at about one am
i woke
and erased the poetry I had written
in the margins of my biology textbook

some original
some bukowski and yeats and mcdaniel
bukowski and yeats and
bukowski and yeats
bukowski and
bukowski

it vanished from view in the same manner
i think
as i vanished from your thoughts

i thought that We was an absolute
that We would never not exist

yet
i wrote it in pencil
in the first place

I avoid the boys who worship Bukowski.

They're ones who see ***
As merely an act, a stage performance, a drug.
They use bitter words and drink bitter drinks
That they don't even enjoy.
They smoke cigarettes because they think they're James Dean.
They claim that they cannot escape their dead-end jobs and lives;
In reality, they don't want to. They relish in their misery.
After all, happy stories aren't worth writing about.
Nobody cares about your perfect life; they care about how you failed
Because it makes them feel better about their own despondency.

These boys live for the experience,
Their own Kerouac moments.
The writers obsessed with pain and suffering;
They don't even look for the beauty in beautiful things.
They're the ones who die by their own hands.
They close off their hearts to the love of women.
Women are objects. Women are things with holes
For speaking and for ***.

I am a woman with a heart and a mind and love to give,
And I shall be recognized as such.
In meeting a man the first question I ask is,
"Have you heard of Bukowski?"

Bukowski whispers
his beery breath on my neck
don’t forget the cats.

Dear Bukowski,
I can imagine my embellished rupturing fondest of your works makes you feel sludged with rancor. But I do assure that my adoration only spawns from your purity of disdain and fervor. All things rise together in epic sanctimonious swells. You are not the midwife to poetry nor is poetry the bolstering mother of your life. You are as impenetrably intertwined as the first fickle breath of life writes the verse to our poetic life. While this is true, you acknowledge the infallible doom that consumes our world as people search for definitive answers. As you tackle the affronts of our world you embodied your poetic sinew accepting the fact the world could readily eradicate you with slight cadence alteration of the wind. Bukowski I do not grovel to you, but I will endlessly cherish your paper encased testaments of life. You aren't afraid of painting the inner creasings of your mind you are the midwife and the executioner you are poetry you are life.

She was young and slim and beautiful,
my first love,
with skin like licked caramel, and
always smelling, always tasting
like peach candy.  But still,
I sort of envy Bukowski his
300lb *****, the painted leviathan that
swallowed whole his virginity and
broke his bed, before falling snoring asleep
on her wide, sea-creature back, because he
probably learned more from that ugliness
than I ever learned from
beauty.

That said, I envy him more the night
the old dog buried his bone
in six separate gardens,
the dark-haired woman who
sent him a photo of  her
self
reading his book
in the  bath, and the two perfect
blonde Dutch girls his editor found on the great man's lawn
when he called by one evening,
the both of them waiting for Hank to
come home from the track
so they could **** him.

it's not the large things that send a man to the madhouse

a woman, a
tire that's flat, a
disease, a
desire: fears in front of you,
fears that hold so still
you can study them
like pieces on a
chessboard...

it's not the large things that
send a man to the
madhouse. death he's ready for, or
******, ******, robbery, fire, flood...
no, it's the continuing series of small tragedies
that send a man to the
madhouse...

not the death of his love
but a shoelace that snaps
with no time left ...

The dread of life
is that swarm of trivialities
that can **** quicker than cancer
and which are always there -
license plates or taxes
or expired driver's license,
or hiring or firing,
doing it or having it done to you, or
roaches or flies or a
broken hook on a
screen, or out of gas
or too much gas,
the sink's stopped-up, the landlord's drunk,
the president doesn't care and the governor's
crazy.

light switch broken, mattress like a
porcupine;
$105 for a tune-up, carburetor and fuel pump at
sears roebuck;
and the phone bill's up and the, market's
down
and the toilet chain is
broken,
and the light has burned out -
the hall light, the front light, the back light,
the inner light; it's
darker than hell
and twice as
expensive.

then there's always ***** and ingrown toenails
and people who insist they're
your friends;
there's always that and worse;
leaky faucet, Christ and Christmas;
blue salami, 9 day rains,
50 cent avocados
and purple
liverwurst.

or making it
as a waitress at norm's on the split shift,
or as an emptier of
bedpans,
or as a car wash or a busboy
or a stealer of old lady's purses
leaving them screaming on the sidewalks
with broken arms at the age of 80.

suddenly
2 red lights in your rear view mirror
and blood in your
underwear;
toothache, and $979 for a bridge
$300 for a gold
tooth,
and China and Russia and America, and
long hair and short hair and no
hair, and beards and no
faces, and plenty of zigzag but no
***, except maybe one to **** in
and the other one around your
gut.

with each broken shoelace
out of one hundred broken shoelaces,
one man, one woman, one
thing
enters a
madhouse.

so be careful
when you
bend over.

