The First Man of Letters (soft porn)

If you are unfamiliar with the face above I won’t begrudge you the miss. Bukowski is not for everyone. He’s like a hit of meth and pornhub on the same inhale. Again, forgiven if you don’t know the high this man can create with words alone.

The part that amazed me when I stumbled across his poetry and short stories is the myth that his college tours were fuck fests. This man, this talented and gruff smoking man, according to his stories, lit up panties across US campuses for years. The truth of the matter is not important. That’s the magic of his linguistic gymnastics of sex, seduction, and myth-making.

I can promise you, there’s no one quite like Charles. The piss and scree is also along for the ride in most of his narratives. Over time, I suppose he became a characture of himself. Like Kerouac encountered in the wild, or Henry Miller caught at a bar, people who knew who he was began to fawn over his prowess of prose and panties. It’s unknown at this time (my me) if Mr. B was bi and embraced the affection of men and women alike. And no, I’m not about to Google it.

What lights up our inner purple prose hormone? What does it take for us mundane earthbound readers to go from Home Shopping Network to Fetlife? Mr. B had the pulse of our pulse and could make it run hot at will. Still, I can’t look at his canon and imagine that he will go down as a revered writer. Perv maybe. Acquired taste, for sure. Again, if you know you know, if you don’t, I’m sorry for bringing it up.

Read more Short-Short Stories from John.