Analysis of Cut While Shaving

Charles Bukowski 1920 (Andernach) – 1994 (San Pedro)



It's never quite right, he said, the way people look,
the way the music sounds, the way the words are
written.
It's never quite right, he said, all the things we are
taught, all the loves we chase, all the deaths we
die, all the lives we live,
they are never quite right,
they are hardly close to right,
these lives we live
one after the other,
piled there as history,
the waste of the species,
the crushing of the light and the way,
it's not quite right,
it's hardly right at all
he said.

don't I know it? I
answered.

I walked away from the mirror.
it was morning, it was afternoon, it was
night

nothing changed
it was locked in place.
something flashed, something broke, something
remained.

I walked down the stairway and
into it.


Scheme XAXABCDDCEBXXDXX XX EXD XXXX XX
Poetic Form
Metre 110111101101 01010101011 10 110111110111 1101111011 110111 111011 1110111 1111 110010 111100 011010 010101001 1111 110111 11 11111 10 11011010 1110110111 1 101 11101 10110110 01 111010 011
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 706
Words 137
Sentences 8
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 16, 2, 3, 4, 2
Lines Amount 27
Letters per line (avg) 21
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 112
Words per stanza (avg) 27
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Submitted by RobertHaigh on July 22, 2020

Modified on April 27, 2023

42 sec read
92

Charles Bukowski

Henry Charles Bukowski August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) was a German-born American poet, novelist, and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and beautiful economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles.[4] His work addresses the ordinary lives of rich Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women, and the drudgery of work. Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories and six novels, eventually publishing over sixty books. more…

All Charles Bukowski poems | Charles Bukowski Books

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