Charles Bukowski

As the Poems Go

As the Poems Go - meaning Summary

Accumulation and Smallness

The poem reflects on a poet’s long output and the sense that quantity hasn’t produced much meaning. It narrows attention to ordinary, sensory details—rain, sunlight, traffic, nights and days and faces—as the real substance of life. The speaker contemplates leaving life behind, types another line while music plays, and accepts that the most powerful writers often say little while others say too much. It’s a quiet meditation on art, limits, and small truths.

Read Complete Analyses

As the poems go into the thousands you realize that you've created very little. It comes down to the rain, the sunlight, the traffic, the nights and the days of the years, the faces. Leaving this will be easier than living it, typing one more line now as a man plays a piano through the radio, the best writers have said very little and the worst, far too much.

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