when you find yourself reading too long and too much from a book edited after death

the kind of woman who can’t afford a rooming house
but finds herself at yours
at Uncle Buks’
either at 3 in the morning
or
3 in the afternoon

both times you’re trying to
read
write
stay sober-drunk

and everyone is pounding the walls
the ceiling
floorboards

yelling

‘CAN YOU GET ANY LOUDER IN THERE’

‘BAD ENOUGH WE GOT YOU

GET RID OF ‘ER’

but you can’t
get rid of her

she’s a bad memory
she’s locust
a pure shot of what you ({[don’t]}) need

and it’s too hot
it’s summer

it’s inhospitable
and rude

what would Chinaski say

not

WWJD

besides – you say

she’s sitting on the windowsill ledge
and the drapes are drawn
closing out the sun
the stars
and the fan is propped up trying to
suck in cool air
or suck out the heat

and she’s just sitting there
in a wife beater
tall socks
and roller girl shorts

she’s got her way of showing
without showing

everything your mind wants to feel rotten

and you stand so she can see you’re impressed
letting her know
she’s not going to be kicked out by you

you shuffle around the typewriter
and into the kitchen
you grab more ice and another glass

you don’t want to share

but you know she’ll let you bum a smoke

.
.
.

you’re back in the living room
even though you know
this ain’t
living

and she’s sitting on the couch
tapping on your typewriter

tapping on your coffee table
that empty hydro line spool with the perfect holes
for holding styrofoam cups

and she grins a cock roach smile
circling the hole
the drain

says

‘ PUT THE CUP DOWN AND POUR’

so you pour

and the night
or the day

the middle of the clock
ticks on

and life wasted
continues to amuse you in ways
that only you can appreciate

.
.
.

she leaves at a point where your
self awareness is on its hands
either 6:30
or 12:00

either
or

both hands have been round full in this rooming house
as she closes the door

her high heels clicking
down the hall

back into the wilderness of
a Bukowski strip
knowing both debauchery
and understanding beauty

in all it’s ugliness
and flower perfume forms.

oops……..

I
insulted
neruda right there
on lakeshore
inside
etobicoke
citing his love poems
were too
purposeful
to his real life track
record
and the group
didn’t
take.
a couple, pointed direction
they had
an encounter with
the late
translated
great.
i
said
i
thought chinaski
was
actually more
sensitive
and
certainly
we
needed
to
look
no further
than the shrivel mermaid
comparison
within
our
own
locality.
i
took it a step further
stating
what i had written
was the
more
honest
approach to love
making
in a
poem,
finding the woman
rather
than the woman
finding
herself within
the lines
of
man
made
poetry

but

in this pub
with no
club soda
or ice
and after reading
my own
lyrics
i realized
toronto
was not hamilton
and
hamilton was
too gritty
for the
rest of ontario
so
why try and invade
another
country?

still

chinaski woulda been proud
uncle al
woulda enjoyed the
cat calls
and lake
shore
for one brief
hot
summer evening
was
my pissing
post

-it’s all a translated sandbox and the ocean doesn’t seem that scary to me…. anymore

do Not dare Mimic

I
read
buk
when i need to
clear out
the
phlegm
my mind so cluttered
i see only cults
of little
red
wiccans
on
vacuums
for
brooms.
he is the
masterful
garbage man
clearing
out my mind
reminding me
of
naked
slum – life
genius

*

I pick
up Al
who always talked
and thought in
poetry
I read him
when I want to
feel Canada
or understand
the roads I’m
driving
-to feel ashamed
that my
heart does not
know every name
of every town
across this
unpopulated
California
plain

**

Kerouac last
jazz pushes up wards –
The fall ground no longer has leaves

***

A pine tree baby
now grows
in our
living room
I study her bows
listen
for growth
eventually I will
have no choice
but to run
downstairs and
write about it.

Neruda

They give me the
love of Pablo
but
I think at times
he’s too
neurotic
too purposeful
he wants woman
to swoon

Give me the
accidentals of
O’Hara
the honesty of Purdy
or the gruffness
of Chinaski

-then let me find
a song, and dance with you

Our Father

I heard that Gord
Downie
keeps a little
book on his
person
to write ideas
and words
down.
I understand that Willie
Nelson
sometimes sleeps on
ideas for a
song
and only if he wakes
in the morning
and the melody
is still
there,
only then will he flesh it
out.
If you go by that Moulin
Rouge movie,
you have to be high
to write good stuff
and it seems Charles
Bukowski
needed wine, cats, and
Mozart.

What about the Bible?

It sounds like most of
the spoken stories
weren’t even written
down
until almost a
century
after Jesus
died,
those words translated
so
many times that
the original meaning
behind much of it
is lost;
just look at the Lord’s
Prayer.

then there’s me….

and i’m left to
wonder,
where do all my
ideas fit
amongst all this?

How and when
should I
write them
down?