The young woman asked me
“Why are you a poet?"
It was not a difficult question to answer.

I told her about the world being silent,
but for the gentle sound of a warming wind and the fluttering rain.

She looked confused.
Her eyes, so expressive
like a dangling drop of dew.

So I told her
“I am just glad to open-up and meet the thoughts of the past"

Trying to find Charles Bukowski,
in some places is not easy.

It is easy to find Keats and Tagore.
They come running at you,
like a bright and dusty sun.
As subtle as love making on a drunken
Saturday night.

Yesterday a friend asked me
“Why would you wanna read Bukowski anyway, he
just writes about *** and drinking?”

“What else is there to write about?” I said

He paused…
“The jagged mind and shattered dreams…and all that”

So I thought about this for a minute and told him
“Nobody writes about this anymore, it doesn’t sell”

Some jobs you like,
and others are so dreary and pitiless,
that you stay in bed.
Motionless in time and
watching the sun climb.

But then,
many who stay in bed
have a history of grief.
An empty doorway,
and a faded family photograph.

Nothing to do with their job,
just tricks of the mind.
Memory by memory,
it is easy to forget that what’s here isn’t life.
And nothing can ever happen unless you say so.

When alone, I thought
the crowd is wearing my face.
Silently judging,
safe in the knowledge of the tribe.
Transfixed by the multitude,
the lights flash on.

And as the daylight falls
the world is silent,
but for the sound of a singing bird
that comes from you.
The light that specifies the
face and the music,
swings as the deep abyss.

The nurse asked me about pain
“Does it rain” I told her.

Most days
I am in pain.
It falls upon my soul,
and devours my dreams.

It is a friend, a close friend
A pristine memory,
somewhere in darkened land.

I don't ask its name,
it has no name worth knowing.

But I wish the pain to be stranger
and fly like a bird.

I often think about the how I became a poet.
All those years of reading, when nobody
was nearly interested.

My father was a romantic.
He could read aloud poems by
Keats, Shelley and Byron.
I couldn’t understand any of it, I doubt he could.
But it sounded good.

I settled into a life,
evoked of love and steadfast promises.
And discovered Neruda and personal
colours of hope.

But in life
the dark mornings always come.
Just listen to the coughs,
and the blood stained phlegm of cancer
You will know what I mean.
Then I found Bukowski
and began to see
that being a fool is normal.
And **** happens in life.

“I am a writer” he said.
At least he endured trying.

So now….. I get out of bed
and I write poems.

Sometimes a painful submission of words,
that almost every poet thinks.
But that’s normal…..
at least for me.