The People Look Like Flowers At Last: New Poems

“if you read this after I am dead

It means I made it”

-“The Creation Coffin”

The People Look like Flowers at Last is the last of five collections of never-before published poetry from the late great Dirty Old Man, Charles Bukowski.

In it, he speaks on topics ranging from horse racing to military elephants, lost love to the fear of death.  He writes extensively about writing, and about talking to people about writers such as Camus, Hemingway, and Stein.  He writes about war and fatherhood and cats and women.

Free from the pressure to present a consistent persona, these poems present less of an aggressively disruptive character, and more a world-weary and empathetic person.

This final volume from the master of dirty realism delivers:

• Dirty Realism: Find poetry in the grit of the everyday—from horse racing and hangovers to the unflinching realities of love, loss, and survival.
• Life and Death: Confront the fear of death, the weight of fatherhood, and the strange beauty of a world that keeps turning, with or without you.
• The Writer’s Life: Step into the mind of a literary outlaw as he spars with the ghosts of Hemingway and Camus and lays bare the raw, bloody act of creation.
• Unpublished Works: Experience the unvarnished last words of an American icon in a volume of never-before-seen poems, stripping away the persona to reveal the weary heart beneath.

the gas line is leaking, the bird is gone from the
cage, the skyline is dotted with vultures;
Benny finally got off the stuff and Betty now has a job
as a waitress; and
the chimney sweep was quite delicate as he
giggled up through the
soot.
I walked miles through the city and recognized
nothing as a giant claw ate at my
stomach while the inside of my head felt
airy as if I was about to go
mad.
it’s not so much that nothing means
anything but more that it keeps meaning
nothing,
there’s no release, just gurus and self-
appointed gods and hucksters.
the more people say, the less there is to say.
even the best books are dry sawdust.

—from "fingernails; nostrils; shoelaces"

“The purportedly “fifth and final” posthumous collection of Bukowski’s inimitable poetry is. . . amazingly funny, mordant, rueful, raffish, sad, resigned; all attest as firm a dedication to the lower case as that of e. e. cummings. Standouts? Turn to “the dwarf with a punch” in section 1; the epical “Rimbaud be damned” in section 2; “I never bring my wife,” with its sublime apothegm about the lonely, in section 4. Bet you’ll then read the rest.” - Booklist

"The People Look Like Flowers At Last is the final posthumous Bukowski collection. . . and it is extraordinary.” - Buffalo News

“We all knew Bukowski was a tough guy, but who would have guessed that even the grave could not shut him up? The People Look Like Flowers At Last shows him at his scruffy, hard-hitting, tender-hearted best. They say this is his final posthumous book, but don’t bet on it.” - Billy Collins, former Poet Laureate

“The purportedly “fifth and final” posthumous collection of Bukowski’s inimitable poetry is …amazingly funny, mordant, rueful, raffish, sad, resigned; all attest as firm a dedication to the lower case as that of e. e. cummings.” - Booklist