The Writing & Poetry of Charles Bukowski
Excerpt from The Albums
I just drank in this cheap room, a young man
totally misplaced in the world.
I hardly ate anything, the wine was my
substance
and the classical records.
I lived like a god damned fly, or maybe like a
confused
rat.
Where I scrounged my few funds, I no longer
remember.
But I do remember the record store
where you could exchange 3 used albums for
2.
By buying an occasional album and by continuous
trading
I gradually listened to almost all the
albums
in that store.
But most of the time I was broke so I had to
listen to very very many of the 2 albums
on hand
over and over and
over.
I drank and listened again and
again.
each note became embedded in
me
and then
re-embedded.
now
decades later
I still sometimes hear
one of those old albums on the
radio–same conductor, same
orchestra–
and I immediately
shut the radio off.
Yet remember that time with a
melancholy
fondness.
A cult figure, novelist, short-story writer, poet and journalist. One of the greatest writers to come out of Los Angeles, many consider Bukowski to be a true voice of the city of angels. Bukowski, also known as “Buk,” wrote with raw emotion and painted with words. His canvas was Los Angeles. Not the glitter though. His Los Angeles was the stench of alley-ways, broken dreams, broken hearts, winos and of course…the horse track. Link
