2 hours

It took two hours of combined searching for Erin and I to find this poem on the net. I knew what it was about, I knew the premise and some of the key words. I didn' t know the title and only vaguely knew which book it was in. Apparently it's basically nowhere on the net. So now it is, damnit. This is one of my favorite Buk poems the only one I've ever referenced in another poem of my own.



tough company

poems like gunslingers
sit around and
shoot holes in my windows
chew on my toilet paper
read the race results
take the phone off the
hook.

poems like gunslingers
ask me
what the hell my game is,
and
would I like to
shoot it out?

take it easy, I say,
the race is not to
the swift.

the poem sitting at the
south end of the couch
draws
says
balls off for that
one!

take it easy, pardner, I
have plans for
you.

Plans, huh? what
plans?

'The New Yorker',
pard.

he puts his iron
away.

the poem sitting in the chair near the door
stretches
looks at me:
you know, fat boy, you
been pretty lazy
lately.

fuck off
I say
who's running this
game?

we're running this
game
say all the
gunslingers
drawing iron:
get
with it!

so
here you
are:

this poem
was the one
who was sitting
on top of the
refrigerator
flipping
beercaps.

and now
I've got him
out of the way

and all the others
are sitting around pointing
their weapons at me and
saying:

I'm next, I'm next, I'm
next!

I suppose that when
I die
the leftovers
will jump some other
poor
son of a bitch.

By Charles Bukowski
From: “Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit”



-----------------------------

I hate when I get it into my head that I HAVE to find something. I can't rest until I find it or get distracted by something else. I spent a whole day looking for a particular album by the Ventures and got it narrowed down to some company that produces CD's that were not popular enough to get first draft when being converted from vinyl. I emailed the director or whatever and got informed that they no longer have it in stock. I'm on my own there. But that's how compulsive I get sometimes.

Erin has been talking about contemporary poetry a lot lately. It's good to see her really get into it. Bukowski always comes up as a "must read" for contemporary poetry. Personally? I really enjoy Bukowski, however I'm sick and tired of his work being held up like a poetic standard and I'm equally sick and tired of reading poetry that falls just short of plagiarism if only because the language is more banal. I think that Buk's big thumbing of his nose at the poetic elite by bringing the coarse and gritty surrealness of his life into the mainstream was wonderful.

I think also that a lot of people who were intimidated by poetry read Buk and said "oh, I can do this." The sad thing is that some of them did. They think that just because they can use the word "fuck" or "cunt" in a poem it, makes it as good. However, the accessability of his poetry did and has and will continue to be an inspiration in many good ways, to many poets.

Aside from poets, I know many that can relate to his work -- the autobiography of it in piecemeal. It's not the feel good read of the year -- except maybe that it is, since in most cases reading Bukowski really makes us apprecieate the fact that his reality is not ours in every aspect. But there are certainly those who fill that niche -- I know of at least one.

There is no glamour in that life. The following is crap, but appropriate.


O Bukowski

You dog, tail tucked and greasy-eyed,
with your gunslinger
poem
winging beer caps from the fridge top --
stalking me by proxy
in the poet on my couch, scribbling,
manic
filling tablet after tablet,
with the droppings of a belly
to long drug over the ground.

O Bukoswki
you porn star;
you inspiration to join the circle
jerk.

I know you.

I know you in sweat, in
sweetish gin breath, in
three a.m. visits, and when
I don't relent
I know you in the rough
hand that cups my ass,
thumb in cunt, and vibrations
that transform my bed
into a quarter-hungry
motel bed. The sticky-hot
finale splatters my thigh, and I
rise, rinse, and return
to arm-thrown-over-eyes snores

....and oh, Bukowski?

This is my bottle cap.



-----------------------

Okay, enough of that pleasantness. It's definately time for bed.