The horse race that Bukowski remarks upon as meaningless acts as a metaphor for life in general. We are all racing to win, but against the light of eternity, what does any of it mean. Are there any winners in life? This defeatist thinking is something everyone does; it is something that I have done, but when I step back and see that for myself the horse race is against myself and the race is one when I've reached my own goals. I'm young, however, and the weariness that I've experienced would most likely pale against what Bukowski alludes to throughout the poem in his experiences working in menial jobs for twenty years.
With the conversation between the motel clerk and Bukowski he remarks that he is leaving the horse race because he finds it boring to which the clerk responds, "If you think it's boring / out there," he tells me, "you ougtha be / back here." This acts as a sort of signifier that no matter what position in life, there is the same tedium that afflicts us all. I can...
The
human experience is varied but adheres to a broader and more universal theme.
In the end Bukowski is just an old writer, putting to paper his experience of the world and his
reaction to it, but within this poem there is a knowing nod to the reader that although he is the writer, he is not special. Reading this poem solidified my relationship to the author as a sort of kinship. We are all struggling to live and there are moments that make the experience seem meaningless, but the truth of that statement is that everyone feels that at some point in their lives.
