.
I have not seen this particular musical
but I know
if I had
that I wouldn't have
been able to bear it,
it would have
sickened me.
trust me on this,
the world and its
peoples and its artful entertainment has
done very little for me,
only to me.
still,
let them enjoy one another,
it will
keep them from
my door
and for this,
my own thunderous
accolade.

from The Olympia Review - 1994


me and Faulkner

sure,
I know that you
are tired of hearing about it, but
most repeat the same theme
over and over again, it's
as if they were trying to refine what seems so strange
and off and important to them,
it's done by everybody
because everybody is
of a different stripe and form
and each must work out what is before the
mover and over again because
that is their personal
tiny miracle
their bit of luck
like now
as like before and before
I have been slowly
drinking this fine red wine
and listening to symphony after
symphony from this black radio to my left
some symphonies remind me
of certain cities and certain rooms,
make me realize that certain people
now long dead
were able to
transgress graveyards
and traps and cages and bones and limbs
people who broke through
with joy and madness and within
surmountable force
in tiny rented rooms I was struck by miracles
and even now after decades of listening
I still am able to hear
a new work
never heard before that is totally
bright,
a fresh-blazing sun
there are countless sub-stratas
of rising surprise from the
human firmament
music has an expansive
and endless flow
of ungodly
exploration
writers are confined
to the limit of sight and feeling
upon the page
while musicians leap
into unrestricted immensity
right now it's just old Tchaikowsky
moaning and groaning his
way through symphony #5
but it's just as good
as when I first heard it

I haven't heard one of my favorites,
Eric Coates, for some time
but I know that if I keep drinking
the good red and listening
that he will be along
there are others, many others
and so
this is just another poem
about drinking and listening to
music
repeat, right?

but look at Faulkner,
he not only said the same thing over and
over but he said the same
place
so, please, let me boost these giants of our lives
once more:
the classical composers of our time and
of times past
it has kept the rope from my throat
maybe it will loosen
yours

from "Third Lung Review" - 1992


gamblers all

sometimes you climb out of bed
in the morning and you think,
I'm not going to make it,
but you laugh inside
remembering all the times
you've felt that way, and
you walk to the bathroom,
do your toilet,
see that face
in the mirror,
oh my
oh my
oh my,
but you comb your hair anyway,
get into your street clothes,
feed the cats,
fetch the
newspaper of horror,
place it on the coffee table,
kiss yourwife goodbye,
and then you are backing the car
out into life itself,
like millions of others
you enter the arena once more.

you are on the freeway
threading through traffic now,
moving both towards something
and towards nothing at all
as you punch
the radio on and get Mozart,
which is something,
and you will somehow
get through the slow days
and the busy days
and the dulldays
and the hateful days
and the rare days,
all both so delightful
and so disappointing because
we are all so alike
and so different.

you find the turn-off,
drive through the most dangerous
part of town,
feel momentarily wonderful
as Mozart works
his way into your brain
and slides down
along your bones and
out through your shoes.
it's been a tough fight
worth fighting
as we all drive along
betting on another day.

©2001 Linda Lee Bukowski reprinted with permission of Black Sparrow Press


two kinds of hell

I sat in the same bar
for 7 years,
from 5 a.m.
(the day bartender let me in 2 hours early)
to 2 a.m.

sometimes
I didn't even remember going back
to my room
it were as if
I were sitting on the barstool
forever

I had no money
but the drinks kept
arriving
to then
I wasn't the bar clown
but the bar fool
but at times
a fool will find a greater
fool to
admire him,
and,
it was a crowded
place

actually,
I had a viewpoint:
I was waiting for
something extraordinary to
happen
but as the years wasted on
nothing ever did unless I
caused it:
broken bar mirrors,
a fight with a 7 footgiant,
a dalliance with a lesbian,
many things
like the ability to call a spade a spade and to
settle arguments that I did not
begin and etc. and etc. and etc.

one day I just upped and left theplace
like that
and I began to drink alone
and I found the company
quite all right
then,
as if the gods were bored
with my peace at
heart,
knocks began upon my door:
ladies
the gods had sent
the ladies to the
fool
and the ladies arrived
one at a time and when it ended with
one
the gods immediately--
without allowing me any respite--sent
another
and each began as a flash of miracle--
even the bed--and the
good ended up
bad

my fault,
of course, yes,
that's what they told
me
but I remembered
the 7 years in the bar,
I hardly ever bedded
down with anybody
the gods just won't let
a man drink alone,
they are jealous of
his simple strength and salvation,
they will send the lady
knocking upon that door
I remember all those cheap hotels,
it were as if the women
were one:
the delicate little rap on the wood and then:
"oh, I heard you playing that music on your radio...
we'reneighbors,
I'm down at 603
but I've never even seen you in
the hall..."
"come on in..."
and there go your balls
and your sanctity,
Men's Liberation,
they say,
is not needed
and then you remember the bar
when you walked up behind
the 7 foot giant and knocked his
cowboy hat off his head, yelling:
"I'll bet you sucked your mother's nipples
until you were12 years old!"

