To celebrate this month’s release of Essential Bukowski: Poetry by Charles Bukowski, we’ve rounded up the gang to share their favourite lyrics from this compact yet comprehensive collection. Some of us are first time Bukowski readers, some are longtime devotees. Wherever you are in your Bukowski journey, these four poems will ease you in (or shock you to the core) to the brilliance of a Los Angelino legend.
he came to the door one night wet boney beaten and
terrorized.
a white cross-eyed tailless cat
I took him in and fed him and he stayed
got to trust until a friend drove up the driveway
and ran him over
I took what was left to a vet who said, “not much
chance . . . give him these pills and wait . . . his backbone
is crushed, it was crushed once before but somehow
melded, if he lives he’ll never walk again, look at
these x- rays, he’s been shot, look here, the pellets
are still in him . . . also, he once had a tail, somebody
cut it off . . .”
