Bukowski was a tough guy, but there was something even he was afraid to say to his wife. He had to write it in a poem entitled Confession to be read after his death:
and the hard words I ever feared to say can now be said:
No, it doesn't say. My description is inaccurate. It's just a poem. She could have read it whenever it was published. It's consistent with Bukowski's other poem Bluebird, about how there is a bluebird in his heart that he won't let you see. He didn't like to show any vulnerability.
I think it is because if you love really love them, they can hurt you. As John LeCarre wrote, love is whatever you can betray. If you betray someone and they are hurt, you know they must have loved you.
“What reconciles me to my own death more than anything else is the image of a place: a place where your bones and mine are buried, thrown, uncovered, together. They are strewn there pell-mell. One of your ribs leans against my skull. A metacarpal of my left hand lies inside your pelvis. (Against my broken ribs your breast like a flower.) The hundred bones of our feet are scattered like gravel. It is strange that this image of our proximity, concerning as it does mere phosphate of calcium, should bestow a sense of peace. Yet it does. With you I can imagine a place where to be phosphate of calcium is enough.” – John Berger
No one should ever be afraid to say I love you, if they really mean it.
ReplyDeleteSaying I love you after dying is like saying, sorry I never made you feel like you were loved, but I felt I was more important than you.
Does it say what her reaction was?
No, it doesn't say. My description is inaccurate. It's just a poem. She could have read it whenever it was published. It's consistent with Bukowski's other poem Bluebird, about how there is a bluebird in his heart that he won't let you see. He didn't like to show any vulnerability.
DeleteI don't think telling someone you love that you love them is a vulnerability.
DeleteOr is it?
DeleteI think it is because if you love really love them, they can hurt you. As John LeCarre wrote, love is whatever you can betray. If you betray someone and they are hurt, you know they must have loved you.
DeleteSad
ReplyDeletehow about this for speaking from the grave.
ReplyDelete“What reconciles me to my own death more than anything else is the image of a place: a place where your bones and mine are buried, thrown, uncovered, together. They are strewn there pell-mell. One of your ribs leans against my skull. A metacarpal of my left hand lies inside your pelvis. (Against my broken ribs your breast like a flower.) The hundred bones of our feet are scattered like gravel. It is strange that this image of our proximity, concerning as it does mere phosphate of calcium, should bestow a sense of peace. Yet it does. With you I can imagine a place where to be phosphate of calcium is enough.” – John Berger
Hmmm, seems to be kind of a multi-body grave. People aren't buried that way normally, unless it's in an avalanche or something.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.facebook.com/pages/Charles-Bukowski-Fans/233877389965660
ReplyDeleteThey had some good stuff there about Bukowski.
Delete