[leg100]

I don't think Bukowski did find it easy. He's saying he could only write poetry for its own sake and for no other motivation whatsoever and reaching that point is hard and may never come but realizing this essential point saves you a lot of time and crap poetry!

[badpun]

He said that writing poetry is easy, "it just pours out of him", but writing prose is hard work, essentially "like working in a factory". He didn't like that very much, but eventually wrote more prose when he got older - perhaps eventually took a liking to longer projects which don't produce immediate gratification.