Long Bukowski Poems
Long Bukowski Poems. Below are the most popular long Bukowski by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Bukowski poems by poem length and keyword.
It’s a yard sale shopper’s paradise
With hidden treasures stashed amid the clutter.
Like fine bone china chipped about the edges.
It’s an heirloom set with all the pieces krazy-glued together,
Its approximation of perfection
Gives one reason to excuse the others’ faults.
Some have half their stuff in storage.
Some have all their dreams in hock.
There’s a common lock, but no one has the key.
We continue swapping recipes and gossip just the same.
We’re living in the House of Broken People.
In the House of Broken People
Every player has a role.
There’s no method in the acting,
Only madness in the soul.
It’s a slum dog renter’s penthouse view,
With quotations from Bukowski for graffiti.
At night we leave a light on in the hall.
There’s a framed reminder on the wall,
Says, “ALL OUR FRUIT IS LOCAL”
In other words, it pays to be impartial.
As each must find his own amusement,
Each must put his mind to use.
It’s a fragile truce that holds the peace together.
A deck of jokers stacked upon a whiskey bottle’s neck.
We’re living in the House of Broken People
In the House of Broken People
Every bedroom has a door,
Each with keyholes made for peeping,
But we’ve seen it all before.
One more postcard from
The House of Broken People.
another Bukowski nightmare begins
the castrato sings below
while she calls from the minaret
fossicking thru the memories
for our linked verse
while i, sitting beneath the coolabah
river on the run
waiting for some rabbit or Alice
oh incorrigible moon
have you no mercy this night
see the parade pass, the ithyphallic
the trilithon collapsing, time and gravity
another turgid, erubescent symbol deflated
another thought buried by time
and mine to waste
o moon so incorrigible
teach me not emotion
let me revel in callosity
let the mirror play tu quoque
let it speak for once
scream from the inner scotopia
where the predatism scutters
read to me another confessional poet
those in need
of yet another minie ball, open oven door
fill the pockets with rocks and rockets
o god more, more misery
rise and hail your innermost misery
you must suffer for literature
tempus fugit is a lead pipe cinch
that is the diphthong the calliope
never fails to sail thru
while surds and sonants bounce the walls
the coffee shop lustrum, ideomotion
learn to unlearn
supine beneath the coolabah
river on the run
waiting for a rabbit or Alice
the urge for frottage
pushes us beyond logic and reason
suffering polyphagia between the limbs
where the eyes drool in
bushes of void commandments
now postmodernism
and i are even
i refuse to die for this revolution
i refuse the pitiful pitfalls
life's a grand adventure
taking in ever larger measures
i refuse to fail its call
i refuse
i refuse
hand me that bottle of rum
let's think about this
Fergus Falls 97
"The White Noise Bukowski"
Dreams
are playing fields
where scenarios
can be altered
at the whim
of the voyeur.
sometimes
“they” come to you
in dreams
and your time
is manipulated.
“they” reveal
their messages.
soul to soul.
blue avians
like singing
blue birds,
they come anytime,
not just nightly nightingales.
they slip in,
hovering over your
secret time,
singular or plural.
there is always
some ulterior meaning
in the rhyme,
in which they
turn your channel on,
express themselves
to you, Bukowski -
they visit you,
in the white noise.
the blues bring it on.
tall whites whisper
in your glazed glass mind.
visions not nearly clear,
seen for what they
really mean.
levels of descent
are freedom of will.
mistakes and errors
are necessary,
for novitiates
to elevate.
what’s the point
of the make, if not?
shades light and dark
blend complimentary
taken to shape,
the elongated decisions
for you.
you sometimes hesitate,
you sometimes wake,
before the message
comes in clearer to you,
breaks the forward way, for you;
when you’re
the one holding the key
to the gate, in dreams -
'tis your choice
to turn ignition on,
salute ignorance
turn your back
on what was,
take the risk to
dive off boards you
walk daily
in repeating grooves,
change up to 5
targa gears.
transition rough
or smooth;
warp speed
recommended,
for successful
take off.
