Charles Bukowski gira lungo le strade di Los Angeles, la camera lo segue: entra in un mini market, prende dal frigo una confezione di birre e si mette in fila alla cassa.
Davanti a lui una signora si gira e lui le rivolge la parola: il breve dialogo che segue è divertente e surreale.
– I’m a poet
– A what?”
– A poet, you know…
– A cola?
– A poet
Lo scambio di battute prosegue per circa un minuto, con Bukowski che a un certo punto dice alla signora:
– My name is Bukowski, buy my books. B-U-K-O-W-S-K-I.
Poi le immagini cambiano e ascoltiamo il poeta leggere le proprie poesie davanti a un pubblico particolarmente caldo: siamo a San Francisco, nel 1972.
Il filmato, proposto da Artbound per KCET è una versione più breve del documentario Bukowski (1973), prodotto da Taylor Hackford e diretto da Richard Davies e ci mostra immagini di un Bukowski intimo, che in giro lungo le strade di Los Angeles parla della sua scrittura e della sua città, alternate ad immagini del reading di San Francisco.
Sul sito di Artbound è possibile leggere una parte dei testi letti da Bukowski (anche se poi nel corso della lettura il poeta li ha in parte modificati), ecco di seguito il link:
Charles Bukowski’s Odes to Los Angeles: A Selection of Poems
Law
“Look,” he told me,
“all those little children dying in the trees.”
And I said, “What?”
He said, “look.”
And I went to the window and sure enough, there they were hanging in the trees,
dead and dying.
And I said, “What does it mean?”
He said, “I don’t know it’s authorized.”
The next day I got up and they had dogs in the trees,
hanging, dead, and dying.
I turned to my friend and I said, “What does it mean?”
And he said,
“Don’t worry about it, it’s the way of things. They took a vote. It was decided.”
The next day it was cats.
I don’t see how they caught all those cats so fast and hung them in the trees, but they did.
The next day it was horses,
and that wasn’t so good because many bad branches broke.
And after bacon and eggs the next day,
my friend pulled his pistol on me across the coffee
and said,
“Let’s go,”
and we went outside.
And here were all these men and women in the trees,
most of them dead or dying.
And he got the rope ready and I said,
“What does it mean?”
And he said, “It’s authorized, constitutional, it past the majority,”
And he tied my hands behind my back then opened the noose.
“I don’t know who’s going to hang me,” he said,
“When I get done with you.
I suppose when it finally works down
there will be just one left and he’ll have to hang himself.”
“Suppose he doesn’t,” I ask.
“He has to,” he said,
“It’s authorized.”
“Oh,” I said, “Well,
let’s get on with it.”
(Charles Bukowski)
