by Ramond Carver**

You don't know what love is Bukowski said
I'm 51 years old look at me
I'm in love with this young broad
I got it bad but she's hung up too
so it's all right man that's the way it should be
I get in their blood and they can't get me out
They try everything to get away from me
but they all come back in the end
They all came back to me except
the one I planted
I cried over that one
but I cried easy in those days
Don't let me get onto the hard stuff man
I get mean then
I could sit here and drink beer
with you hippies all night
I could drink ten quarts of this beer
and nothing it's like water
But let me get onto the hard stuff
and I'll start throwing people out windows
I'll throw anybody out the window
I've done it
But you don't know what love is
You don't know because you've never
been in love it's that simple
I got this young broad see she's beautiful
She calls me Bukowski
Bukowski she says in this little voice
and I say What
But you don't know what love is
I'm telling you what it is
but you aren't listening
There isn't one of you in this room
would recognize love if it stepped up
and buggered you in the ***
I used to think poetry readings were a copout
Look I'm 51 years old and I've been around
I know they're a copout
but I said to myself Bukowski
starving is even more of a copout
So there you are and nothing is like it should be
That fellow what's his name Galway Kinnell
I saw his picture in a magazine
He has a handsome mug on him
but he's a teacher
Christ can you imagine
But then you're teachers too
here I am insulting you already
No I haven't heard of him
or him either
They're all termites
Maybe it's ego I don't read much anymore
but these people w! ** build
reputations on five or six books
termites
Bukowski she says
Why do you listen to classical music all day
Can't you hear her saying that
Bukowski why do you listen to classical music all day
That surprises you doesn't it
You wouldn't think a crude ******* like me
could listen to classical music all day
Brahms Rachmaninoff Bartok Telemann
**** I couldn't write up here
Too quiet up here too many trees
I like the city that's the place for me
I put on my classical music each morning
and sit down in front of my typewriter
I light a cigar and I smoke it like this see
and I say Bukowski you're a lucky man
Bukowski you've gone through it all
and you're a lucky man
and the blue smoke drifts across the table
and I look out the window onto Delongpre Avenue
and I see people walking up and down the sidewalk
and I puff on the cigar like this
and then I lay the cigar in the ashtray like this and take a deep breath
and I begin to write
Bukowski this is the life I say
it's good to be poor it's good to have hemorrhoids
it's good to be in love
But you don't know what it's like
You don't know what it's like to be in love
If you could see her you'd know what I mean
She thought I'd come up here and get laid
She just knew it
She told me she knew it
**** I'm 51 years old and she's 25
and we're in love and she's jealous
Jesus it's beautiful
she said she'd claw my eyes out if I came up here
and got laid
Now that's love for you
What do any of you know about it
Let me tell you something
I've met men in jail who had more style
than the people who hang around colleges
and go to poetry readings
They're bloodsuckers who come to see
if the poet's socks are *****
or if he smells under the arms
Believe me I won't disappoint em
But I want you to remember this
there's only one poet in this room tonight
only one poet in this town tonight
maybe only one real poet in this country tonight
and that's me
What do any of you know about life
What do any of you know about anything
Which of you here has been fired from a job
or else has beaten up your broad
or else has been beaten up by your broad
I was fired from Sears and Roebuck five times
They'd fire me then hire me back again
I was a stockboy for them when I was 35
and then got canned for stealing cookies
I know what's it like I've been there
I'm 51 years old now and I'm in love
This little broad she says
Bukowski
and I say What and she says
I think you're full of ****
and I say baby you understand me
She's the only broad in the world
man or woman
I'd take that from
But you don't know what love is
They all came back to me in the end too
every one of em came back
except that one I told you about
the one I planted We were together seven years
We used to drink a lot
I see a couple of typers in this room but
I don't see any poets
I'm not surprised
You have to have been in love to write poetry
and you don't know what it is to be in love
that's your trouble
Give me some of that stuff
That's right no ice good
That's good that's just fine
So let's get this show on the road
I know what I said but I'll have just one
That tastes good
Okay then let's go let's get this over with
only afterwards don't anyone stand close
to an open window

