Charles Bukowski is the only poet I'm familiar with at all. He's often really unkind to women in his writing, and while that does bother me, for whatever reason it's not enough to make me dislike him. So anyways, here's my favorite poem by him!
Charles Bukowski, “People as Flowers”
such singing’s going on in the
streets -
the people look like flowers
at last
the police have turned in their
badges
the army has shredded its uniforms and
weapons. there isn't any need for
jails or newspapers or madhouses or
locks on the doors.
a woman rushes through my door
TAKE ME! LOVE ME!
she screams.
she’s as beautiful as as a cigar
after a steak dinner. I
take her.
but after she leaves
I feel odd
I lock the door
go to the desk and take the pistol
from the drawer. it has its own sense of
love.
LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! the crowd sings in the
streets.
I fire through the window
glass cutting my face and
arms. I get a 12-year-old-boy
an old man with a beard
and a lovely girl something like a
lilac.
the crowd stops singing to
look at me.
I stand in the broken window
the blood on my
face.
"this," I yell at them, "is in defense of the
poverty of self and in the defense of the freedom
not to love!”
"leave him alone," somebody says,
"he is insane, he has lived the bad life for
too long.”
I walk into the kitchen
sit down and pour a
glass of whiskey.
I decide that the only definition of
Truth (which changes)
is that it is that thing or act or
belief which the crowd
rejects.
there is a pounding at my
door. it is the same woman again.
she is as beautiful as finding a
fat green frog in the
garden.
I have 2 bullets left and
use them
both.
nothing in the air but
clouds. nothing in the air but
rain. each man’s life too short to
find meaning and
all the books almost a
waste.
I sit and listen to them
singing
I sit and listen to
them.
Tommy2Handswhat is this where am iRegistered Userregular
edited February 2014
okay metzger, but only for your awesomes do i do this- let that be clear
spoiled to protect the general public from sappy cheesy bs
also; a quick prelude, i posted this song on my girlfriend's phone, onto her blog rather then my own, mostly as a reason to explain the title, which was something that i just sorta liked the sound of
also i was pretty drunk at 4 in the morning laying on my back in the middle of a vegtable garden when i wrote all of it, so it could probably do with some editing
anyway, im sorry
from You, To me
We woke up, fought &made better
You and I, both we go Together;
Drove ‘till sunset, watched it pass-
Smoke rings floating, as high as Grass.
Bumper2Bumper, we sought out Pizza
Bacon Ranch Sauce, I was pleased to meet’ya.
The Plan was Shady, the Plan was Rough
Hanging out in Oxnard after Dusk.
Angry words, sometimes Shared;
Those that Learn,
Are Those later Prepared,
For Defeat. Your Heat
Is What Keeps Me Loving You-
No Pressure, I Never
Plan On Ever Leaving You.
Midnight comes, the Dogs are Howling
In the Garden, You, Sleeping Soundly.
I slip into your bag, my head is pounding
A mysterious quiet, A boundless bounty-
Half a Bottle, &Still Counting.
You get close, I get Closer.
The Garden Spins
i am no Boaster
i will Love You,
Morning, Noon &Dusk
Let the Midnight
Tear Away My Rust
Please Remember that
You Can Count On Me
From the Depths of my Heart.
from You, To me
Tommy2Hands on
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Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
Tommy that aint half bad bro! Better than the shit I write at any rate.
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Tommy2Handswhat is this where am iRegistered Userregular
edited February 2014
it could use some editing, reading it now
but, like i said, drunk and in a field so im going to give myself a break
i probably like the syntax of it more then the rhymes themselves
which kind of says something about the quality of my poetry
okay, this is the first time I've looked through this book in years, and while it's definitely the most interesting used bookstore find, I'm less comfortable calling it my favourite.
in fact, I'm just plain less comfortable.
You may suspect that a section titled "Gourmands" immediately following a section titled "Excrement" might be somewhat... vulgar in it's humor. You would be underestimating things.
I can post exactly none of the limericks from that section.
holy shit, nevermind, this has been a fascinating book hunt!
When George Alexander Legman, later Gershon, was a freshman at the University of Michigan (before he was expelled for stealing a typewriter), he became acquainted with two young instructors of English, Charles Walcutt and P. H. Erbes, Jr. Walcutt and Erbes had a manuscript collection of bawdy limericks which they titled Lapses in Limerick . Although they declined to grant Legman's request for a copy of their collection, they did share their limerick headings — "Little Romances from Real Life," "Organs: Strange, Heroical, and Inadequate," "Abuses of the Clergy," "Strange Intercourse." These headers were to become the inspiration for Legman's landmark volumes.
