Dear Charles Bukowski...

Oddly enough, your end results of mankind isn't strange and unrealistic at all. It's a possibitlity and that's enough. Honestly, if I were to guess/predict the idea of where you were going with the word choice you used in your lyrics, I would say how you definitely wanted to get people's attention with dramatic yet realistic potential to be the way we view our world in the near future. I agree with you however, in my opinion I see it as a generalization and just simply further analysis of conclusions from what we are already slowly,but surely experiencing now. "Radiated men" could be the conclusion of a nuclear war, "a bag boy with a college degree" can represent the recession amongst us fellow Americans, and so on. Moreover, I admire your work and courage for being able to speak about something that seems so many have purposely overlooked because of their own "close-mindedness".
The poem seems to take place in many different time periods - present, past and future. You address the futility of government and education in the first section “As political landscapes dissolve / As the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree / As the oily fish spit out their oily prey / As the sun is masked” The beginning of the poem seems to detail how the end begins. The downfall of political power, the uselessness of education and extreme pollution are all things that have been topics in dystopian literature. In this poem, Bukowski sets it in the present in order to drive in the fact that we, as we are, function within a dystopian setting. A real live 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451. Although he does not go into detail of the cause of the downfall, one can relate his tone to just a general feeling of misanthropy towards humankind. He conveys a feeling of negativity harbored towards people in general, possibly believing that their inherent flaws have always caused this world to be a dystopia.
You conclude the poem by stating blatantly that the cycle is doomed to be repeated, whether it be by humans or another society of beings. He alludes to some sort of solace found in the aftermath of man’s self-created decimation in the final few lines of the poem; “And there will be the most beautiful silence never heard / Born out of that / The sun still hidden there / Awaiting the next chapter.” The circle of life and optimism are crushed by Bukowski’s blatant pessimism throughout this poem and his idea of, essentially, a cycle of destruction. The self-perpetuating, inherited flaw that mankind possesses creates his own destruction. The poem conveys an overall theme of helplessness, and the hopelessness of life itself – all qualities that are most certainly depicted in all novels.
--Lovely :)