The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain

The second volume of poems Bukowski left unpublished when he died does not contain many fights, arguments with women, or eruptions at parties. Most of it seems to have been written very late; indeed, one of its most effective passages consists of poems about his hospitalization during treatment for terminal leukemia, and several other poems look toward death with a calmness that verges on nobility. Oh, he stayed true to his jaundiced, damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don't outlook, and he remained capable of f----th'-bastids rants against politics, business, and armed authorities. But he couldn't muster spontaneous ill-will as of old, and he actually let go of grudges. He became sympathetic of as well as to others. Read "the old girl" to appreciate this, for he relents and gives an irascible beggar he has spurned for years credit for endurance in the "self-same trap" we're all in; so doing, he rouses the impulse to feel for him, not just laugh with him. This is mellow Buk. Fancy that! Ray Olson