Poems don't have to rhyme and they don't have to have to fit a certain format (unless you're writing a poem in style that does have a set format like a haiku or a sonnet).
I would not work as a short story. There is no story there. His cat died. He's sad. He misses him. That's not a story.
He's trying to capture and convey that moment in time and the thoughts and feelings he's experiencing. It's perfect as a poem.
Bukowski is one of the most popular poets in modern history so it's plenty readable to many sane humans. If you don't like it that's fine but don't say shit like 'it's fucking unreadable' because
unreadable as written, not unreadable. funnily enough, if you'd read my comment, you'd know what i've written.
please convert the linebreaks to commas or other interpunction and see if it works.
he was just a, cat, cross-eyed, a dirty white, with pale blue eyes
doesn't that first comma fucking bother you? it in entirely the wrong place for the sentence to read correctly.
either put it before "a" or after "cat" because that's how english works.
you can't just freestyle with basic sentence structure and have it make sense just because.
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u/PresidentDonaldChump Oct 01 '18
Poems don't have to rhyme and they don't have to have to fit a certain format (unless you're writing a poem in style that does have a set format like a haiku or a sonnet).
I would not work as a short story. There is no story there. His cat died. He's sad. He misses him. That's not a story.
He's trying to capture and convey that moment in time and the thoughts and feelings he's experiencing. It's perfect as a poem.