Buk

Painting by Kylie Harris

Buk

Bukowski wrote "thousands" of poems, some of which
are not that impressive. Still he wrote them, and
one needs to read them because each one, each word
brings you closer to the wrecked alcoholic hulk
sexist barfighter poet he was. Reading him does help
me to have more faith in my own scribbling
as long as I don't lament that I have not actually
published jack shit, and even if I did, so what,
it wouldn't make a dime, and yet undeterred,
I can see myself, like when I was an actor,
out there in front of an audience, reading my
own work at Poetry Slams, at open mic readings,
at festivals, on street corners, in men's rooms while
holding towels for jack off artists and fags, on the steps
of the capitol building in Olympia, in that little park
adjacent to the old TAG building, down the street
from the Pantages in Tacoma, during Sumner Pioneer
days, at pow wows, at picnics, during break-ins,
at theaters while plays are being performed,
in women's bathrooms while they are doing mysterious
tinkling in their stalls, in restaurants in the kitchens
while cooks are bustling over fryers and burning toast,
in the back seats of police cars while they are in pursuit
of stupid street racers, standing next to drug dealers
while they play pocket pool and await their next score,
in cemeteries during funerals, in coffee houses
over in the corner by the CD's and books,
in public libraries projecting my lines with stentorian
aplomb, in hardware stores next to rakes and shovels
when I am not standing near to the paint aisle, or
the nuts and bolts, at the fish canneries wherever I can find
them, like that dinky one on the Quinault Indian
Reservation in the shithole of Taholah, or that park
next to the Public Market,
when I am not competing with those smiling dudes
who toss fish and catch them for the tourists--
and my raspy voice matches his own, salivating as I work
my tongue over my words.

Charles Bukowski, whom I doubt I would have liked,
probably would have found myself in a fistfight with,
sharing his strong arms and bad complexion, perches
heavy on my chest tonight, daring me to step out into
the alley, but I still appreciate the audacious raunchy riffs
he set into the muddy currents of literature, and perhaps
even Harvey Goldner would agree, or Bobby Byrd might,
that Bukowski is necessary for us all,
part of our poetic rite of passage, and hell--
he lived to be 74 years old, even though he lived
like a drunken wharf rat and probably never gave
a crap who was president, or how much the price of oil
vexes the rest of us; but come to think of it,
every once in a while, when he was not too fixated
on pussy, wine, beer, his cock, rats and roaches,
he did make some noise about the injustices
and inequities he witnessed during sobriety,
between bar bitches, when he could hold his food down,
and he felt good enough to walk to the store, or shave,
so hey, who am I to be fixated or focused on his life,
his poetry, his broads? This is probably just another
poetic phase I'm going through, although I must
say I have come back to Bukowski several times
this year.

Glenn Buttkus

February 2011

Listed as #46 over on dVerse Poets--Open Link-Week 22
Listed as #13 over on Magpie Tales 52

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