Over the years, Legman's own limerick collection grew by leaps and bounds. Unable to publish The Limerick, as he titled it, in the United States, he turned in 1953 to the less straight laced French publishing industry. Although the French showed no hesitation in printing the bawdy collection, they refused him the protection of a copyright, a fact which was to haunt him all his days. Unlike American printers who print more copies than ordered, the French printers printed the exact number ordered — after subtracting misprints and thefts (the Parisian printers supplemented their income by free enterprise) a shrunken order was delivered, another thorn in Legman's side.
When the Fanny Hill case opened the United States to limericks and other material with "redeeming social value," a number of legitimate reprints and pirated editions appeared. Since The Limerick was not copyrighted, publishers were free to copy at will. Appearing here are the editions, authorized and unauthorized, of G. Legman's classic endeavor.
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UnbrokenEvaHIGH ON THE WIREBUT I WON'T TRIP ITRegistered Userregular
@Mysst no author is credited, seemingly deliberately so. They do list all of their source material, but even the introduction is credited only to "The Editor"
No improvement has been made upon orally transmitted or printed materials. The limericks are given as found in the sources credited. (Exceptions: punctuation and the spelling of geographical names have been made uniform, expurgations have been spelled out, and the first names of real private persons have been dropped.) The text is eclectic only to the degree of choosing one form - not necessarily the oldest - on which to base all variants. The prejudices, cruelty, and humorless quality of many of the limericks included are deeply regretted. However, no falsification of the material has been made.
The Editor.
(emphasis mine)
the first source listed is pretty incredible as well:
Cythera's Hymnal; Or, Flakes from the Foreskin: A Collection of Songs, Poems, Nursery Rhymes, Quiddities, Etc., Etc. Never Before Published
Printed at the University Press, for the Society for Promoting Useful Knowledge, 1870
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UnbrokenEvaHIGH ON THE WIREBUT I WON'T TRIP ITRegistered Userregular
looks like it is the same book, as mine is listed as "The Famous Paris Edition", and the editor's foreword on sources mentions getting the chapter titles from Lapses in Limerick
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UnbrokenEvaHIGH ON THE WIREBUT I WON'T TRIP ITRegistered Userregular
There was a young monk from Siberia
Whose morals were very inferior
He did to a nun
What he shouldn't have done
And now she's a Mother Superior
ooh, a three-parter
There was a young fellow named Fyfe
Whose marriage was ruined for life,
For he had an aversion
To every perversion
And only liked fucking his wife.
Well, one year the poor woman struck,
And she wept, and she cursed at her luck,
And said "Where have you gotten us
With your goddamn monotonous
Fuck after fuck after fuck?
"I once new a harlot named Lou
And a versatile girl she was, too.
After ten years of whoredom
She perished of boredom
When she married a jackass like you!"
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UnbrokenEvaHIGH ON THE WIREBUT I WON'T TRIP ITRegistered Userregular
holy shit I found a 28-limerick story. I'm gonna link it because A) the images are huge B) I don't want to type it all out, and C) I'm not sure where the line is for vulgar language
I wrote this a couple years ago and it ain't really a poem but I still like it, and it's more or less about love. Obviously I really like punctuation.
We are, on average, nothing. That’s not an insult so much as a description. Think of an individual atom: it consists of electrons orbiting a nucleus but the space in between the bits is just that - space. Nothingness. So the atoms that make up you and I and the Earth and the Sun and everything else that has ever existed are 99% nothing. Then there is space between the atoms on top of that - Pauli tells us they can only get so close to each other - which makes the nothingness even more than 99% of everything.
But clearly you exist, you’re not nothing in reality. So if you’re not mass then what are you?
Easy: a confluence of forces.
I can’t really touch you, my atoms and yours can only get so close, so what I’m really feeling is not your skin but the physics that hold you together. It is the nuclear forces of our atoms interacting; the magnetic field created by the charge running through your nerves; even your slight gravitational pull.
Sagan said we are stardust and that’s a beautiful thought, but we are so much more than that. We are the result of the rules under which the universe came into being. We are a collection of interactions which are woven into the fabric of existence. We are a lovely aberration of decreased entropy playing out against the inevitability of the heat death of the universe.
We are space itself.
