Bukowski amazes me every time I read and reread any of his books. He makes the ordinary look extraordinary, or has it always been that way?. His writing is marked by an emphasis on the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women, and the drudgery of work. Try reading Pulp, to star with.

 luck from a kitchen

what matters is still being here in
this kitchen with my small radio, this
rolled cigarette and
with a two-foot stack of fresh blue
laundry.
I’m sure I’ve sprayed
the last of the roaches and
what matters is that this tabletop
is littered with new poems.
two drunks fight in the apartment
to the rear, the cats walk
up and down the courtyard
and around the corner
girls sit in massage parlor
doorways
dreaming of love.



what matters is that I still have
after all that has preceded
poems left
me left
and these walls that I have always
loved
in all the cities and in all the
places I have lived,
these walls are still here and
my radio plays.
this Royal Standard typer
(which I have had for 7 years)
sometimes doesn’t work for 2 or
3 days and then my hair begins to
fall out, I have trouble
pronouncing a simple sentence,
I break out in an itchy
rash and then
the Royal begins again
almost by itself.
that matters much more than
those two drunks fighting in
the apartment to the rear
or the flame of heaven locked tight
inside my coffee jar.
my radio gives me good, kind
music tonight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bukowski