As The Sparrow Poem by Charles Bukowski

As The Sparrow

Rating: 3.3


To give life you must take life,
and as our grief falls flat and hollow
upon the billion-blooded sea
I pass upon serious inward-breaking shoals rimmed
with white-legged, white-bellied rotting creatures
lengthily dead and rioting against surrounding scenes.
Dear child, I only did to you what the sparrow
did to you; I am old when it is fashionable to be
young; I cry when it is fashionable to laugh.
I hated you when it would have taken less courage
to love.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Mark Gooding 03 August 2011

This poem emotes depressing images. Too negative for my taste.

4 30 Reply
Jonny Brackney 13 December 2011

Charles Bukowski is by far my favourite writer.

17 5 Reply
Deanna Hughes 14 September 2008

Charles Bukowski. What a wonderful man you were. This poem, nothing but truth.

16 3 Reply
Sharon Lewis 04 May 2006

This poem struck a chord of sadness and longing. As sad as Bukowski is, we have all been there. Thankfully, not to live.

11 2 Reply
Georgios Venetopoulos 17 September 2014

I am a true poet when it is fashionable to be a writer of arrhythmic lines. The best I can say as an answer to this write.

4 6 Reply
L Milton Hankins 15 October 2020

I am sure truer words were spoken, but not so eloquently or succinctly!

0 0 Reply
Mahtab Bangalee 10 September 2020

We have to sacrifice life to save lives have to be cruel to return the peaceful kind Yeah; this is the world where every wickedness is shooting out like the weeds always sometime this wickedness is becoming powerful but if we want to uproot theses wicked weeds we need to be cruel soldiers to devastate these

2 0 Reply

Excellent write, fit to be included in POD

0 0 Reply
Denis Mair 10 September 2020

We are all children. If we believe in searching for what is rare and fine in life, we can't help but hate the inertia, the indulgence that treats one's own life as something expendable. The ocean is just a mirror in which he sees his own disgust.

0 0 Reply
M Asim Nehal 10 September 2020

Written in a confused state of mind where thoughts were not in aligned/ synced with the subject, It happens with everyone and it happened here.

0 0 Reply
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