YoSoyTheWalrus on
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#pipeCocky Stride, Musky odoursPope of Chili TownRegistered Userregular
Posts
Violets are blue,
Come suck my dick,
While I do a poo.
i wrote a thing the other night
like, an actual love poem thing
chronicling my valentines day date thing in a sufficiently vague enough way for other people to actually maybe enjoy?
im not really sure if im proud enough of it to post it here but i dunno
its pretty sappy
Charles Bukowski, “People as Flowers”
such singing’s going on in the
streets -
the people look like flowers
at last
the police have turned in their
badges
the army has shredded its uniforms and
weapons. there isn't any need for
jails or newspapers or madhouses or
locks on the doors.
a woman rushes through my door
TAKE ME! LOVE ME!
she screams.
she’s as beautiful as as a cigar
after a steak dinner. I
take her.
but after she leaves
I feel odd
I lock the door
go to the desk and take the pistol
from the drawer. it has its own sense of
love.
LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! the crowd sings in the
streets.
I fire through the window
glass cutting my face and
arms. I get a 12-year-old-boy
an old man with a beard
and a lovely girl something like a
lilac.
the crowd stops singing to
look at me.
I stand in the broken window
the blood on my
face.
"this," I yell at them, "is in defense of the
poverty of self and in the defense of the freedom
not to love!”
"leave him alone," somebody says,
"he is insane, he has lived the bad life for
too long.”
I walk into the kitchen
sit down and pour a
glass of whiskey.
I decide that the only definition of
Truth (which changes)
is that it is that thing or act or
belief which the crowd
rejects.
there is a pounding at my
door. it is the same woman again.
she is as beautiful as finding a
fat green frog in the
garden.
I have 2 bullets left and
use them
both.
nothing in the air but
clouds. nothing in the air but
rain. each man’s life too short to
find meaning and
all the books almost a
waste.
I sit and listen to them
singing
I sit and listen to
them.
Steam
spoiled to protect the general public from sappy cheesy bs
also; a quick prelude, i posted this song on my girlfriend's phone, onto her blog rather then my own, mostly as a reason to explain the title, which was something that i just sorta liked the sound of
also i was pretty drunk at 4 in the morning laying on my back in the middle of a vegtable garden when i wrote all of it, so it could probably do with some editing
anyway, im sorry
from You, To me
You and I, both we go Together;
Drove ‘till sunset, watched it pass-
Smoke rings floating, as high as Grass.
Bumper2Bumper, we sought out Pizza
Bacon Ranch Sauce, I was pleased to meet’ya.
The Plan was Shady, the Plan was Rough
Hanging out in Oxnard after Dusk.
Angry words, sometimes Shared;
Those that Learn,
Are Those later Prepared,
For Defeat. Your Heat
Is What Keeps Me Loving You-
No Pressure, I Never
Plan On Ever Leaving You.
Midnight comes, the Dogs are Howling
In the Garden, You, Sleeping Soundly.
I slip into your bag, my head is pounding
A mysterious quiet, A boundless bounty-
Half a Bottle, &Still Counting.
You get close, I get Closer.
The Garden Spins
i am no Boaster
i will Love You,
Morning, Noon &Dusk
Let the Midnight
Tear Away My Rust
Please Remember that
You Can Count On Me
From the Depths of my Heart.
from You, To me
but, like i said, drunk and in a field so im going to give myself a break
i probably like the syntax of it more then the rhymes themselves
which kind of says something about the quality of my poetry
goddamn, I want this book
(emphasis mine)
the first source listed is pretty incredible as well:
Cythera's Hymnal; Or, Flakes from the Foreskin: A Collection of Songs, Poems, Nursery Rhymes, Quiddities, Etc., Etc. Never Before Published
Printed at the University Press, for the Society for Promoting Useful Knowledge, 1870
ooh, a three-parter
http://i.imgur.com/QborR7R.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/sRhwZ2F.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/G06kz9U.jpg
We are, on average, nothing. That’s not an insult so much as a description. Think of an individual atom: it consists of electrons orbiting a nucleus but the space in between the bits is just that - space. Nothingness. So the atoms that make up you and I and the Earth and the Sun and everything else that has ever existed are 99% nothing. Then there is space between the atoms on top of that - Pauli tells us they can only get so close to each other - which makes the nothingness even more than 99% of everything.
But clearly you exist, you’re not nothing in reality. So if you’re not mass then what are you?
Easy: a confluence of forces.
I can’t really touch you, my atoms and yours can only get so close, so what I’m really feeling is not your skin but the physics that hold you together. It is the nuclear forces of our atoms interacting; the magnetic field created by the charge running through your nerves; even your slight gravitational pull.
Sagan said we are stardust and that’s a beautiful thought, but we are so much more than that. We are the result of the rules under which the universe came into being. We are a collection of interactions which are woven into the fabric of existence. We are a lovely aberration of decreased entropy playing out against the inevitability of the heat death of the universe.
We are space itself.
Need some stuff designed or printed? I can help with that.