a stanza or two, on a friday

Been awhile since I got a poem up on a Friday. I remembered lately my teen love of Bukowski, reading his work in a bookstore in Vegas, from a book I didn't intend to buy because he's not that good. Then I'd slide the book back onto the shelf with it's expensive sticker and go to work. Work was a tiny Italian restaurant where I worked shoulder to shoulder with a really excellent Mexican family who invited me to dinner all the time. They came across the border illegally, and were paid in cash. They were authentic and tough. Man, I miss those people. They made me BBQ when I came over the first few times because, as the head cook Victor said, "Americans eat this." I am from the north and didn't know much about BBQ at that point, and I laughed so hard. I miss the smell of pizza sauce and dough from scratch and the warmth of the huge pizza oven at the restuarant. The owner was trying to expand, maybe get a store in one of the casinos, and he was Italian and came around every few months to wax on about his big Italian family and yell at us for not chopping the chopped antipasto fine enough. It was fun, the rush and bustle of the place pulled you in. It was always busy, so busy, and smells to die for. I even miss the red checkered table cloths that constantly hovered on the edges of my vision.

Bukowski fit into that cynical time in my life, at 17, largely alone in Las Vegas and riding the bus every day because I couldn't afford a car. Anyway, here's a short one.




splash

the illusion is that you are simply

reading this poem.

the reality is that this is

more than a

poem.

this is a beggar's knife.

this is a tulip.

this is a soldier marching

through Madrid.

this is you on your

death bed.

this is Li Po laughing

underground.

this is not a god-damned

poem.

this is a horse asleep.

a butterfly in

your brain.

this is the devil's

circus.

you are not reading this

on a page.

the page is reading

you.

feel it?

it's like a cobra. it's a hungry eagle circling the room.



this is not a poem. poems are dull,

they make you sleep.



these words force you

to a new

madness.



you have been blessed, you have been pushed into a

blinding area of

light.



the elephant dreams

with you

now.

the curve of space

bends and

laughs.



you can die now.

you can die now as

people were meant to

die:

great,

victorious,

hearing the music,

being the music,

roaring,

roaring,

roaring.



Charles Bukowski