“We all knew Bukowski was a tough guy, but who would have guessed that even the grave could not shut him up? The People Look Like Flowers At Last shows him at his scruffy, hard-hitting, tender-hearted best. They say this is his final posthumous book, but don’t bet on it.” — Billy Collins, former Poet Laureate
“The purportedly “fifth and final” posthumous collection of Bukowski’s inimitable poetry is. . . amazingly funny, mordant, rueful, raffish, sad, resigned; all attest as firm a dedication to the lower case as that of e. e. cummings. Standouts? Turn to “the dwarf with a punch” in section 1; the epical “Rimbaud be damned” in section 2; “I never bring my wife,” with its sublime apothegm about the lonely, in section 4. Bet you’ll then read the rest.” — Booklist
"The People Look Like Flowers At Last is the final posthumous Bukowski collection. . . and it is extraordinary.” — Buffalo News
“if you read this after I am dead
It means I made it”
-“The Creation Coffin”
The People Look like Flowers at Last is the last of five collections of never-before published poetry from the late great Dirty Old Man, Charles Bukowski.
the gas line is leaking, the bird is gone from the
cage, the skyline is dotted with vultures;
Benny finally got off the stuff and Betty now has a job
as a waitress; and
the chimney sweep was quite delicate as he
giggled up through the
soot.
I walked miles through the city and recognized
nothing as a giant claw ate at my
stomach while the inside of my head felt
airy as if I was about to go
mad.
it’s not so much that nothing means
anything but more that it keeps meaning
nothing,
there’s no release, just gurus and self-
appointed gods and hucksters.
the more people say, the less there is to say.
even the best books are dry sawdust.
—from "fingernails; nostrils; shoelaces"