Igloo

Provided from Stuffpoint.

It's another lazy Sunday and I'm again sharing a Bukowski poem named Igloo.
Love animals ;)

his name was Eddie and he had a
big white dog
with a curly tail
a huskie
like one of those that pulled sleighs
up near the north pole
Igloo he called him
and Eddie had a bow and arrow
and every week or two
he'd send an arrow
into the dog's side
then run into his mother's house
through the yelping
saying that Igloo had fallen on
the arrow.
that dog took quite a few arrows and
managed to
survive
but I saw what really happened and didn't
like Eddie very much.
so when I broke Eddie's leg
in a sandlot football game
that was my way of getting even
for Igloo.

his parents threatened to sue my
parents
claiming I did it on purpose because
that's what Eddie
told them.

well, nobody had any money anyhow
and when Eddie's father got a job
in San Diego
they moved away and left the
dog.
we took him in.

Igloo turned out to be rather dumb
did not respond to very much
had no life or joy in him
just stuck out his tongue
panted
slept most of the time
when he wasn't eating
and although he wiped his ass
up and down the lawn after
defecating
he usually had a large fragrant smear of
brown
under his tail

when he was run over by an
icecream truck
3 or 4 months later
and died in a stream of scarlet
I didn't feel more than the
usual amount of grief
and loss
and I was still glad that I
had managed to
break Eddie's leg.

I Inherit

I haven't shared any pieces from Bukowski for a long time. And it's the time. It's "I inherit" from the book "What matters most is how well you walk through the fire". We all are getting older... Sad but try to enjoy the truth.

the old guy next door died
last week,
he was 95 or 96,
I'm not sure.
but I am now the oldest fart
in the neighborhood.
when I bend over to
pick up the morning
paper
I think of heart attack
or when I swim in my
pool
alone
I think,
Jesus Christ,
they'll come and
find me floating here
face down,
my 8 cats sitting on the
edge
licking and
scratching.
dying's not bad,
it's that little transition
from here to
there
that's strange
like flicking the light
switch
off.

I'm now the old fart
in the neighborhood,
been working at it for
some time,
but now I have to work
in some new
moves:
I have to forget to zip up
all the way,
wear slippers instead of my
shoes,
hang my glasses around my
neck,
fart loudly in the
supermarket,
wear unmatched
socks,
back my car into a
garbage can.
I must shorten my
stride, take small
mincing steps,
develop a squint,
bow my head and
ask, "what? what
did you say?"

I've got to get ready,
whiten my hair,
forget to
shave.
I want you to know me
when you see
me:
I'm now the old fart
in the neighborhood
and you can't tell me
a damn thing I don't already
know.

respect your elders,
sonny, and get the
hell out of my
way!

Beast

It's another Sunday afternoon and I am reading Charles Bukowski for soothing my soul.
I am going to share the poem, "Beast", from the book What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire, part 3. The Turkish version of the book is Kimse Bilmez Ne Çektiğimi.
I am writing both the original and the translated versions of the poem below.
Enjoy.

my beast comes in the afternoon
he gnaws at my gut
he paws my head
he growls
spits out part of me

my beast comes in the afternoon
while other people are taking pictures
while other people are at picnics
my beast comes in the afternoon
across a dirty kitchen floor
leering at me

while other people are employed at jobs
that stop their thinking
my beast allows me to think
about him,
about graveyards and dementia and fear
and stale flowers and decay
and the stink of ruined thunder. 

my beast will not let me be
he comes to me in the afternoons
and gnaws and claws
and I tell him
as I double over, hands gripping my gut,
jesus, how will I ever explain you to
them? they think I am a coward
but they are the cowards because they refuse to
feel, their bravery is the bravery of
snails.

my beast is not interested in my unhappy
theory—he rips, chews, spits out
another piece of
me.

I walk out the door and he follows me
down the street.
we pass the lovely laughing schoolgirls
the bakery trucks
and the sun opens and closes like an oyster
swallowing my beast for a moment
as I cross at a green light
pretending that I have escaped,
pretending that I need a loaf of bread or
a newspaper,
pretending that the beast is gone forever
and that the torn parts of me are
still there
under a blue shirt and green pants
as all the faces become walls
and all the walls become impossible.

Translation is by Avi Pardo, as usual.

