“I’ll Take It”….Bukowski and Me

From his later life writings and his book, “You Get so Alone at Times that it Just Makes Sense” Bukowski wrote about how he felt he had beaten the odds….poetry gushing faster than he could write it down and grateful that he was still alive after the hard life he had lived.

I can relate….although I had been writing since my eighth grade history class (Thank you, Miss O’Connor) I certainly didn’t consider myself a ‘writer‘.  Then very late in life, (1994) I began in earnest.  Writing my first full length play. The next one came even easier….then the next one…it’s never stopped, the ideas.

Then friends who read my plays insisted that they wanted the ‘rest of the story’.  What happened to a particular character?  Did Bill ever get out of prison?  Did Monty kill Samantha?  Did Charlie make good his escape? Did Violet get her kids back? So…now I’ve written seven novels, stage plays and countless poems.

And like Bukowski I am so grateful that this experience came to me, no matter what time in my life.  The ideas, the words, the characters “flare and jump out, on and on –roaring in the glee of easy power.”

Here’s what Bukowski said about it:

I’ll Take it…  ©

maybe I’m going crazy, that’s all right
but these poems keep rising to the top of my
head with more and more
force. now
after the oceans of booze that I have
consumed
it would only seem that attrition would
be my rightful reward as I continue to
consume — while
the madhouses, skidrows and graveyards are
filled with the likes of
me–
yet each night as I sit down to this machine
with my bottle
the poems flare and jump out, on and
on — roaring in the glee of
easy power; 65 years
dancing — my mouth curling into a
tiny grin
as these keys keep meting out a
substantial energy of cock-
eyed miracle.

the gods have been kind to me through this
life-style that would have killed
an ox of a man
and I’m no ox of a
man.

I sensed from the beginning, of
course, that there was a strange gnawing
inside of me
but I never dreamed this
luck
this absolute shot of
grace

my death will at most seem
an
afterthought.
***Check out MY INTERVIEW WITH CHARLES BUKOWSKI***  Read other Bukowski posts!

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