That ****** bar fly.
That **** stained old man.
How could he capture
the essence of a human?

I read and read and read his words.
His thoughts.
And I have to ask,
"How can someone so flawed
be almost flawless?"

I spend my Sunday's praying that someday
I can have just an ounce of his insight.
Is it the countless drinks?
The years at the post office?
The failed relationships?
I would give my right eye to
have his talent.
But then...
Why would I want to be a dead, washed up, *******?

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.

bukowski socialized with
                                             sean penn and madonna
but he did not care for
                                             the material girl with her airs,
acting like a literary
                                             poseur, name dropping, chatting
about swinburne, like
                                             some patron at a bloomsbury
salon. she even asked
                                             him if he would appear
in her raunchy *** book
                                             but he refused. bukowski
would complain to sean    
                                             about madonna's phony
behavior and sean would
                                             get furious and defensive.
bukowski just laughed it
                                             off. he valued sean as a
friend and an artist but
                                             he had no time for
madonna playing hip,
                                             he said, she's not being real.
bukowski treasured his
                                             daughter, his wife, his cats,
classical music and his
                                             muse, his way with words,
characters, situations.
                                             he was a regular guy
and a gifted poet...
                                             and everyone called him hank.

'Don't you ever worry,' she asked,
'about being written off as
a poor man's Bukowski?'

I answer, quite honestly
for a pretentious, wannabe poet:
'I'd be happy being
anyone's
Bukowski.'

Which was a cute line, I thought,
but she still
didn't **** me.

Maybe I was
someone's
Bukowski, but I
definitely wasn't
hers.

Dear Mr. Bukowski,

I found what I loved the most in this world,
and I let it **** me,
destroy me,
devour me...

...now what?

I had a few of my poems
Published in an Australian
Student project underground
Art-paper in '97.

One of my Melbourne High School
Teachers said he felt I had
One foot in Rumi's world,
The other in Bukowski's.
-
i could either be
a drunken genious
at the track
not winning
yet certainly
drinking
my health
borderline
euthanized
and writing to sustain it.
the magic and
honor in not
being an honored
magician.
-
But the sun-warmth within her palm
Makes everything she lays it upon
Feel as if kitten's belly-
Soft and as inviting to love as the
Newest-born infant on Earth
With her touch.
All is Day.
I need her too much to find sleep.
-
****. I do love them both.

Come to think of it, Garrison Keillor reads poetry like he'd feign be Bukowski or something.



(sonnets #MMMMMCCCXXXII and MMMMMCCCXXXIII)

I


Bukowski. If I'd known--and there must trail
Off seeking an excuse to bother hence
With aught. Nor should I have writ these his sense
Of our supposed age could acknowledge bail
For, since his voice kills any spirit's frail
Hope of existance, while he coughs from thence
To fiercely say the madness dictates whence
As chopped, clipped phrases whereby he'd prevail.
And Shelley, who saw further than now's poor
Horizon, said art veils her glass whilst through
The centries curs as ole Bukowski tour--
To vanish, sans a note. Yet here all who
Aspire think vile is tops, our work as twere
In vain and refuse. Cuz such never knew.



II


Lo, ******. Surrey, Wyatt, and aught hence
Who bowed themselves to Petrarch's mincing scale,
Yes, "polished our erst homely," ruder tale
Of lines and poetry, whose manners thence
Became refined thus as we yielded, whence
Far more rebelled than dared submit, t'assail
What set us 'part from beasts as if in frail
Excuse to cavil suited their intents.
He said the "mountaintop" was mine as twere
T'enjoy, but if I wanted friends maunt do,
As they all wallowed in the mud, each boor
Disgusted save by filthy scents. Sans clue
Of our high calling meant to raise th'obscure
Light for our fellow man, ye can't, who knew.

24Dec15c,d

I watched my very own
Charles Bukowski
eat a tangerine outside of  
the arthouse  
where we were reading.

His name is not really Bukowski,
but he has told tales in the same  
vein as the Laureate of Drunkards
for longer than I have been alive.

I have listened to that same back alley
patois,
and barroom wisdom for long
enough that I feel a certain level  
of comfort in calling the old gizzard  
this municipality's own  
Charles Bukowski.

The grizzled old poet  
is telling wanton tales  
of love and honeydew.