I'm big
I suppose that's why my women always seem
small
but this 6 foot goddess
who deals in real estate
and art
and flies from Texas
to see me
and I fly to Texas
to see her--
well, there's plenty of her to
grab hold of
and I grab hold of it
of her,
I yank her head back by the hair,
I'm real macho,
I **** on her upper lip
her ****
her soul
I mount her and tell her,
"I'm going to shoot white hot
juice into you. I didn't fly all the way to
Galveston to play
chess."

later we lay locked like human vines
my left arm under her pillow
my right arm over her side
I grip both of her hands,
and my chest
belly
*****
****
tangle into her
and through us
in the dark
pass rays
back and forth
back and forth
until I fall away
and we sleep.

she's wild
but kind
my 6 foot goddess
makes me laugh
the laughter of the mutilated
who still need
love,
and her blessed eyes
run deep into her head
like mountain springs
far in
and
cool and good.

she has saved me
from everything that is
not here.

I came, and I went there.
I went there and came.
I furnished my money, my loving and fame.
I drank and I piddled, I piddled and sang,
a song for Bukowski, for Bukowski I sang.

The low-lifes and hustlers,
the ****** and the cops.
The ***** in the bottle,
the dives and the flops.

The racers and wasters,
living on luck.
For all of the chasers,
I now raise a cup.

A song for Bukowski, for Bukowski a song.
A song for Bukowski, Bukowski so long.

I found you in the cracks of winter between puffing breaths of cold air like a dragon, on that cold Wednesday afternoon. I swore your eyes were the ocean, and I could see all the way to Europe. You held your books like a shield guarding your chest and you introduced yourself like a king.

We talked of Bukowski and Frost in between sips of lukewarm water. I fell in love with every pause you took and every time you blinked my heart beat increased. I was surprised you couldn't feel it from across the table.

You showed me the scars on your legs and arms you've gotten over the years. One from jumping off a roof into a pool. One randomly showing up when you woke up that morning. And one from that time you had a tumor removed from your chest. You told me don't feel sorry for you and don't feed you sympathy because you have been full for years.

We spent the next couple of months telling secrets. You told me I was the first person you have ever felt comfortable with in a long time. You kissed me so silently and slowly it was like breathing underwater. Forgive me if I sound selfish but I could not stay under the water any longer and I couldn't hold my breath for another second. I gave all my wishes and stars to you that night. I wrote poetry on your skin that we created when our hands touched.

We explored the mountains and ate picnics every Saturday afternoon. We ran from the rain as we saw the clouds roll in, we sat in the car and played truth or dare for an hour straight. I promised you I will love you until we're old and I'll have to feed you with a spoon until this action isn't anymore romantic but necessary instead.

It was a Tuesday at 2:35 in the morning when you were experiencing pain. I drove you to the hospital.

Our love was like a mother teaching a daughter how to slow dance for the first time; clumsy.
You didn't know how to hold me properly anymore because you were to busy holding medical bills in your hands. When I see these papers my mind loses focus and all those words form one big blur, and they become wet with warm teardrops smudging the news across the white crinkled paper. I turned off the tv that night and we actually looked at each other staring like we were both blank canvases and had painters block for the first time ever. That night you packed a suitcase and went away in a taxi. The hospital wasn't too far away but I couldn't bare to see you walk into that place again.

It was cold and it was Sunday. The doctors tried everything they could but it was already too big and eating you away. Old friends were always bitter when they weren't welcomed back but stormed in like a hurricane destroying everything the future has to hold. Your eyes were colorless and your hands were too fragile to hold anything. My heart was beating out of my chest and my palms were shaking. It felt like I was holding an earthquake.

You were only 21.

You had a warm heart and a beautiful brain. You were drained like rain-soaked up from the earth. I wished I could have taken you places and brought you flowers. But it was always too cold to go somewhere and all the flowers have disappeared away until next spring. For on now I'll just have to bring you back to life through words and hope not to cry. Another love is too far away to see and my vision is blurry but I don't want it to be clear. For I fear that I will once again become too selfish because I can't wait forever for you because death is miles away, and I'm not ready to see that side of my life. But when tomorrow starts without you I guess I'll just go home because, sweetheart, all the dust has disappeared.

