Reading Bukowski

Reading Bukowski is as addicting 
as looking at dirty pictures
or smoking cigarettes--
can't get enough of the stuff
fast enough.
Guy had his finger on the pulse
of life
that is not life
yet feels, sounds--
could almost be--the
real thing.
Broads, booze, and barrooms:
cartoons, much of it;
the victory of the lumpen
featuring Hank Chinaski, hero
and self-proclaimed shit
who wins by not trying
who does not know loneliness--
a Ubermensch
who rises above it all somehow
like a guy in an air balloon
rising, falling
as he lets the hot air out
or blows some in.