He goes on and on,
recounting the times  
that he's drunk  
strong potato liquor
with Bengal tigers  
in the backseats  
of roaring taxis
on his way to parties  
hosted by zebras and  
gazelles.

We each light a cigarette,
pausing to smoke for a while.

Seeking to continue  
the conversation with  
my salty comrade,  
yet knowing my own  
stories cannot compete,
I surge onward nonetheless.

His interruptions jam my  
traffic before I can even make  
it onto the onramp of his  
particular, peculiar highway.

His mouth is already working,
though his tangerine consumed.

He's chewing his next story into
digestible, deliverable bits.

And, now he's chewing the rind.

His mouth,
his words,
his life,
and my own for all of it,
is full of  
zest.

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2017

he slammed his cup on the counter  
not to get anyone’s attention
though his cup was empty  
I couldn’t stop staring at his eyes  
of course they were bloodshot  
and of course he stank of nicotine
and of truth that he said could not be found
in the bottom of that coffee cup or bottle of gin  
though he ****** up both  like…
hell, I can’t compare it to anything  
and he would think a simile was a waste of words
he told me of a lover he once had, Elisa  
with hair so long she sat on it  
and a thirst as ravenous as his  
which led her to an alley in South Chicago
where the ***** or the H put her to sleep
for good, and how he buried her in Peoria
in a hard freeze, beside her brother
who got killed in Phu Bai, by “friendly fire”
but Bukowski laughed through his tears
when he heard that ****, “friendly fire”
and he filled his glass again,
with Bourbon I guess--I wasn’t at  Elisa’s
numb mother’s house that day
and when he lost another ****** lover
to a drunk driver, he didn’t say anything about irony  
just said, ****, it hurts to be close  
and he didn’t trust this happiness ****
because it didn’t last, but pain, hell,
you can count on that ******* and if he leaves,
you can make some up on your own…  
the waitress filled our cups to the top
so there was no space for the cream  
I sipped slowly to make room
he took a swig that had to scald his tongue
but I could not tell, for he was already on the death
of lover number three, sitting there with me  
waiting for him to stop the foul flow of truth

Let's see..
well,

..there's the writer who never gave a **** about anybody but himself

..and the writer who had a fetish for pouring melted candlewax onto her own toes, while being watched by her cat

..and the writer who owned a chimpanzee named Tom, one afternoon when the writer wasn't home, Tom frenzied around the house chasing down a moth, this caused obvious concern to the neighbors, who heard the commotion last for an hour or maybe more, ah well..

..and the writer who began experimenting with a dream machine, but stopped upon feeling his brain's physical presence within his own skull, weighty, and terrifyingly colorful!

..and the writer who did the same thing, except kept going and found herself bored with it after a while anyways

..and the writer who broke down out front of a Walgreens in reaction to a phone call detailing a nearby tragedy involving two cars + a logging truck (and a tad of ******* but shhhhh) grief was part of that performance, but also in knowing he may have been directly responsible for the crash (coke was given by him, to the driver)

..and the writer who experienced the best ****** of his life without even a single poke of physical contact to his ****!

..and the writer who became addicted to biting her knuckles, to the point she needed to see someone about it

..and the writer who filed for divorce after finding out that his lover had caught numerous ****** infections/diseases (and only having been told by their cousin, too! probably from two recent trips to South America unbeknownst to their partner)

..and the writer who had a hobby of taking photographs of lampshades of varying textures, ages, sizes, and which emitted sometimes very exotic colors from the bulb inside.

..and the writer who never left his city, due to a paralyzing fear of travel

..and the writer who fell in love with another writer who was in love with someone else (as is usually the case)

..and the writer who passed away yesterday
..and the writer who will pass away tomorrow

..and the writer who admired the work of Charles Bukowski and tried too hard to be like Charles Bukowski, at the peril of those around him

..and the writer who's family hasn't messaged her in a few months now, and continues to wonder why

..and the writer who's favorite song was "I'm So Happy (Tra La La)" by Lewis Lymon & The Teen Chords, though in reality she was never happy (let alone SO happy) and often played the song as a front to convince herself that everything would be just fine
"JUST AS HAPPY AS CAN BE"

..and the writer who never knew they were a writer and never wrote anything in their life but **** it if they did!

..and the writer who's favorite month was July, favorite day Saturday, and time of day at around 2pm

..and the writer who's last words were never written down or heard by anyone outside their secluded office to which he screamed "HELP!!!" and then died from heart attack

..and the writer who actually lived only three blocks away and was good friends with the guy, and found his door unlocked and the smell came first

..and the writer who found it funny to imagine getting involved in certain scenarios inappropriately contrasted with specific songs, settings, or themes. An example: funerals where everyone shows up in clown costumes, sunbathing in the Arctic, being invited to a nice dinner and the restaurant is playing loud shoegaze music, closely befriending the person you hate the most in the world just to see if you can, and bringing a large cage of parrots to see a movie with you

..and the writer who really DID some of those things mentioned above (I won't say which)

..and the writer who wrote about all these other writers (me)

..and the writer who may be reading about all these other writers (you)

I remember when
I first read Bukowski
I thought he was a
joke

his poems weren’t even
poems
they were just a bunch
of lines
and sentences
strung about like flimsy
washing telling
mundane stories
about insipid things

who was he to venerate Cummings

(as if he had any of Edward’s
profundity)

and who was he to write
poems about poets not
writing poems

or his simple lines propping
up grossly defective and out of
date words

like jeroboams

or how he’d drink
(four-fifths a gallon of wine)
then write more derivative
lines

who was he to live so long
and write so much

drivel
and
claptrap

to other poets’ literary
athleticism
our darling Chuck was a
pedestrian

he was born a pensioner
but never received a
pension

his poems flow
like a river
to
no
where

and after reading them
the first time
I withdrew
my poetic concern

but then I read them again
and then
again

and I
realised

I was in his poem’s
stories

and that foolish girl I knew
that dense and brainless
denizen of triteville
was the heroine of
his ‘splashing’

and his love for classical
his love for wine
and even his love
for Edward
matched even mine

but most of all
and here
my rhetoric ends

the moment I sighed oh yes
when I read his poem
yes
you guessed it
‘oh, yes’

if not for his whimsical
words
or his misaligned wit
love him for his
grasp of regret
and the sheer sentiment
he can emit

I want to be
the next
Bu
Kow
Ski

and when I look in the mirror
I see my ****** face with a matching 'tude
the drink and the smoke in my mouth roll out
sending my lovers running
and I can't even see my **** over this paunch

I am the next Bukowski

There isn't much to be said
About the day time-
Hour after hour, we beat on
Against the ticking clock
Of complacency,
Until before we know it-
We're ****** into the realm of
The halfway living.
Awake past midnight,
Processing the happenings
Of 9-5,
As if draging them out into
Language
Will increase their potency.

There's nothing more moving
Than yesterday,
After a night of fermenting in
Our desperate minds.
Often too late to be felt
Before 10pm.

Reality is too much with us.
Pushing up against
Our trembling palms,
As we reach out
To ******
The manufactured idea of
Happiness. Prepackaged
And with an expiration date
Beyond the next year.

We try to find our fate in tarot cards,
Palm readings, grocery market bargains, expensive haircuts where they only take an inch off but you still cry, second rate ballets and strip clubs, the words of others, and Sunday services past 12 where the hangover isn't as dreadful.
Experience junkies,
****** fiends,
Attention addicts,
Compassion parasites,
We **** the marrow from the earth
And prescribe her with Ritalin
And 3 months of sick leave-
The placebo effect has never seemed
So enticing.

Is this what it's like to talk to God?
Newspapers from last week
Find their way into the warm,
Sticky floors of the subway:
They have no purpose here
In this cool, indifferent future.
Bold headlines prophesying drought,
And lamenting those already dead,
Alongside ads for half off
A large pizza, and 25% off your biggest
Problems. Classified ads
And the sports section
Reek of ***, failure
And vulnerability-
No one cares, now.
The past is only real within the proceeding hour,
And middle school history class lessons,
Too optimistic to hold
Any reality beyond repetition.

Lifeless, we seep through time until
The pages are soaked and soggy with
Our failed ambition and twice baked
Love stories that grossed a billion dollars
For the movie theaters, gas stations and diamond companies-
Condensed into romance novels
And nonfat ice cream:
A testament to a nation
Afraid to feel anything that isn't synthesized
And discussed in tabloid magazines.

Sideline poets and actors,
We rap our knuckles raw against the railing,
Nervously counting down the seconds
Until we will be called to dutifully recite
All we know.
Waiting, we count our blessings.
The cumulation of good deads and sacrifice
That have paid the dues for a one way ticket
To the promised land.
Little children, again,
We twist the frays of our sweaters
And buckle our knees with anticipation
Of judgement day
And Memorial Day weekend.

He yelled sober thoughts when he drank.
Inked honest words when he wrote.
And if I had one wish,
I'd bring Bukowski back!

I don’t think history is romantic.

I’m “American”; this means I’m unburdened

with having to be nationalistic or patriotic.

Don’t have to be prideful about hundreds of

years of ******* and mythology.

It means I might hate Bukowski,

but I find him way less repulsive

than Shakespeare. I had to stab a

pathetic sense of “spirituality”

[religion?] in a public place with prejudice,

to truly gain a sense of enlightenment in

pure hopelessness. Something like that.

I might be deaf to some other culture,

but I’m hearing megaphones in America.

11/22/2013

my eyes burn,
from the glow of the
computer screen,
against the stale darkness
of this room.

I've been reading
Bukowski,
The Last Night
of The Earth
Poems (1992)

he has made me realize
I have a
writer's soul,
a writer's heart,
a writer's mind.

I do not see,
yet I see all.

I observe,
I write,
I think,
I *am.

I realize,
now,
far too late,
that I am not
lonely.

I have no
need
to be.

for you see,
the pages,
they speak to me,
and I speak back.

and with that,
I have all
I need.

© 2013 Scarlet Van Allen

Motto: „ they are all elsewhere/ examining things/ in new bedrooms/” – Charles Bukowski – Praying for rainy days

**** Bukowski
thinks that’s a supraestimated fake
for townsends of years
„ harder than The Riots of Watts”
and it’s not about *****

it’s too precoius and delicate
and it’s not about women
'couse the women *** with roses
or with the spine-birds
and still gets payed on the job

it’s all about poetry
it’s about that funny slaughterhouse
in wich we kick eachothers stupide ***
like some real lovers
and then we rearange our underwear
or what’s left of it

it’s all about  a load of **** good to be throwned at the garbage
'couse – don't mention it – there is nothing heroical
and every ****** thing is a makeup
there is just a mouse shiverring in a corner
two ugly frogs are hugging all what is left of the sun
and above all
the monkey is trying hard to improvise a tired smile

**** Bukowski
I don't know a living soul with such a perseveration
to ****-up his poems
like his money on horse-races
like his fat’n’ugly mexican ******
and still somehow to become his own hero
insane like this
born into this
and becouse he had lived to much like a dog

alone with the whole world
with it’s ******* **** beauty
in wich actualy nobudy finds his mate

in wich everything it’s just a canibalistic clown
and a childish cry
almoust painfully dead
from his own laughter

Dear Ms. Di Prima,
I really,
Really,
Think that Alchemy—Alchemy--Al-Chem-EEEEE
Is a
Nifty
Topic.
But,
My mother has a ring
Of gold.
Standard Gold,
No lead. None.
Or had,
Until our house was
B-R-O / K-E / N
Into
By some lowlife scumbag with
Too much ability
And
Not enough intelligence.
With Alchemy
I could make a shitload
Of Gold (wasn't that the point?),
Provided I had the
Lead,
And not that
IMPOSTER
Crap in pencils (Graphite. My childhood was a shambles.).
But it's only valuable
Because
We're willing to pay so much.
Like with Diamonds.
Or Japanese Akita.
Or Wagyū.
It's not a lie.
Just a trick.
Making you think you want things that you don't need because it helps someone else who you've never met make more money than they'd ever be able to use in a legitimate way
                                   (HOOKERS AND BLOW).
All of these things are synthetic.
With the exceptions of
Gold
And
Graphite.
So,
       Maybe,
                      Alchemy did work out alright,
Just not in the anticipated way.
We can make all sorts of things.
But they become coveted only when they exist.
Just ask Swipey McStickyfingers.
It actually wasn't gold.
You just got a bunch of painted junk,
And passports.
No rubies.
We weren't international crooks,
Renowned and beloved
By jealous zealots.
It was purely sentimental.
But you can't understand.
You can't fondly look at the earrings as the last reminder of a deceased parent.
You can't flip through the identification booklet and be flooded with memories of your first trip out of the country.
You ******. You can't even cash the savings bonds that were bought to put someone through college.
No. He got a box of documents and some cheap jewelery.
But still. Probably called for celebration. A successful heist
Because his brain is still in his head.
                                                           ­     We create people as well as objects.
                                                   ­                                       Ms. Di Prima,
In the end,
      Some people will always be
     Clasping *******.

Hey Bukowski,
You know the poem you wrote?
About wanting to be a writer?
How if it doesn't spill
From your guts,
Then don't do it?
Well, *******!

Not all us
Poets are street-corner
Prophets spewing in lyrical tongues,
Made of alliterations and metaphors.

For some, the poem
Is agonizing.
A slow-burn cancer,
That eats at our minds, our souls
Seeping out the walls.

