I came across Charles Bukowski at a very impressionable time. I was young lad trying to be a writer. Bukowski's poetry, his personal history made such a huge impact on me. Influenced my writing, influenced my drinking habits. It wasn't all for the good. There were those "Jack Daniels" days that kind of sent me off on a weird tangent. Some crazy adventures and lots of stupid stuff too. I look back now and think how lucky I was to come out of that madness fairly unscathed.
But it was just part of living. And maybe that was the most powerful inspiration I got from Bukowski. He lived a hard life. A brutal life. And he made poetry out of all that hardness. He did it with clarity and humor. And no bullshit. And sometimes his poems and short stories just knocked me out.
"Don't try," is on his tombstone. It's sort of a motto, I guess. Sort of a way to live. You don't try, you don't over-think it, you just do it. You carry on, and all those hard times are just part of what you use. And that's clean, and pure, and it is what it is.