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up grossly defective and out of
date words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