(LadyLabyrinth / 2022)
gvlm
"Above the vault over their heads
was what looked like a throne of lapis lazuli,
and high above on the throne was a figure
like that of a man.
I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up
he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire,
and that from there down he looked like fire;
and brilliant light surrounded him.
Like the appearance of a rainbow
in the clouds on a rainy day,
so was the radiance around him."
merkaba.
"Blue Bird", Bukowski.
bringing out the garbage.
not in bags but inside boxes.
smells so bad.
books and all my bull.
bristles.
barely able to breathe.
baked in butane.
burning it all into oblivion.
banished borders.
barriers.
brine and bristle.
bursting.
buried in the backyard.
benign, yet blasphemous.
bouts of boredom begin again.
blended with bacteria.
biting at my brain.
a billion bits of alphabet.
but none is ever submit.
betting I’ll never be bred again.
bed beckons.
but there’s a therein.
biting.
bleeding out in barometers.
blisters.
blasting me for a burial of bliss.
besides what’s better?
borderline or bipolar?
not sure anymore about it.
breaking bullets.
bits of bone in a barrel.
but I’ll begin again.
bustling.
bludgeoning.
blossoming.
becoming a beast like beating.
breath bleating.
retreating into the bleak.
black holes.
buttoning up my best dress.
breast beading.
leading to a baked out feeling.
no one believes in.
bibles on the battalion bar.
brittle from the battle but bustling.
by the by I’ll buy it all back.
then pry it open from behind.
it’ll be back.
brackish but boiling like butter.
brother doesn’t bother.
before it breaks into bitty bits.
bit into by the bitten.
backstabbing.
besting all others besides Bukowski.
perhaps Blake.
for Christ’s sake baptized.
but bound by some Beelzebub.
blessed be the blind.
because they know not beauty.
but it’s 6 a.m. baby.
is that our breakfast baking?
eggs Benedict and bacon.
biscuits with gravy.
it’s all over anyway but the blues—
bottles clink like keys to hell's doors,
my hands shook before they stilled in gin,
first it was a love affair—
warm whiskey whispers on cold nights,
the booze bloomed,
and I rode the flame like a fool on fire.
years lost, sweat-soaked in bars,
conversations slurred, jobs slipping
through my fingers like sand.
I traded promises for the bottom of a glass,
women for the next cheap thrill—
a barstool my throne,
but the drinks never loved me back.
the mornings were cruel
with the sun stabbing my skull,
and all the friends turned to ghosts,
I was king of my own wreckage,
but the throne was burning,
and still, I drank
after Charles Bukowski
No bird lives
in my heart. An
inhospitable place, flooding
every morning
with curious
blue blood.
The bird I know
lives
in the park or,
the zoo, or maybe
the splintered telephone poles
on Cherokee.
He does worry after
me, though. I can
hear him, his corvid
questions, “when
are you quitting cigarettes? when
are you making that
cranberry
and arugula salad?
did you have that
dream again?”
I used to worry after
him, too. Human
questions like, “where
do you go in
freezing
rains? did you ever
know your
grandfather?
have you ever been sad?
But,
today I saw him pull
an apple slice
from a torn,
plastic bag. Now
I know he’s never
shed
a tear in his life.
Just like he knows
that I’ll never eat
cranberry
and arugula salad.
We lock eyes in
the park. My heart
pumps blood. Then—
again.
Charles Bukowski
I read a fine essay written by a friend of mine, Bukowski
I thought he was a great poet and writer, whether the high
table of the educated literate think, or not because from
where he wrote, the side streets of life, unfamiliar to them.
