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Click hereImagine living with Bukowski
on the precipice of joy
and tribulation, bumpy
with beer and sandpaper,
poetry spilled all over
the carpet of your days.
Imagine waiting for him
with the motor running
while snow falls furious
as the resolve of his truths.
You'd dry swallow them
word by word, accept
the stained pages.
I don't know if truth
and wisdom are the same,
but if you lived with Buk
you'd wash his shirt,
make sure the keys
don't get lost.
You'd want to punch
his lights out, but you'd
love the raw blasts
of simple insight,
the edgy zen.
Sweetness
would illuminate
the irony in painful
weary rapture.
I've sat in the bar, Walker's, on the edge of San Pedro where he drank with bikers and wrote on napkins. His honesty was brutal, ruthless, unforgiving and, in the clear light of day, I'm glad I didn't know him personally. Sometimes the clarity he offered needs to stay on the drunken fringes of life lest we all collapse into despair.
...is very limited, but to me, you captured an essence of the image I've had.
I have seven or eight of his books, have been inspired by him on numberous occasions and still I read and say, "What? Is this poetry, or just words on cocktail napkins, shuffled and arranged in odd patterns." I picture him, stumbling out of a run-down dive, passing middle aged worn-out hookers and drunks, stepping out into urine-scented streets and then climbing into his BMW and driving away. At least that was my image from his later years. But then I pick up a book, read a few poems and am inspired once again.
I feel a bit of ambiguity in your words here, you'd wash his shirt, clean him up a bit and watch him get lost in another drink... but when he leaves, you pick up the scraps of paper he left scattered about, sit down and read his words.
I have a bunch of CDs of him reading his work, the man in his BMW days looking back. It's an odd juxtaposition, his rough, scratchy language and the audience... I picture in nice clothing, sipping fine wine, listening to his poems and stories, his eloquent vulgarity. I see a touch of this in your words. An interesting poem of an interesting man. Well done.
jim : )
Interesting new direction for you?
I never got the feeling Bukowski was one of those 50's "zen" Aholes, but what the fuck, I'm not well read.
i.e. live for the moment, not live in the moment, no pretentions.
But, thanks for enlightening me.
~ I don't know if truth
and wisdom are the same,
but if you lived with Buk
you'd wash his shirt,
make sure the keys
don't get lost. ~
because it's what you'd do for a child too.
I would imagine living with Buk would be much the same in many ways.
I'd think he'd have liked you.
; )
Nice work Ange