NOT HANK

the other day i mentioned the effect that the author, charles bukowski, had had upon me. after some agreeable comments i googled him up (all my books of his have been lost or stolen) and i read his poem ‘confession’. and i cried.

i remember reading something that was either by him, or about him, and it said that every word was like a punch in the face. that’s the way i want to write.

so how come that ugly old drunk got away with it? what on earth did he have inside of him that can reach into me, me of all people, and rip my heart out and stamp on it and make me cry?

i was talking to trouty about the films that make me cry. i said that ‘yangtse incident’ was a good one for that. destroyers make a weird call that goes ‘woop woop’ and they are the only ships that do it. when i was a teeny boy we used to holiday in norfolk and we could hear the ships out on the north sea. my dad used to tell me, when we heard the ‘woop woop’, ‘that’s a destroyer’. so that registered with me and must have lodged in my sentimental banks. and when i see the film and the destroyer, HMS amethyst, gets away and goes ‘woop woop’, i cry. i can’t help it.

so there are songs and films that make me cry but nothing ever touches me like the works of charles bukowski. it might be a mind-set thing; if you despise his life-style then you might write it off as mawkish, but if you feel like he might have done, like i do, then it goes straight into you and you can’t escape.

he was so brutal and so gentle. a ‘beat-poet’ who just wrote as he wanted and was never scared. he took everything and never backed down. now why can’t i do that?

so here’s to you, hank chinaski, i’m having a swig for you.
your friend,
h.