Reading at the bar
Drinking at the library
         —Henry Chinaski

if you’re going to try, go all the
way.
otherwise, don’t even start.

if you’re going to try, go all the
way. this could mean losing girlfriends,
wives, relatives, jobs and
maybe your mind.

go all the way.
it could mean not eating for 3 or
4 days.
it could mean freezing on a
park bench.
it could mean jail,
it could mean derision,
mockery,
isolation.
isolation is the gift,
all the others are a test of your
endurance, of
how much you really want to
do it.
and you’ll do it
despite rejection and the
worst odds
and it will be better than
anything else
you can imagine.

if you’re going to try,
go all the way.
there is no other feeling like
that.
you will be alone with the
gods
and the nights will flame with
fire.

do it, do it, do it.
do it.

all the way
all the way.
you will ride life straight to
perfect laughter,
it’s the only good fight
there is.

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

I'm still reading
the book she gave me
for Christmas.
Bukowski-
it's as good as you'd expect.
So why is it taking me
this long to finish?

Birmingham I am your first born Ex husband
Birmingham I am 3rd avenue north
Birmingham I am the hands of Vulcan
Birmingham I am an abandoned race course
Birmingham I am your Bob Dylan
Basquiat and Bukowski
Birmingham I am nothing
Birmingham I am blue
Birmingham I’m yours if you let me
Birmingham I am you

I'm going through a dry spell.  I thought a challenge would be fun. Write your best tribute to Charles Bukowski poem or write a poem that could be a lost poem of Bukowskis'.  He is my favorite writer and I thought maybe this Challenge would break my writer's block.  Be sure to put in the Author's notes the mention that it is a poemfor the Thomas w. Case/ Bukowski challenge.

Bukowski had it
the writing shoots from my soul
I don't care about babies or puppies
or rhyming anymore

Give me a fat cigar
and a deep whiskey
and I can write you a sonnet
of ******* and
write you a love poem
I do not mean

I smoke
I drink
I type what comes out
and I'm tired of hearing about tulips and butterflies

If you think you've got it all figured out
but you're working a job you hate
then the only thing you've figured out
is that you don't know what to do

You don't know that life is about living
that money is necessary, but awful
and that truly living is actually about living

Do you thing the trees give half a ****?
do you think that the flowing rivers care about internet speed?
do you think that your facebook friends would show up at your funeral

If only the world would shut down
if the digital, virtual world would stop
I'd grab a number 2 pencil and write
and jab a hole in the brain of modern society

and it would bleed money
it would bleed greed
it would bleed capitalism and success

and it would die
instead of my worn out soul

trying to swim in a sea of useless information
and overload
a sea of virtual *****

and then I would truly live

I remember naps with you
God, your arm
         my arm
         your leg
         my leg.
Can we go back there?
Even if just for one day?

You see
my heart was bursting then
and I can still feel it now,
in the same way that I can still smell the salt
on your skin.