Write Like F*cking Bukowski

Write from your heart. Not from an MFA.

Charles Bukowski

“If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose”― Charles Bukowski.

Lately, I've felt most of what I write is okay. It's good, polished, but too vanilla. It's like I'm writing for the audience. I'm preaching to the choir—I'm not vulnerable, intimate, or curious enough.

Yes, I’m getting nice pats on the back, but no awe-inspiring hugs. I'm getting bored with my own writing, as probably are my readers. I've stopped using words like serendipity, synchronicity, archetypical and all those intriguing words that Carl Jung would use. 

I think it all stems from the fact that I've become too blasé. I stopped saying: "What the f*ck, anymore?" 

Like when you watch a sunset, large birds flying in a 'V' formation or taste that baked cheesecake, and you say: "What the f*ck?"

Like when you read Bukowski and say: "What the f*ck?"

When I started writing almost 7 years ago, I'd sit in front of my laptop with classical music playing in the background and smoke a cigar, as I'm doing so right now.

I'd spend an hour producing short prose poetry inspired by my favourite poets: Charles Bukowski, Rumi and Gibran. They spoke to me like assassins sent from another world to destroy my ego. 

After that hour or so, I'd produce something like this poem below:

The Lost Seagull 

I sit alone facing the sun

far away from the din

and all that plastic that

life has conjured behind me.

The mix of orange, yellow and red blinds my vision, taking me 

to another world.

A world where sunsets are long 

Conversations flow

Smiles are real

And so are the tears that fall.

The roar of the Mediterranean Sea

and the sight of the waves crashing down

onto the sea

is deafening.

It envelops me

further into that other world 

A lone seagull hovers down and sits next to me

 a beautiful bird,

 pure white with a few 

grey strands under its neck. It too has left its flock searching for that

other world. 

It looks at me—I look back at it. 

It flies off. 

Or when I went for a walk a few days ago, listened to Gelong Thubten (a Buddhist Monk) on a podcast with Dr Chatterjee and came up with this:

Be Fearless

Two fear-based feelings dominate us. 

One is fear of not getting what we want. Like not being invited to their 50th birthday, no padle court at 5 pm on a Tuesday, 

not the life we promised ourselves.

The other is fear of getting what you don't want. Like being invited to their 50th birthday, 

a leg injury, so you can't play padle,

or when life is being sucked out of you.

There are no other emotions. 

They all evolve from these two fears.

Learn to let go of them.

Master them. 

Live happily ever after.

But what about love, you ask? 

Love is not an emotion but our state of being. 

We are love when we overcome our fears. 

We are love when we remove obstacles

that stand in its way.

I know my poems won't win the Pulitzer, but they came from my heart. When I was done, it left me feeling like I'd just met Rumi in that 'field, the one beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing.'  Trust me, that’s a good place.

Back then, when I wrote from my heart, I allowed my soul to speak. To question my actions, where I'm going in life, why I'm unhappy, and why I am enslaved to society's well-drawn-out path. To remind me that I could always stop to say, "What the f*ck?" 

And when my soul did speak, I'd spend the rest of the day on a high that is hard to explain. I'd say to myself, f*ck you all. Did you allow your soul a few words today? Probably not. Well, I did. So f*ck you all. ( I'm still a young soul, so allow me a bit of obnoxiousness.) 

Things changed when people started praising me and following my work; I began to take myself too seriously. I slowly started writing for them. Not for me. I learned to write better, polish, and rewrite my essays, so everything was very good. 

There were publications, plaudits and ego glorification. I then pursued an MFA, only to give up halfway after a snowmobile accident made it hard for me to travel. Perhaps my soul was trying to scream: "Please don't become so good that you ignore me. "

A few weeks ago, I spent nearly every day reading Bukowski. Yesterday, I printed, blew up and pinned the words: "Write Like F*cking Bukowski," so it's visible whenever I write on my desk.

There is something about Bukowski that invokes the primal in me. Maybe it is how he looks: ugly, rough, and dirty, as if he’s a poster boy for Skid Row or met him leaving a bar absolutely drunk. This guy just doesn’t give a f*ck, you’d yourself.

But at the same time, he's a beautiful soul, and nothing is ugly about what he writes. He is unhinged. He is vulnerable. His clear thinking and words reach places that few of us dare.

Look at this excerpt from his book Factotum below:

"If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is."

His whole life was an argument for saying: "What the f*ck?"

But to write like him means to be like him. It means getting off that f*cking hamster wheel of success, status and more. It means allowing your heart to show up even when it's hurting. It means allowing your soul to express itself even when others would want to look away or downright laugh at you. 

To write like Bukowski means not following the rules, not being afraid of writing crap, and not fearing missing out on being published. It means not giving a shit what anyone thinks. It means taking off that suit and tie and donning a peasant's beret instead. 

So today, I'm saying, what the f*ck. I'm gonna write from pain. I'm gonna write from my heart.

I'm gonna write like F*cking Bukowski.