It doesn't burst forth like some jail break;
More like that guy, from the movie with Morgan Freeman,
Who crawls through miles of ****
Just to get to freedom.

My poems may look
And smell
Like ****;

It may have taken them a while
To crawl to freedom.
But they did.

I called you out on your *******, and you called me out on mine. And now I think I know what Bukowski once knew.

It's all *******.

But I only want to live, and I only want you to live. I only want to live in you and all of your *******.

I had a Bukowski in me
but I had to finish mixing my drink
The next best seller
but I had to add the vermouth
It was poetic genius
you cant forget the olive
but i’ll lose it if I dont move
I need a pen, i need to get to my computer, i need to do something fast
but it’s long gone now
sifted through the frontal cortex like so much sand through my fingers
and it was going to be the next big one,
the one that would get me out of here
make me the big shot
published author
but no...
the worst part of it is
I used too much vermouth

he read Brautigan
and thus would say all this is juvenile
and not real
he was real in a ***** brown sweater he wore
every day I knew him that smelled like menthols
and sweat and dope (he called it dope
sometimes because Bukowski did and he
read Bukowski too)

of course
he was real in his Catholic school
sports coat and fresh face once
without the 5-day beard he took to
wearing as a ******* to the system and other
real things like that which he sang
about on his guitar with a hole
in the bottom

the one he found in a
second hand store just like he always dreamed
he would and they would make sweet sad
music (that high and lonesome sound)
together forever he wrote his
poems to the tune of its steel strings
when he would sit at home at night and get
high and lonesome too

and so would I
because he thought I was ugly but didn't know
how to say it so he let me tag along for a few years
and let me sing in my off key death rattle
and lent me Brautigan and Bukowski
so I could know what was real and not real
but I didn’t learn my lesson so well

now did I?

At 18
I was once called a pseudointellectual
Reflecting now, it’s true
Reading poetry publicly to shape a persona, dropped when others weren’t around
How lame
At 29
I pick up Bukowski again
Surprisingly enjoyable, but
Unable to trust my true intent
Hide the cover while reading at work
Subverting possible subconscious manipulation

read some bukowksi today.
he's an amazing poet.
He really is.
but he's a ****** up old man.

and i'm so terrified of turning into him.

i'm so scared of turning into a mean old pervert
that never falls in love.
instead,

just ******* people until their soul falls out

because they think that they've fallen for someone talented and deep


but bukowski

his poems used to make me chuckle.


not anymore.
now,
i read his poems of
******* to little girls
and killing the people across the street
and being alone in a room full of people
and wanting to get so ****** up that the walls become the floor


and i can relate

You tell me that I am young
That life has merely licked me, not stung
That I do not understand, that I have not yet lived
Enough to grasp the substance

I have known disease
Slow tears, muted pleas
Pain that nothing could appease
I have known the smell of hospitals for summers
The beeping and slurping of machine in massive numbers

I have spoken to voiceless loved ones,
Loved ones with teethless mouths and twisted tongues
Distorted jaws and wheezing lungs.
We have spoken with little green charts
And broken hearts
From the inability to connect the mouth to the thoughts in the head
And I left without understanding,
What they had said
Because I eventually had to let it go
(I still don't know)

I have spent countless summer nights
In nature’s garb, floating silently in a river
So warm that my limbs, skimming the surface, didn't shiver
Under a clear sky, the stars like paradisiac lights
Without anyone ever finding out
About these wild and primal escapades

I've drank, I've smoked
I have burned my throat
With coarse lemon gin
Until I could no longer feel my skin.

I have been frightened
Yes I have felt fear, like a noose around my throat being tightened
Like a gruesome black crow, perched on my shoulder
I have often awoken affright at night,
Longing, praying, for the morning light
I have felt fear, wild, fierce and turbulent fear
More than anyone will everyone will ever know
By men, by life, by myself
Desolate under the sheets, like a forsaken toy
All by myself

I have seen Paris in the rain
Traveled the French countryside by train
I've woken up to New York window views
And seen New Orleans afternoons, filled with heat and blues.
I've swam the Mexican Baja waters, turquoise and clear
With snakes as sharp as spears

I have known humiliation
Causing my cheeks to turn carnation
A spoon, emptying my insides out
Like a gourd

I have loved
I have known the aching pain of a swelled heart
And the way it can tear you apart
I have gushed torrents upon my pillows and sleeves
Tears running down my chin like guilty thieves
From a lit-up house

I have known death, and grief
The meaning of "never"
Whimpering in the school bathroom
And cold, lonely nights

I have seen the works of Van Gogh, Mondrian, and Miro,
Modigliani, Cezanne, and Frida Kahlo
Of Monet, Gauguin, Matisse, Magritte, and Picasso
I have wandered through hallways of masterpieces
Holding tight to my grandmother's hand
And I have wept shamelessly for joy
Before Degas's La classe de danse

I have been diagnosed
I have undergone computer programs designed to shift my brain, to better it
To get me to be normal, to submit
I have had brain-altering medicine shoved down my throat,
Like stuffing a goose,
To make my brain run a little less loose
And I have submitted and gotten use to my brain being altered.

