Bukowski v. Koyczan

Koyczan is the new Bukowksi of the 21st century. There must be something special about having a polish surname. Compare these two poems. My first love that left this world too soon, Bukowski:

I am driving down Wilton Avenue

when this girl of about 15

dressed up in tight blue jeans

that grip her behind like two hands

steps out in front of my car

I stop to let her cross the street

and as I watch her contours waving

she looks directly through my windshield

at me

with purple eyes

and then blows

out of her mouth

the largest pink globe of

bubble gum

I have ever seen

while I am listening to Beethoven

on the car radio.

she enters a small grocery store

and is gone

and I am left with

Ludwig.

The poem works because it's a story. Bukowski starts it with a hook: the enticement of illicit sex with an underage girl. We read on, is it another Lolita tragedy? He hits us with imagery and it feeds right into our imaginations: the jeans that "grip her behind like two hands." And then he ends it with Beethoven, a classic tale.

In contrast, the work of my new infatuation, Shane Koyczan on Beethoven:

[K]ings, queens

it didn’t matter

the man got down on his knees

for no one

but amputated the legs of his piano

so he could feel the vibrations

through the floor

the man got down on his knees

for music...

and for a moment

it was like joy

was a tangible thing

like you could touch it

like for the first time

we could watch love and hate dance together

in a waltz of such precision and beauty

that we finally understood

the history wasn’t important

to know the man

all we ever had to do was

listen.

How sad is a piano with amputated legs? How Beethoven must have hated to do it, but he did it for love. Koyczan makes you listen and see, and finally he makes you cry. Listen: