The Continual Condition

I saw a tramp last night

the way the old dog walked

with dotted, tired fur

down nobody's alley

being nobody's dog . . .

past the empty vodka bottles

past the peanut butter jars,

with wires full of electricity

and the birds asleep somewhere,

down the alley he went—

nobody's dog

moving through it all,

brave as any army.

In the literary pantheon, Charles Bukowski remains a counterculture icon, a writer and poet of sublime talent who, as Leonard Cohen aptly remarked, "brought everybody down to earth, even the angels." A hard-drinking wild man of literature, a stubborn outsider to the poetry world, he has struck a chord with generations of readers, writing raw, tough poetry about booze, work, and women that speaks to his fans as being "real" and, like the work of the Beats, even dangerous. The Continual Condition demonstrates once again this uncompromising commentator's fierce ability to capture the heartbreaking pain and dark beauty of our world.