Essential Bukowski

as the
spirit
wanes
the
form
appears

the sink of the men’s crapper

BEWARE THE PREACHERS
Beware The Knowers.
Beware
Those Who
Are ALWAYS
READING
BOOKS

the ocean like a lavender flame,
a moon destitute of greatness

a poem is a city where God rides naked
through the streets like Lady Godiva,
where dogs bark at night, and chase away
the flag

I stare
at clouds, at seas of gaunt
sepulcher

bled corpses
surrounded me with their uselessness

my pockets full of lovely worms,
and they took me to their jail and gave me a shower
and a nice cell, rent-free, and even now the people
are picketing in my cause

crowd gathered but stepped back before my shots
of mud,
and by the time the police came, I was in below
my head,
frightening gophers, eels and finding bits of golden
inlaid skull

The early poems, with their lyricism and occasional surreal imagery, give way in the 1970s to Bukowski’s “Dirty Old Man” macho persona, when he finally achieves success in his fifties, after which he takes, in his final years, a more philosophical stance on life