I have had kisses that were mere trifles
Frivolous, yet fierce and acute like shots from a rifle
Lips of mere flesh, not sweet godly nectar
And gazes that meant everything
That seemed to connect with an invisible yet indestructible string
Iris like distant galaxies and pupils twinkling like black jewels
Eyes that seemed enkindled by some ethereal fuel
Speaking of emotions far too secluded, cryptic and cluttered
To be worded and uttered

I know the way in which violence resides
Not in commotion, brusqueness, nor physical harm
But in silence
In the time that covers pain and secrets
In the slow impossibility of trust
In the way that some secrets become inconceivable to tell, time has so covered them in rust
In that dull, dismal ache
In all that is doomed to remain forever opaque.

I have read, for pleasure,
The works of Balzac, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, and Voltaire
Of Bobin, Gaude, and Baudelaire
Of Flaubert, Hemingway
and good old Bradbury, Ray
Émile Zola,  Primo Levi
Moliere, Rousseau, and Bukowski
I have read, and loved, and understood

I have known insomnia
The way a beach knows the tides
Sleepless nights of convulsive, feverish panic, of clutching my sides,
Of silent hysteria and salty terror.
I know what happens at night, when sweet slumber seems so far away
The worries and woes seem to multiply and swell in hopeless disarray
My lips grow pale, my eye grow sunken
As a time ticks by, tomorrow darkens




I have witnessed horror
In the form of a blue body bag
Being rolled out with a squeaking drag
By two yellow-vested men
With apologetic eyes
That seemed to say "Oh god
We're so sorry you had to see that
Please, please
Go home
And try to forget"

But you are right
I am still just a child
Naive, innocent, and pure
I have known nothing dark or obscure
I have not yet lived.

I needa write another poem tonight.
Here it goes.


I'm drunk in my veins.
My stomachs in pain.
My poems alone.
My body’s a tomb.
For every beer i drink.
Trying to count sleep.
Minutes at a time.
**** this poems rhyme.

End it here.

**** me.
Carbon molecules are a ****** up species of atomic number mass, that should not critical in this place called "Baton Rouge", either its rough type and ****-***-mild-temper, need them, hate me, near the river so that i can end my ******* life, with a last drink tipped, into my gizzard.

All the frats are belong to us

Tonight was a good night could I only remember.

**** Bukowski.
I'll **** his ****.

This is all he writes about.

You ran your finger
along the spine

of books on your bookshelf
and took down

Betting on the Muse
by Charles Bukowski

and opened it
at random

reading the stories
and poem after poem

then having
nothing better to do

you got to page 292  
and a poem titled

the good soul
and laughed out loud

like a dog barking
in dead of night

and your shoulders shook
and your wife said

What’s so funny?
and you said

Oh just words
and she turned over

and back to sleep
and you put down

the book
beside the bed

and turned out
the light

laughing at the poem
inside your head.