öğleden sonra gelir canavarım,
bağırsaklarımı kemirir,
başımı pençeler,
hırlar,
parçalarımı tükürür

öğleden sonra gelir canavarım,
başkaları fotoğraf çeker ve
piknik yaparken.
öğleden sonra gelir canavarım,
pis pis sırıtır bana
kirli mutfak döşemesinden.

başkaları düşüncelerini durduran
işlerde çalışırken
benim canavarım onu
düşünmeme izin verir,
mezarları ve ruh sıkıntısını,
çürümeyi ve harcanmış yıldırımların
iğrenç kokusunu. 

rahat vermiyor bana canavarım,
öğleden sonra geliyor,
kemiriyor ve pençeliyor,
ve tanrım, diyorum ona ellerim karnımın
üzerinde, iki büklüm, seni nasıl
açıklayacağım onlara? benim bir korkak
olduğumu düşünüyorlar,
ama asıl onlar korkak olan
çünkü hissetmeyi reddediyorlar, salyangoz
cesareti onlarınki.
canavarım ilgilenmiyor mutsuzluk
teorimle-bir parçamı daha koparıyor,
çiğniyor, tükürüyor

kapıdan çıkıp yürümeye başlıyorum,
peşimden geliyor.
kıkır kıkır gülen güzelim okul kızlarının
yanından geçiyoruz,
fırıncı kamyonlarının
yanından geçiyoruz,
ve güneş bir an için istiridye gibi
açılıp kapanarak yutuyor
canavarımı
yeşil ışıkta karşıya geçip
kurtulmuşum gibi yaparken,
ekmeğe ya da gazeteye ihtiyacım varmış gibi yaparken,
canavar sonsuza dek gitmiş gibi yaparken,
benden kopardığı parçalar
hala orada, mavi gömlekle yeşil pantolonun
altındaymış gibi yaparken,
bütün yüzler duvarlara,
bütün duvarlar imkansızlığa dönüşürken.

Do you sometimes think of your beast(s) my friends?

A Poet, A Bum and Some Philosophers

I am writing about my man, Charles Bukowski, again. The poem I am sharing today is the opening piece of his book named What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire that was published in 1999. I wish I could be reading life in such a simple way which is expressed in the poem below: Reading the meaning in the actions, rather than listening too many stories from too many people...
Enjoy :)

    my father and the bum

    my father believed in work.
    he was proud to have a
    job.
    sometimes he didn't have a
    job and then he was very
    ashamed.
    he'd be so ashamed that he'd
    leave the house in the morning
    and then come back in the evening
    so the neighbors wouldn't
    know.

    me,
    I liked the man next door:
    he just sat in a chair in
    his back yard and threw darts
    at some circles he had painted
    on the side of his garage.
    in Los Angeles in 1930
    he had a wisdom that
    Goethe, Hegel, Kierkegaard,
    Nietzsche, Freud,
    Jaspers, Heidegger and
    Toynbee would find hard
    to deny.

Wind the Clock

Charles Bukowski simply touches my soul...
The story began like this: I was on my blogger dashboard and I realized that I had one more follower: I have a few followers so that I can easily keep track of them :) First I have thought about how pathetic I am, then I started to read my new follower's blog. And I got shot by the killer melodies of Dadafon. A great song, slow day, from the soundtrack of Factotum was playing on the blog. Lyrics of the song are from a wonderful Bukowski poem called "wind the clock" which was published in the book "What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire". I am writing the poem below:

it's just a slow day moving into a slow night.

it doesn't matter what you do

everything just stays the same.

the cats sleep it off, the dogs don't

bark,

it's just a slow day moving into a slow night.

there's nothing even dying,

it's just more waiting through a slow day moving

into a slow night.

you don't even hear the water running,

the walls just stand there

and the doors don't open.

it's just a slow day moving into a slow night.

the rain has stopped,

you can't hear a siren anywhere,

your wristwatch has a dead battery,

the cigarette lighter is out of fluid,

it's just a slow day moving into a slow night,

it's just more waiting through a slow day moving

into a slow night

like tomorrow's never going to come

and when it does

it'll be the same damn thing.

Listening to the song and reading the words make me feel so real and relieved. Mmmmm.
Turkish translation of the book is "Bir tek ben miyim böyle yaşayan?". The translator is Avi Pardo who is the best when it comes to translate Bukowski books into Turkish. I am giving the Turkish version of the poem, "saati kur", here:

ağır bir geceye doğru ilerleyen ağır bir gün
ne yaparsan yap
her şey olduğu gibi kalıyor.
kediler uyukluyor, köpekler
havlamıyor,
ağır bir geceye doğru ilerleyen ağır bir gün.
ölen bir şey bile yok.
ağır bir geceye doğru ilerleyen ağır bir günde
bir bekleyiş.
su borularından akan su sesi bile duyulmuyor.
duvarlar öylece duruyor,
kapılar açılmıyor.
ağır bir geceye doğru ilerleyen ağır bir gün.
yağmur dindi,
bir siren sesi bile yok,
kol saatinin pili bitmiş,
çakmağın gazı tükenmiş,
ağır bir geceye doğru ilerleyen ağır bir gün,
bir bekleyiş daha ağırbir geceye doğru
ilerleyen ağır bir günde
yarın asla gemeyecekmiş gibi
ve geldiğinde
aynı lanet şey olacak.

