I used to be into Bukowski, too. But now I don't really dig the romanticization of vice. That said, there are some gems buried in his poetry and prose. He's worth an anthology.
they're not buried that deep in his poetry. a great deal of his poems start out with a seemingly mundane observance of hard luck life and then punch you in the gut in the end with a tiny burst of humanity.
The last stanza of "If we take" is seriously good:
But they've left us a bit of music
and a spiked show in the corner,
a jigger of scotch, a blue necktie,
a small volume of poems by rimbuaud,
a horse running as if the devil
were twisting his tail
over bluegrass and screaming,
and then,
love again
like a streetcar turning the corner
on time,
the city waiting,
the wine and the flowers,
the water walking across the lake
and summer and winter
and summer and summer
and winter again