Many famous writers/poets drink; I think this is because they
have finished writing for the day, they feel empty inside
alcohol salivate the sense of tristesse, meeting friends for
drinks as whisky and conversation flows
Ernest Hemingway was a heavy drinker, which is overlooked
by his admirers, he had been to Paris, the middle-class son
of a doctor; his drinking had charm, the fishing and shooting
When I read Bukowski’s novel the “post office” I remember
opening the book, a rainy afternoon, absorbed by his art
I lost track of time; I followed his journey doing menial tasks
The boredom of having to make a living when all he wanted
to do was to write against the odds; he did write and gave
us, the beauty of his soul.
Charles Bukowski Road Not Chosen
While reading Charles Bukowski poetry
On the metro ride home
Listening to Buddha bar music
On my oh too hip IPod
I begin to see myself as I was
Over 30 years ago when I was merely a bit player
A minor character in a Charles Bukowski poem
A wild young underemployed intellectual
Hanging out in dismal bars and dives all over Asia and California
Hanging with disreputable women and drunks and drinkers
And characters out of his kinds of haunts
A mad poet bard of the underground
A drunken poet in a drunken bum show
That nightly played in his head
Then one day I met the women of my dreams
And went down a different path
A long slow path to respectability
And now 30 years later
I am no longer a wild man
I am still a poet at heart
But I am now also a bureaucrat
In a button down suite
Doing the people's business
Working for the Government
I've become the Man
Sometimes I wonder
Would I have been better off
Going down that another path
Would I have ended up
Somewhere else
Doing something else
Would I have been as happy
Would I have been as successful?
There is no answer that satisfies
The longing in my heart
For that wild thing
That still lurks beneath
It's civilized cover
And I know that I am still
A mad poet at heart
Railing against the injustice of the world
As I work day by day in the belly of the great beast of State
I recall the ancient Chinese saying,
"Confucian during the day while Taoist rebel at night"
Playing out in my head and nightly dreams
In the true American Upper class patrician tradition
I close the book and look out the window
Get off the train, and walk slowly home
And realize I had no choice
But to take the path that I’ve trodden on
And so I put aside my misgivings
And say goodbye to my "Bukowskian"desires
For another night of domestic contentment
Was it worth it all to take the conventional path
And not take the bohemian road to hell and back
I look at my wife and realize
I had no choice, had no choice
But to follow her to the ends of the earth
And beyond by her side as we walked our path
Of shared destiny
Goodbye Charles Bukowski wherever you are
May I meet you in a bar in the next life
And figure out where we should have gone
Until then the drinks are on me.
He’s late-stage Charles Bukowski,
Hunching gnome-like over the bar,
With weary eyes, and scruffy stubble.
It’s sure he must have seen some trouble.
But he’s got plenty of cash in his pockets,
Along with the keys to a stolen car.
He smells of sea air, wet cement, and whiskey.
His tattoos could be urban graffiti,
Just random tags on ghetto limbs,
An ancient, coded treasure map
Charting landmarks through the route of his career.
He eyes a buxom tavern wench,
Who looks wholesome as a menthol cigarette,
And orders up another round for them all.
The Buccaneers’ Union provides him a generous pension.
He’s living his best life ever on a bounty of plundered loot.
Avast ye! Let’s drink to the golden years.
.
-The Last Straw-
Sometimes he went too far
Shunning the sunlight, wading into the dark
swimming in places the sun couldn't find
shifting the wind to suit his own fall
speeding through life with his back to the wall
where he'd spit in the eye, and bend all the rules
yet with something to find, that was not of this world
spilling his guts
wading through fog, feeling the chill
unfurled in a dream
that was seen through a glass
while he looked for asylum in the black of the night
Boomerang words were like bats out of hell
to dwell in the mind and rattle the bones
of someone with soul, who feels all alone
changing their world from the outside in
Students mull over his words, taking sides
A skate on thin ice
Some call it nice........some call it sludge
slugging it out, from opposite sides
Some can't decide........ some claim to hate it
Fate has a name. Genius I'd say
Some of us stumble, and tumble right in
_________________________________
For Contest Sponsored By Amy Green 4/7/14
Genius
Resubmitted for PD's Contest: 101 in a Row #14
9/16/16