Let us praise the time when we flew to Vegas one night because we were board. Praise the moment when we were so full of glee that time we won $20, and how we ignored that fact we lost $600. Praise the day our car broke down on the side of a mountain and so we finally got a chance to talk to each other and confess our problems. Praise that moment we meet on that frosty December. I hope your ghost waltzes at sunset with my shadow. I know it's only been a few years since we meet but for me, it was a lifetime of happiness.  Let it be known you are engraved into my brain and I'll always remember the time I saw you clutching books to your chest and puffing dragon breath.

I'm not Bukowski
I don't care what you say
I'm not Bukowski
You never said I was but I don't care
I'm still not Bukowski
No, it's not pretentious to compare myself to him
I can say I'm not Bukowski
I don't write poems about degrading women while I ****

I'm just brushing my teeth in a gas station bathroom
Thinking about this poem
Or whatever it is
Thinking about you
I miss you emotionally and sexually
And I'm drunk

But I'm still not Bukowski
**** I wish I was
He'd know how to end this
I have no idea how to end this
Poem
These feelings
I'm not ******* Bukowski

god I got the sad blue blues,
this woman sat there and she
said
are you really Charles
  
    
      
        Bukowski?
      
    
  

and I said
  
    forget that
  

I do not feel good
I've got the sad sads
all I want to do is
*******
and she laughed
she thought I was being
clever
and O I just looked up her long slim legs of heaven
I saw her liver and her quivering intestine
I saw Christ in there
jumping to a folk-rock
all the long lines of starvation within me
rose
and I walked over
and grabbed her on the couch
ripped her dress up around her face
and I didn't care
**** or the end of the earth
one more time
to be there
anywhere
real
yes
her ******* were on the
floor
and my **** went in
my **** my god my **** went in
I was Charles
Somebody.

On campus, warm sun bathing my shoulders
as I listen to two girls discuss poetry
(and the dreamy guy who teaches their class)
and I try not to laugh at them as they talk about
how romantic I would be to have poetry written about
them. I want to ask them if they are really that stupid.
Instead, I bite my tongue and enjoy the taste of pennies
that floods my mouth and keep my laughter gurgling inside of me.
I long to ask these simpering, silly girls
if they have ever read any poetry about life. Not about the
romantic notions of life, but about really-real life. Poetry about
blood and pain and ******* and dying and loving and art
and I want to force feed them great ****** bites of
Chaucer or Ginsberg or
Bukowski.
Yeah... Bukowski. Visceral, blunt, gory, beautiful Bukowski.
But I have a feeling that this action would go unappreciated.
Their poets don’t use language like “****” or “****”.
Their poets don’t talk about the world I know.
Their poets live in a world of rewrite and revise.
I want to scream at them how silly they are and how much
their views will change over the next few years. And I realize that I may
have been staring (glaring?) at them because they have fallen
silent and are now looking at me with the squeamish discomfort
of people who have just realized that they’re being observed.
And I think to myself, “**** it,” and I smile and tell them that
their handsome poetry professor is married, and their idea of poetry
is limited. “You should read some Bukowski,” I tell them, “Then,
you just might get it” and they gaze up at me slack-jawed, staring blankly
for a moment, and I want to make sure I have not sprouted another head.
Instead, I gather my things and walk away. And as I do, I revel in a fleeting
feeling of superiority because I know.
I understand.
I get it.
And I can almost feel special.

Mr. Bukowski,
Well, does that house next door still,
make you sad?
With the two kids and all, in bed by 9
And the absent mom and dad
I need to know
And Mr. Bukowski,
How fair the ice cream people?
Do they vote still,
For a cruel man?
You didn't vote,
Nor do most of we
The insane
But,
Do you carry a vote now?
I need to know
And Mr. Bukowski,
How the hell is Cass?
She's kept me awake
Many nights,
Is she still beautiful?
I bet so
And Mr. Bukowski,
What of the girlfriends,
You didn't wish to see?
Do you see them?
I need to know
And Mr. Bukowski,
I miss you.

