My oldest friend

As the years peel away, your tastes change. Authors, musicians, artists, etc. fall in and out of favor. But there's always that one defining body of work that stays with you. That helped shape you and continues to provide nourishment.

When I was 22 and in the Coast Guard, my brother gave me a book by Charles Bukowski. Bukowski is not a great writer. His output isn't very literary. You won't find him being taught in the universities. But all of these decades later, his stuff still speaks to me on a very visceral level. I actually got a chill when I read these again. As though I was reading them for the first time. Talk about the gift that keeps on giving!

Here are a few samples from that book my brother gave me, Mockingbird Wish Me Luck, when Bukowski was, in my opinion, at the peak of his powers.

* * *

style

style is the answer to everything —
a fresh way to approach a dull or a
dangerous thing.
to do a dull thing with style
is preferable to doing a dangerous thing
without it.

Joan of Arch had style
John the Baptist
Christ
Socrates
Caesar,
Garcia Lorca.

style is the difference,
a way of doing
a way of being done.

6 herons standing quietly in a pool of water
or you walking out the bathroom naked
without seeing
me.

* * *

and the moon and the stars
and the world:

long walks at
night —
that's what's good
for the
soul:
peeking into windows
watching tired
housewives
trying to fight
off
their beer-maddened
husbands.

* * *

Bukowski wrote this one for his daughter when she was about 8. Same age as my daughter, who's upstairs sleeping as I type these words.

marina:

majestic, magic
infinite
my little girl is
sun
on the carpet —
out the door
picking a
flower, ha!,
an old man,
battle-wrecked,
emerges from his
chair
and she looks at me
but only sees
love,
ha!, and I become
quick with the world
and love right back
just like I was meant
to do.