{"id":4774,"date":"2018-12-13T14:34:19","date_gmt":"2018-12-13T20:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/?p=4774"},"modified":"2018-12-13T14:34:19","modified_gmt":"2018-12-13T20:34:19","slug":"stop-doing-this-to-me-i-dont-want-to-like-your-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/2018\/12\/13\/stop-doing-this-to-me-i-dont-want-to-like-your-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop Doing this to Me, I Don&#8217;t Want to Like Your Work"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.poetryfoundation.org\/jstor\/i20603701\/pages\/35.png\" \/>I think I am going to read this piece for the November Coffeehouse, part because I am still searching for a poem that deals with time and is also something I can relate to.<\/p>\n<p>Charles Bukowski always has a way of making me come back to his work, no matter his reputation and personality. (He&#8217;s kind of trashy, etc. etc.) I feel grounded in his poetry, in all of his pieces actually-this one is just something I felt the need to unpack and smear the personal revelations I understood from it into the blog-sphere.<\/p>\n<p>Why does he do this to me? Why, &#8220;every day should be a miracle instead of a machination.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>First of all, is &#8220;machination&#8221; even a word? And secondly, my guts are sore from aching all the god-damn time, Mr. Bukowski, these lines are just too powerful for me.<\/p>\n<p>The poem is real, it&#8217;s beautiful-I love it because of it&#8217;s authenticity. Realness is something I yearn to find in my own writing. It is something I haven&#8217;t discovered in my youth, and hope to find as I continue my life into adulthood and stop mooching themes from other authors.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t think Charles Bukowski mooches as much as the rest of us do. I think he was born into the world an old, tired man, and all of his ideas are his own-they are impenetrable.<\/p>\n<p>He titles the piece: <em>FINGERNAILS; NOSTRILS; SHOELACES<\/em><\/p>\n<p>he then begins a life-within-a-life story, some parts choppy, but all centering back to a central theme that can be found at the beginning, middle, and especially end of the poem.<\/p>\n<p>The meat of this poem:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;it&#8217;s not so much that nothing means anything but more that it keeps meaning nothing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I love and hate his self-awareness and reflection at times. I love and hate having to grapple with my own image after reading these lines. This poem requires that I try and I give up all at once; it gives me a hundred headaches with each syllable. Love and hate, but mostly hard work, are needed here.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;such a sadness: everything trying to break into blossom.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>he is talking of horses being released from their shoots during a race, so too is he referring to himself and me and whoever else wants to existentialize horse races.<\/p>\n<p>There is something soft-footed about his lines, something that wants to be heavy but cannot for the moment seem to find grounding. It makes me thoughtful, it makes my own body feel it&#8217;s weight instead of the words.<\/p>\n<p>The poem almost makes up for Bukowski being such a s****y man. (I said almost.)<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;the more people say, the less there is to say.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>You said it, Mr. Bukowski.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I think I am going to read this piece for the November Coffeehouse, part because I am still searching for a poem that deals with time and is also something I can relate to. Charles Bukowski always has a way of making me come back to his work, no matter his reputation and personality. (He&#8217;s &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/2018\/12\/13\/stop-doing-this-to-me-i-dont-want-to-like-your-work\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Stop Doing this to Me, I Don&#8217;t Want to Like Your Work&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4774"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4774"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4776,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4774\/revisions\/4776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}