You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense

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21 December 2020

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The poetry of Charles Bukowski is very raw, explicit and heartfelt. There's a lot about women and alcohol in them. But there's more underneath the shock factor he likes to employ. It's very California I guess. Straight to the point and maybe the point is outside the social mores of the rest of society. Never having been one for rules myself I like to read him say hard truths with reckless abandon. From the Master Plan,

it was a world full of drunks and writers and
drunk writers.

and so
I became a starving drunk instead of a starving
writer.

the best thing was the instant
result.

And then there's 16-bit Intel 8088 chip, marching through Georgia and Gay Paree? about the incompatibility of software written for specific hardware, chicken wings, and man's propensity for putting on airs. Bukowski didn't become a writer full time until he was 49 and his motto was "don't try". It's very zen, but I think it nicely encapsulates what the creative process of writing should be. Writing. Just writing. Not trying to write a great novel. Nor the poem with perfect rhyme and meter. Nor the photo caption for Instagram that will get you the most likes. Nor the blog that you, the reader, can enjoy, can agree with, and can feel comfortable taking home to your family. Writing just is. In its purest form it's expression. Maybe nobody sees it or reads or cares or understands. It's the saying that's important and in that state one has all the potential one needs.

that space
there
before they get to us

ensures
that
when they do
they won't
get it all

ever.