Slouching Toward Nirvana: New Poems

“Wordsworth, Whitman, William Carlos Williams, and The Beats in their respective generations moved poetry toward a more natural language. Bukowski moved it a little farther.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review

“He brought everybody down to earth, even the angels.”—Leonard Cohen, songwriter

Los Angeles slums, bars, and more are featured in Slouching Toward Nirvana, the third of five books of unpublished poems from Charles Bukowski, considered by many to be America’s most imitated and influential poet.

in this place

there are the dead, the deadly and the dying.

there is the cross, the builders of the cross and the burners of the

cross.

the pattern of my life forms like a cheap shadow

on the wall before me.

my love

what is left of it

now must crawl

to wherever it can crawl.

the strongest know that death is

final

and the happiest are those gifted with the

shortest journey.