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Tag Archives: Charles Bukowski
(Make a note of it for my epitaph.)
Charles Bukowski once wrote, “Find what you love and let it kill you.”
So if my fat ass chokes on Christmas candy while lying in bed, that just means I’ve led a life of great depth.
Also … blame the people who gave it to me.
“people are not good to each other”
we forget the terror of one person
aching in one room
alone
unkissed
untouched
cut off
watering a plant alone
without a telephone that would never
ring
anyway.
people are not good to each other
people are not good to each other
people are not good to each other
and the beads swing and the clouds obscure
and dogs piss upon rose bushes
the killer beheads the child like taking a bite
out of an ice cream cone
while the ocean comes in and goes out
in and out
in the thrall of a senseless moon.
and people are not good to each other.
— excerpt from Charles Bukowski’s “the crunch”
* There are multiple different versions of this poem in which the text varies.
Rogers Street Bridge Railing Shadow.. Photo credit: Larry D. Moore, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
“there is a loneliness in this world so great …”
there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in the slow movements of
the hands of a clock
there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it blinking in neon signs
in Vegas, in Baltimore, in Munich
there are people so tired
so strafed
so mutilated by love or no
love
that buying a bargain can of tuna
in a supermarket
is their greatest moment
their greatest victory
— from Charles Bukowski’s “the crunch”*
* There are multiple different versions of this poem in which the text varies.
Photo credit: By Theo Crazzolara – Waiting, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54570965
“Each day without solitude weakened me.”
“I was a man who thrived on solitude; without it I was like another man without food or water. Each day without solitude weakened me. I took no pride in my solitude; but I was dependent on it. The darkness of the room was like sunlight to me.”
— Charles Bukowski
(quote courtesy of Newington Blue Press)
Photo credit: Artgal73, CC BY 2.5 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5>, via Wikimedia Commons
Buk 100 Volume 3 is a go!
I got some more good news today as well — Newington Blue Press has returned after a hiatus, and will release the third volume of Buk 100, its commemorative chapbook series honoring Charles Bukowski! It will include a new flash fiction story of mine, entitled “Bill and I.”
I’ll post details and ordering information when they become available.
Beat Scene Magazine Praises Buk 100 Volume 2.
There’s a terrific review of Buk 100: Notes for a Dirty Old Birthday in the latest issue of Beat Scene magazine. (Notes for a Dirty Old Birthday is the second volume of Newington Blue Press’ Buk 100 series of limited edition chapbooks. They are dedicated to Charles Bukowski, and all three of the chapbooks include contributions from me.)
Congratulations to Editors Matthias Kruger and Rebecca McLeish for seeing their handiwork so favorably received by this long running British magazine dedicated to beat culture!
Volume 2 of Buk 100 Features “Ode to a New Black Ball-Point Pen”
Airmail from Germany!
I am honored to see a poem and a photograph of mine published in Buk 100: Notes for a Dirty Old Birthday! Like the first volume of Buk 100, Newington Blue Press created this second limited edition chapbook to honor what would have been legendary poet Charles Bukowski’s 100th birthday. (You can order your copy right here.)
The short poem is entitled “Ode to a New Black Ball-Point Pen” and the photo appears just below it. (I think my fellow Roanokers will recognize Shaffer’s Crossing Norfolk Southern Railway Bridge.)
Thanks again to Matthias Krueger for selecting my work for this superb recognition of Bukowski’s legacy!
Newington Blue Press selects my work for Issue No. 2 of Buk 100!
Great news — I am going to be published in Germany again! The nice folks over at Newington Blue Press have selected one poem and one photograph of mine to appear in the limited edition Issue No. 2 of Buk 100: My Old Man, A Birthday Greeting. The poem is my recent piece “Ode to a New Black Ballpoint Pen.” The photo is of the Shaffer’s Crossing Norfolk Southern Railway Bridge right here in Roanoke.
I am truly honored to learn that my work will appear in Issue No. 2 — especially after several of my poems appeared in Issue No. 1 of Buk 100 back in June. (These were “Guerrilla Poet” and “First Smoke.”) I am also quite happy to see that a photo of my adopted Bible Belt city will appear in a literary publication in Europe.
Buk 100: My Old Man, A Birthday Greeting is a set of chapbooks commemorating what would have been the 100th birthday of Charles Bukowski. Their featured writing and art were selected to showcase “a conversance and artistic involvement with the phenomenon of Bukowski.”
Thanks once again to Matthias Krueger at Newington Blue Press for allowing me to be a part of this unique international tribute to a legendary poet!
By Commonurbock23 – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4030361
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 