Lord, boys,
it’s been a long time since we
sang a happy tune
from deep in our lungs.
somehow we’ve allowed them
to shut off our air, our water, our
electricity, our joy.
we’ve become like them: stilted, exact
graven,
secretly bitter, smitten by
what’s small.
Lord, boys,
we’ve not been kind enough to hippies and
harpies, to sots and slatterns,
to our brothers and
sisters.
Lord, boys,
where has the heroic self
gone?
it’s gone into hiding, a scattered cat
in a hailstorm!
have we come to this?
have we really come to this?
as I open my mouth
to sing
a happy tune from
deep in the lungs
a black fly
circles and swoops
in.
Lord!
“‘thank god!’
‘no, thank me. I work the
miracles around
here.’”
“the best poems
it seems to me
are written out of
an ultimate
need.
and once the poem is written,
the only need
after that
is to write another.
and the silence
of the printed page
is the
best response
to a finished
work.
in decades past
I once warned
some poet-friends
of mine
about the masturbatory
nature of poetry readings
done just
for the applause of
a handful of
idiots.
‘isolate yourself and
do your work and if you
must mix, then do it
with those who
have no interest at all
in what you consider
so
important.’”
“there’s no hell like your own
hell and there’s nobody else
ever
to share it with
you.
you might as well be the only
person left on earth
sometimes you feel as if you
were
and maybe you are.”
Charles Bukowski - Come on in!
“reinvigorate yourself and
accept what is
but only on the terms that you have invented
and reinvented.”
Come on in! - Charles Bukowski
“suicide mornings
and park bench n
nights.”
Charles Bukowski - Come on in!
“always fighting
with all your
heart and soul
so as not
to fail at
living.”
Charles Bukowski - Come on in!