To me, what makes Charles Bukowski is a genius is that he merely wrote about his daily life and he did it by using a raw language. Reading the daily observations of a regular guy who writes with no regard to literary worries and artistic concerns is very likely to be a boring experience but it is not true for Bukowski.
His frank words and brutal style will always heal my deprived soul.
Thank you Hank, thank you Avi, thank you Euphrates :)

Humanity

Provided from http://bukowski.net/

In a lazy Sunday afternoon, I was just reading a poem, that made me feel the tranquility all the way, by Charles Bukowski and I wanted to share it below:

avoiding humanity

much of my life has been dedicated
to just that.

and still is.

even today at the track,
I was sitting alone between races,
in a dumb dream-state
but dumb or not,
it was mine.

then I heard a voice.
some fellow had seated himself
right behind me.

"I've come where it's nice and
quiet," he said.

I got up, walked about 150 yards
away and sat down
again.

I felt no guilt, only the return of a
more pleasant state of
being.

for decades i have been
bothered by door-knockers,
phone-ringers, letter-writers; and
strangers in airports and bars,
boxing matches, cafes, concerts,
libraries, supermarkets, jails,
hospitals, hotels, motels,
pharmacies, post offices,
etc.

I am not a lonely person.
I don't want to be embraced, cajoled,
told jokes to, I don't want to share
opinions or talk about the
weather and/or etc. and
etc.

I have never met a lively, original
interesting soul by accident and
I don't expect to.

all I have ever met are a herd of
dullards who have wanted to project
their petty frustrations upon me.

for some time women fooled
me.
I would see a body, a face, a
seeming aura of peace and
gentleness, a cool refreshing lake
to splash in,
but once they spoke
there was a voice like
chalk scratching a blackboard,
and what came forth as
speech
was a hideous and crippled
mind.

I lived with dozens of these.

wait.
the phone is ringing now.
but I have a message
machine.
they are leaving
one.

this one wants to see
me.
it wants to invite
itself over.
a reason is given,
some pretense.
it is hardly a worthy
one.
the last words are,
"Please let me know."

why do they want to see
me?
I don't want to see
them.
can't they sense
this?

am I the only one in the
world who finds being
alone to be a blessing, a
miracle?

must I always be kind to
those who would wallow
in my hours?

am i an ugly soul?
unkind?
unappreciative?
misanthropic?
a misogynist?
a crackpot?
a bastard?
a murderer of hope?
do I torture animals?
am I without love?
do I reek of bitterness?
am I unfair?
am I the wrecking ball of dreams?
am I the devil's encore?
do I put glass in the sandbox?
am I without morals or mercy?

if so, why do they want to keep
seeing me?

I would never want to see
anybody like that.

especially
when I am
shaving.
       Charles Bukowski, Betting on The Muse, 1996, pg. 240

I Wanna Stay, OK?

I just am going to share a very strong poem by Bukowski. But before that...
You know what? I don't wanna die, OK?
Yeah! Most of the times, life seems too odd and maybe most of us feel despair about it.
However!
I wanna stay here for a long long time with my daughter and wife and everything that makes me feel in comfort. I wanna watch the sundown above the sea while I am drinking my cold big size beer and having some peanuts in warm feelings. When I look left, I'd like to see my love and when I look right, I wanna see my life. That's it!
Death is a silly process. I invite all the medical doctors and biologists to find a way to heal the end-of-life disorder.
I am here!
Deal?

And the poem by the great American poet:

born like this
into this
as the chalk faces smile
as Mrs. Death laughs
as the elevators break
as political landscapes dissolve
as the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree
as the oily fish spit out their oily prey
as the sun is masked

we are
born like this
into this
into these carefully mad wars
into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
into bars where people no longer speak to each other
into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings

born into this
into hospitals which are so expensive that it's cheaper to die
into lawyers who charge so much it's cheaper to plead guilty
into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes

born into this
walking and living through this
dying because of this
muted because of this
castrated
debauched
disinherited
because of this
fooled by this
used by this
pissed on by this
made crazy and sick by this
made violent
made inhuman
by this
the heart is blackened
the fingers reach for the throat
the gun
the knife
the bomb
the fingers reach toward an unresponsive god
the fingers reach for the bottle
the pill
the powder

we are born into this sorrowful deadliness
we are born into a government 60 years in debt
that soon will be unable to even pay the interest on that debt
and the banks will burn
money will be useless
there will be open and unpunished murder in the streets
it will be guns and roving mobs
land will be useless
food will become a diminishing return
nuclear power will be taken over by the many
explosions will continually shake the earth
radiated robot men will stalk each other
the rich and the chosen will watch from space platforms
Dante's Inferno will be made to look like a children's playground
the sun will not be seen and it will always be night
trees will die
all vegetation will die
radiated men will eat the flesh of radiated men
the sea will be poisoned
the lakes and rivers will vanish
rain will be the new gold
the rotting bodies of men and animals will stink in the dark wind
the last few survivors will be overtaken by new and hideous diseases
and the space platforms will be destroyed by attrition
the petering out of supplies
the natural effect of general decay
and there will be the most beautiful silence never heard
born out of that
the sun still hidden there
awaiting the next chapter

-Charles Bukowski, from The Last Night of the Earth Poems, 1992