Charles Bukowski
Charles Bukowski merupakan pujangga dan novelist dari Amerika Serikat yang lahir pada 16 Agustus 1920 di Andernach Jerman dengan nama lahir Heinrich Karl Bukowski. Keluarganya pindah ke Los Angeles Amerika pada 1923 setelah ayahnya, Henry Bukowski, kesulitan untuk mencari penghasilan akibat dari keadaan ekonomi yang stagnan ditambah dengan tingkat inflasi pasca perang yang tinggi. Masa muda Bukowski penuh dengan kesendirian dan penarikan diri dari lingkungan sosial akibat dari penyakit kulit (jerawat parah) yang dideritanya serta aksen jerman yang dimilikinya. Setelah lulus dari SMA, Bukowski melanjutkan studi di Los Angeles City College sampai Bukowski keluar setelah 2 tahun mengambil kelas di jurnalisme, seni, dan literatur untuk melakukan pekerjaan kerah biru dan selanjutnya bekerja di kantor pos surat.
Berlanjut….
Puisi Bukowski Pilihan
Roll The Dice
If you’re going to try, go all the way.
Otherwise, don’t even start.
This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind.
It could mean not eating for three or four days.
It could mean freezing on a park bench.
It could mean jail.
It could mean derision.
It could mean mockery — isolation.
Isolation is the gift.
All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it.
And, you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds.
And it will be better than anything else you can imagine.
If you’re going to try, go all the way.
There is no other feeling like that.
You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire.
You will ride life straight to perfect laughter.
It’s the only good fight there is.
Throwing Away The Alarm Clock
My father always said, “early to bed and
early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy
and wise.”it was lights out at 8 p.m. in our house
and we were up at dawn to the smell of
coffee, frying bacon and scrambled
eggs.my father followed this general routine
for a lifetime and died young, broke,
and, I think, not too
wise.taking note, I rejected his advice and it
became, for me, late to bed and late
to rise.now, I’m not saying that I’ve conquered
the world but I’ve avoided
numberless early traffic jams, bypassed some
common pitfalls
and have met some strange, wonderful
peopleone of whom
was
myself—someone my father
never
knew.
Friendly Advice To A Lot Of Young Men
Go to Tibet
Ride a camel.
Read the bible.
Dye your shoes blue.
Grow a beard.
Circle the world in a paper canoe.
Subscribe to The Saturday Evening Post.
Chew on the left side of your mouth only.
Marry a woman with one leg and shave with a straight razor.
And carve your name in her arm.Brush your teeth with gasoline.
Sleep all day and climb trees at night.
Be a monk and drink buckshot and beer.
Hold your head under water and play the violin.
Do a belly dance before pink candles.
Kill your dog.
Run for mayor.
Live in a barrel.
Break your head with a hatchet.
Plant tulips in the rain.But don’t write poetry.
“When failures gather together in an attempt at self-congratulation, it only leads to a deeper and more, abiding failure. The crowd is the gathering place of the weakest; true creation is a solitary act.” – was Charles Bukowski’s answer to the questions regarding his Friendly Advice To Lot of Young Man poem in his interview.
Hell Is A Lonely Place
he was 65, his wife was 66, had
Alzheimer’s disease.he had cancer of the mouth.
there were operations, radiation treatments
which decayed the bones in hisjaw
which then had to be wired.daily he put his wife in rubber diapers
like a baby.unable to drive in his condition
he had to take a taxi to the medical center,
had difficulty speaking, had to
write the directions down.on his last visit they informed him there would be another operation:a bit more left
cheek and a bit more tongue.
when he returned
he changed his wife’s diapers
put on the tv dinners, watched the evening news
then went to the bedroom, got the
gun, put it to her temple, fired.she fell to the left, he sat upon the couch
put the gun into his mouth, pulled the trigger.the shots didn’t arouse the neighbors.
later the burning tv dinners did.
somebody arrived, pushed
the door open, saw it.soon
the police arrived and went through their routine, found
some items:a closed savings account and
a checkbook with a balance of $1.14
suicide, they deduced.in three weeks there were two
new tenants:
a computer engineer named Ross
and his wife Anatana who studied ballet.they looked like another
upwardly mobile
pair.
Ancient Gods. Their immortality served as a curse, not a blessing.