somebody in the bar saying:
"hey, sir, forget it, he's a mental
case, he's an asshole, he doesn't know what he issaying!"
"I know EXACTLY what I am saying
and I'll say it again:I'll bet you sucked..."
he won
but you didn't die,
not at all the way you died
when the
gods arranged to get all those ladies
knocking and you went for
the first flash of miracle
the other fight
was more fair:
he was slow, stupid and even a
little bit frightened
and it went well
for quite a good while,
just like with the ladies those gods
sent
the difference being,
I thought I had a chance with the
ladies

from "Third Lung Review" - 1992


magical mystery tour

I am in this low-slung sports car
painted a deep, rich yellow
driving under an Italian sun.
I have a British accent.
I'm wearing dark shades
an expensive silk shirt.
there's no dirt under my
fingernails.
the radio plays Vivaldi
and there are two women with
me

one with raven hair
the other a blonde.
they have small breasts and
beautiful legs
and they laugh at everything I
say.
as we drive up a steep road
the blonde squeezes my leg
and nestles closer
while raven hair
leans across and nibbles my
ear.

we stop for lunch at a quaint
rustic inn.
there is more laughter
before lunch
during lunch and after
lunch.

after lunch
we will have a
flat tire on the other side of
the mountain
and the blonde will change the
tire
while
raven hair
photographs me
lighting my pipe
eaning against a tree
the perfect background
perfectly at peace
with
sunlight
flowers
clouds
birds
everywhere.

©2000 reprinted with permission of Black Sparrow Press


rhyming poem:

the goldfish sing all night with guitars,
and the whores go down with the stars,
the whores go down with the stars

I'm sorry, sir, we close at 4:30,
besides yr mother's neck is dirty,
and the whores go down with the etc.,
the whrs. go dn. with the etc.

I'm sorry jack
you can't come back,
I've fallen in love with another sap,
3/4 Italian and 1/2 Jap,
and the whores go
the whores go
etc.

from "All's Normal Here" - 1985Ruddy Duck Press(originally appeared in Wormwood Review 1963)


Three Oranges

first time
my father overheard me
listening to
this bit of music he asked me,
"what is it?"
"it's called Love For Three Oranges,
"I informed him.
"boy," he said,
"that's getting it
cheap."
he meant sex.

listening to it
I always imagined three oranges
sitting there,
you know how orange they can
get,
so mightily orange.

maybe Prokofiev had meant
what my father
thought.
if so, I preferred it the
other way
the most horrible thing
I could think of
was part of me being
what ejaculated out of the
end of his
stupid penis.

I will never forgive him
for that,
his trick that I am stuck
with,
I find no nobility in
parenthood.

I say kill the Father
before he makes more
such as
I.

from ONTHEBUS - 1992


the schoolyard of forever

the schoolyard was a horror show:
the bullies, the dragons, the
freaks
the beatings against the wire fence
the eyes of our mates watching
glad that they were not the victims
we were beaten well and good
and afterwards
followed
taunted
all the way home
to our homes of hell
full of more beatings

in the schoolyard the bullies ruled well,
and in the restroom
sat the water fountains
they owned us and disowned us
but in our way we held
never begged for mercy
we took it straight on
silently
we were trained within that horror
a horror that would later hold us in good stead
and that came around
as we grew in several ways with time

the bullies gradually began
to deflate,
lose power
grammar school
Jr. high
high school
we grew like odd plants
gathering nourishment
blossoming
as then the bullies tried to befriend us
we turned them away

college
where a sun of wildness
and power arrived
the bullies melted entirely
we became
and they un-became
there were new bullies
the professors
who had to be taught something
beyond Kant
we glowed madly
it was grand and easy
the coeds dismayed at our gamble
but we looked beyond them
to a larger fight out there

but when we arrived out there
it was back against the fence again:
new bullies
deeply entrenched
almost but not quite worthy
they kept us under for decades
we had to begin all over again
on the streets
and in small rooms of madness
it lasted and lasted like that
but our training within horror endured us
and after so very long
we out
edoblique to their tantamounts
we found the tunnel at the end of the light

it was a small minority victory
no song of braggadocio
we knew we had won very little
against very little
that the changing of the clock
and the illusions beat everybody
we clashed against the odds
just for the simple sweetness of it

even now we can still see the janitor with his broom
in his pinstripes and sleeping face
we can still see the little girls in their curls
their hair so carefully washed and shining
and the faces of the teachers
fall and folded
the bells of recess
the gravel on the baseball diamond
the volleyball net
the sun always up and outspilling over us
like the juice of a giant tangerine
and Herbie Ashcroft
his fists coming against us
as we were trapped against the steel fence
as we heard the sounds of automobiles passing
but not stopping
as the world went about doing what it did
we asked for no mercy

and we returned the next day
and the next and the next
the little girls so magic
as they sat so upright in their seats
in a room of blackboards and chalk
we began badly
but always with a disdain
for occurence
which is still embedded
through the ringi-ng of new bells and ways
stuck with that
fixed with that:
a grammar school world
even with Herbie Ashcroft
dead

from "Third Lung Review" - 1992

In summation, I whipped up a little poem too.


Mickey is the Man

Odd about that.
I have never seen Bukowski
on film,
or heard his voice,
so in my mind
Mickey Rourke comes closest
to my image of him,
my imperfect imaginary picture.
Matt Dillon is just too damned
pretty,
and too tall,
and though I am sure he can be
mean,
just not cantankerous
enough;
not dirty enough.

Mickey Rourke can go days,
weeks,
without washing his hair,
and he used to be a professional boxer
just for the hell of it,
while he was still being
an actor.

Matt Dillon is just not
Bukowski
in my mind's eye.
I don't quite know why.

Glenn Buttkus 2008