An Almost Made Up Poem

by Charles Bukowski I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny blue hands, no, your hands are not tiny they are small, and the fountain is in France where you wrote me that last letter and I answered and never heard from you again. you used to write insane poems about ANGELS AND GOD, all in upper case, and you knew famous artists and most of them were your lovers, and I wrote back, it’ all right, go ahead, enter their lives, I’ not jealous because we’ never met. we got close once in New Orleans, one half block, but never met, never touched. so you went with the famous and wrote about the famous, and, of course, what you found out is that the famous are worried about their fame –– not the beautiful young girl in bed with them, who gives them that, and then awakens in the morning to write upper case poems about ANGELS AND GOD. we know God is dead, they’ told us, but listening to you I wasn’ sure. maybe it was the upper case. you were one of the best female poets and I told the publishers, editors, “ her, print her, she’ mad but she’ magic. there’ no lie in her fire.” I loved you like a man loves a woman he never touches, only writes to, keeps little photographs of. I would have loved you more if I had sat in a small room rolling a cigarette and listened to you piss in the bathroom, but that didn’ happen. your letters got sadder. your lovers betrayed you. kid, I wrote back, all lovers betray. it didn’ help. you said you had a crying bench and it was by a bridge and the bridge was over a river and you sat on the crying bench every night and wept for the lovers who had hurt and forgotten you. I wrote back but never heard again. a friend wrote me of your suicide 3 or 4 months after it happened. if I had met you I would probably have been unfair to you or you to me. it was best like this. recommended by Kostya Viktorov

For the man with the erection lasting more than four hours

by John Hodgen

He’s supposed to call his doctor, but for now he’s the May King with his own maypole.

He’s hallelujah. He’s glory hole. The world has more women than he can shake a stick

at. The world is his brickbat, no conscience to prick at, all of us Germans he can ich

liebe dich at. He’s Dick and Jane. He’s Citizen Kane. He’s Bob Dole.

He’s Peter the Great. He’s a tsar. He’s a clown car with an extra car.

Funiculì, Funiculà. He’s an organ donor. He works pro boner. He’s folderol.

He’s fiddlesticks. He’s the light left on at Motel 6. He’s free-for-alls.

He’s Viagra Falls. He’s bangers and mash. He’s balderdash. He’s a wanker.

He’s got his own anchor. He’s whack-a-doodle. King Canoodle. He’s a pirate, Long John

Silver, walking his own plank. He has science to thank. He’s in like Flynn. He’s Gunga Din,

holding his breath, cock of the walk through the valley of the shadow of death. He’s Icarus,

hickory dickerous, the mouse run up the clock. He’s shock and awe. He’s Arkansas.

He’s the package, the deal, the Good Housekeeping Seal. He’s Johnson &Johnson.

He’s a god now, the talk of the town. He’s got no place to go but down.

The Peace of Wild Things

by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

recommended by: Christian Cooke

The Night Colors Us Equal

Tears for a loved one

Lost in a dream

Burn Sincerity

I remember hearing you cry through childhood walls

Full circle it seems how I should now you;

alike in countenance

in temperament: foil

yet at night

with the quelling of the ego

two lost children cry out (this time I for you)

————————————

Awakened by grief

a sadness unbearable

I used to wake

up in dreams when I died

I would triumph

over my enemies and wake

gloriously

in the end

But this was different:

I watched 32 35 37

distant acquaintances

speak ill truths of opportunities lost

I heard them speak nonchalant

your inability to action

scars faded

my fresh wounds

I always thought when this happened I wouldn't feel much.

I thought frustration had turned to apathy

disenchantment to distance

... you know, they say I look nothing like my mother.

I hear you whimper, cry out through childhood walls

seemingly thicker now...

I saw

the scarlet red

of your greatest mistake

trickle from her chest

(the bosom of my being

the bringer of my life)

and meet me at the bottom

I bled too

hardened by drudgery and hops

your hands killed us both

and I bled too-

much in fact

I must've died, but

linoleum floors do wonders.

calm cool collected

a series of scarlet memories never reflected

at the bottom I lost you

I was the infant to your middle-age

I received your torch, reluctant.

I didn't want your flame.

I didn't want your trust

I didn't want your name

I didn't want your lust-

for life,

now regret

emerging at the bottom of a

brown paper bag

Bodega Blues

I hear you whine and whimper, cry out through childhood walls-

of steel

those toes on which I danced

cringed in fear

those eyes into which I poured myself honest

cried themselves sincere

those thighs from which I back-flipped

and hoped to never-land

so that I may be your little boy forever

but some dreams are just plain stupid when you wake up

I hear you die through childhood walls

and through you I died too

Bud-hardened hands

eyes stony vigilant

I looked to days of kindred flesh, but

your pain is mine

generation valley bridged

four years to fifty

the night colors us equal

-Joseph Vito Ramírez

Italian Futurism

Waiting for Life, greeted by Death

smiling eternal

What a joke this must be to the collectors of souls

Death is not an end, a means.

Life for those who, now.

waiting on bridges afraid of the fall

what a cool coincidence; regret.

the leap is Life.

to wait is Death

smiling eternal

-Joseph Vito Ramírez