Charles Bukowski ate my girlfriend
He started with her head
Fiddled with her like finger food
Putty in his hands

Charles Bukowski took my girlfriend
Slapped her hard upside the face
Now she likes it *****
So this poets been replaced

I'd like to say so long Charlie
As far as I'm concerned
You can hit the literary highway
Never to return

Charles Bukowski took my girlfriend
And showed her a good time
As I'm watching from the shallow end
Of my kiddie pool of simple rhyme

Charles Bukowski ate my girlfriend
Chewed her up then spit her out
Now that good for nothing Charlie
Is all she talks about

I have anger issues like my dad. He’s in jail for drinking and driving. Reminds me of Bukowski, except not as smooth. I bet the liquor goes down smooth. Or the women Bukowski ******, I bet they went down pretty **** smooth. Either way I’m like both of them. A writer, drunk, lost soul, *** addict, emotionally unstable. It’s okay because I’m going places.
I tried the corner stores and the bars. They won’t sell to minors or they want to sell minors. **** men, I tell ya. So I always end up back at Jolly’s, the ice cream parlor. The owner has a lesbian granddaughter that I met at the beach last summer. She isn’t a good sight, tries to look like a boy, and still wears a bikini top. **** women, I tell ya. I usually order a rootbeer float. It’s a decent place because he gives you a legitamate amount of icecream. I suppose I’m a regular now, because I come in the winter. It’s not very fun, but it gets me out of the house. My dad called me Christmas Eve when I was orderin my icecream. The calls are 2 dollars for 20 minutes. My grandma pays for it. He said they were taking him to the hospital because of a error in his liver. He didn’t tell me details and I started to worry. Maybe it was cancer. He is a ******* drunk, or was. He’s been working on it for my sister and I. That call was 15 minutes and 5 seconds. He said goodbye and I told hm we had 5 more minutes. Then in the most weak voice I’d ever heard the man I believed to be the strongest he said, “ They’re taking me away now .” I told him I loved him, didnt finish my icecream, and pondered on that last sentence. Making it more deep than it was, but what can I say? I always finish my icecream.
I searched for liquor and went to all the stores to attempt to buy a pack. It didn’t work, A very kind-hearted lady gave me 2 of her smokes though. Back at home, I watered down mums stash and got a light buzz. If my father knew the things I do and have done. I’m so mature, worrying about him. It’s great because no one worries about you when you play the role. I’m a ******* actress. Then he called and I tried not to act happy or sad or anything because I wasn’t any of those. Yet my body does what it wants because it has been acting fake for all those rich men I go to dinner with. Stupid *****, those men. I roofie them. By the time we arrive at their dwelling they are out. I take the credit card numbers down, take all the *****, cigarettes, smash all electronics, drug em enough for 5 days and memory loss. Anyways, father told me it was nothing and that he was fine. I smiled and he smiled. I could feel it through the phone. We have an odd bond. So I started talking about my anger and road rage. I told him that he still owes me a knife and pepperspray. He agreed. I went on to propose he buy me a gun, so I could ‘pop a cap in a muthafukas tire’ when they drive like an idiot. He told me I was crazy like himself. We said we’d help eachother with our feelings.
“I love you baby girl”
“Love you too dad”
“Dont hurt no one”
“Okay”
Soon after I realized what he said and how it’d apply to us. I was in a car after all. I felt like I was going to cry. Then I started giggling. Everyone looked at me like I was crazy. It was okay because I was going places in life. Following my dreams.
My father was okay and I could sneak into a crowded bar, so life was good. I ended up at home thinking about **** humans. It was angering. My partner was avoiding me. He called it ‘trying to not develop feelings’. I called it ‘******* dude, you better **** me’. He’s such an idiot. He calls me dumb, despises of my writing, and places his hand on the back of my head when I’m ******* him off. He’s a mental **** that thinks he’s the next Jimi Hendrix. He’s not going places though, he couldn’t follow his dreams if he wanted to. He makes me feel though. Rage. Nirvana. Jealousy. Oh how he brought another girl in once. Then had the nerve to hang her picture up. I suppose it wasn’t that bad, for I saw I was prettier physically. That’s when I got even more ******. What if he was in love with her? Not just her body, like he is with mine. So I wrote some poetry and wrote a letter to my non-existent friend. Basically wrote a diary entry. All this for a big **** in my ******? Wonder where I’m going. They broke up. Thank the lord satan! Maybe I’m going to hell.