hello, how are you?

hello, how are you?

this fear of being what they are:
dead.

at least they are not out on the street, they
are careful to stay indoors, those
pasty mad who sit alone before their tv sets,
their lives full of canned, mutilated laughter.

their ideal neighborhood
of parked cars
of little green lawns
of little homes
the little doors that open and close
as their relatives visit
throughout the holidays
the doors closing
behind the dying who die so slowly
behind the dead who are still alive
in your quiet average neighborhood
of winding streets
of agony
of confusion
of horror
of fear
of ignorance.

a dog standing behind a fence.

a man silent at the window.

by Charles Bukowski
http://bukowski.net/poems/hello_how_are_you.php

From the first time I read Post Office, I have loved Charles Bukowski. I am intrigued by his sardonic wit and blisteringly sharp eye for social criticisim. This poem in particular exemplifies the attributes of Bukowski's poetry that make him great.

Even the title, the seemingly simple question "how are you?", is brutally sarcastic. After reading the poem - a story of "dead" individuals, hiding from the agony and confusion of the real world, and thereby perpetuating the fear and ignorance in this world - we see a deeper layer to the question the title poses. By juxtaposing the simplicity and innocence of the title with the harsh accusations the poem expresses, Bukowski emphasises the sharp contrast between "their ideal neighborhood[s]" and the confused world they are hiding from.

The frequent appearance of anaphora in this poem helps craft an image of a dark and frightening world - an image central to Bukowski's message. His repetitive use of the word "of" allows him to effectively create a catalogue of attributes applying to the world as he perceives it. The catalogue seems all the more overwhelming and overbearing for the repetitive nature in which it is presented. Through his image of the "man silent at the window" and the "dog standing behind a fence", Bukowski emphasises the idea of people perpuating their own ignorance by hiding from the world in which they live.

Bukowski also treats the idea of "death" as a metaphor for the condition of the people whom he criticizes. For Bukowski, hiding from the darker aspects of life is a condition equivalent to dying; Bukowski accuses people of being trapped indoors, slave to the "canned, mutilated laughter" of their televisions.

Bukowski is using an evidently sarcastic and ironic tone, immediately cemented in the innocence of his title juxtaposed with the darker nature of his poem. He maintains the sardonic quality to his tone by continuing to juxtapose images with positive connotations against images with negative connotions: the "ideal neighborhood" with its "parked cars", "little green lawns", etc., in contrast with "the dead" and "the dying", the "winding streets", "agony", "confusion", etc. By identifying an ironic discrepancy he perceives between "ideal" neighborhoods and the agonistic world, Bukowski sardonically calls for a heightened awareness of reality.