thankfully my nostalgia concerning the late
20the century, coincides with my youth,
i mean youth, and that i also mean
****** idealism, when women were phantoms
and could never be girlfriends or
widows, or tears shed at the grave,
or nothing needy, nothing clinging,
nothing resembling mussels...
         i have to admit, i got ***** the moment
i detached myself from thinking about god...
the third partisan of the a priori
implant dictated by time & space...
            i didn't only shove my genitals into
her genitals, i shoved my ego into her
concept of god... and i subsequently became
a dimmed version of st. augustine...
              because that part of me didn't exactly
make confetti from her reasoning....
shoom!
          scalped me and dragged about 1000
tumbleweeds in its travels...
             the grand point? i didn't see
   a hairdresser, for the next never ever...
unless they do trim ***** to coincide with
      funny tattoos...
                     i don't know... maybe i was really
ultra-idealistic about women before i lost
my virginity, that after i lost it, after i lost
the foremost grace, i didn't learn the gorilla
impetus to keep one... let alone a harem...
   women really were fun and beautiful and
mysterious when i had them in my head...
      after the fact that i learned too late that they
also took a ****, i couldn't believe it!
        me, adapting to this? this fog-smeared
creature? yes, i can see my nihilism,
                    i''ve been burning that amber light
of a litre of whiskey per night for quiet some time,
drop by Collier Row's Tesco and look at the c.c.t.v.,
but then i put on some creedance clearwater revival
(not cool, aha, used the whole name, right?
cooler me saying c.c.r.? bukowski, lebowski...
same ****, different cover) -
   but i really did experience love... i know... huh ha...
did i recover from it? i'd probably have
recovered from 20 ****** over-doses...
        she got married, obviously...
  because women, don't idealise men...
  unless they meet the criteria of what men are supposed
to own... man idealising woman is a woman per se...
woman idealising man is a man contra per se...
                     after all, a man idealises
thinking about a temp. storage space for his
*******...
              which later turns into offspring...
   any woman could agree to being part of that phlegm
and being content at housing those "lucky" offshoots
in her kangaroo rucksack...
           it's as ugly as European thinking is going
to get, it can't get more scientific than this...
   i really do need a square on a rectangular canvas
to prompt a generous conversation about redifing
the point: we're not going back to the Milan school of
oil on canvas... or Rembrandt...
      it's not happening.
so creedance clearwater revival and graveyard train...
how we have bass guitar, and it's nibbling,
just nibbling... just grooving...
                  more like stalking but keep in mind
nibbling... and the there's no rhythm guitar,
because the guitar is just making accents,
the guitar is just twitching... i can't believe how
un-jazz comprehensive modern music is...
                   rhythm doesn't belong to the guitar,
there shouldn't be a rhythm guitar...
rhythm is all bass and drums...
          and i say that: because i hate metallica and how
i can never hear the bass guitar when i listen to them...
no wonder the original bassist got scribbled off...
   i love bass, don't you love bass?
something has to overpower the strength of drums
in modern music, something has to restrain
drums... needs to set the soothing rhythm,
rhythm guitar can't do that, you need the bass
guitar... bass guitar is, quiet frankly,
the most underrated instrument in modern composition...
techno techno! bongo bongo parties of
               berlusconi... bongo bongo... hatchet plus!
yes... silvio... we have the guillotine around here
too... choppy waters... plenty of sharks...
   enough to take a bite, though.
   and i thought naked lunch was bad...
well, i didn't, i didn't even want to plagiarise the Tristian
Tzara bound to it, reminiscent of cabaret voltaire.
huh?   ah yes... creedence clearwater revival,
and the bass on graveyard train, like water coming
down from a leaking tap...
  tum dum doom ta dollop... and it sounds nothing
like that... but something to allow the guitar what
it does best, sure, it joins in the rhythm section at
the beginning of the track... but then the guitar
sets up a momentum of creating accents,
  no rhythm = no solo... accents...
   little licks of being there... very ******* jazzy...
my my, so jazzy... and that's the safe ground to have
in music, retaining the jazz...
             otherwise you get into territory akin to
classical music's anithesis... the opposite of classical
music is... earthquakes... techno techno... drum drum...
drum drum... drum, drum... drum drum drum...
classical music was all about breathing...
  césar franck's les éolides (the breezes) -
and the antithesis? techno techno... muffed up techno:
ambient music... refrigerator sounds...
muffer up drums...
               don't get me wrong, i do listen to
e.g. man with no name...
         but it's rare to hear the jazzy side of things...
  it's just such a waste to see the bass guitar
not used as it should be, i.e. being over-powered
by drums... and using so much rhythm with
a guitar... having the rhythm and the solo...
  like squeezing a pair of testicles of a celibate monk...
god, that hush hush: tone down, tone, tone down,
tone, down... down... down...
             pst... kaput....
                                      i really did start talking
about something else, didn't i?
                this is new... digression as a column of
rhetorical perfection... fair enough having the rhetorical
skills, talking persuasively (well, just lying)
    about the same topic... but find me the rhetorician
than utilises digression, and forgets his talking
because he's changing subjects without really
    categorising them as being different....
    it's a trance state akin to eastern meditative practices...
digression as the most pleasing form of rhetoric,
teachers' oratory technique... not politicians' oratory...
   i never understood why digression was
not the foremost element of rhetoric...
                    political rhetoric is always about
ensuring people remember something,
they never do...
                        politicians drill in the points...
   and for some reason, they never talk to rhetorical
perfection, i.e. being able to digress...
                the most persuasive rhetoric is the rhetoric
with digression at its core...
                       or at least that's how i learned
english from a scotsman...
                                just blah blah blah blah
and at some point, there always will come an aha!
which is the next best thing to an eureka.