Poet of the Week: Charles Bukowski
I went to Barnes and Noble
tonight
to look for
a poem by Ann Lauterbach
and when I didn’t find it
I picked up a book by Charles Bukowski
and decided to buy it
because I thought:
“how decadent.
a book of poetry.”
but before that
I spent a while looking
for a poem to love
amongst the “best of” collections
of Mary Oliver
and
Reynolds Price
and
Rainer Maria Rilke.
I lied about the Rilke
but I thought it sounded good
in this context.
now I’m standing
at the bottom of the escalator
in the basement of
this 86th street store
typing this on my iPhone,
while I’m walking
back and forth
to the bookshelves
to remember what I spent
30 minutes deciding was mostly pretty
boring.
in the meantime,
a man with a gravely voice
asks me if I need anything.
if I weren’t wearing a short skirt
he’d have left me
the fuck alone.
and all I can do,
after all of this superfluous browsing,
is think in
fragmented sentences,
which is alright
because at least
the words are pouring out of me.
Bukowski would have liked that.
the man has lingered
so I’ll be on my way
to the check out counter.
or rather
the cash register.
unfortunately,
this is not a public library.
although I couldn’t check out at the library
anyway
without paying a hefty fine
for the long-due
children’s book on Magellan the Explorer
that I always forget to return.
I’ll buy the book on a credit card
and then curse myself
all the way home
for not being more frugal with money.
the cab last week,
the pedicure on Saturday.
the trash bag full of rotted Trader Joe’s food
and now this book by Bukowski.
I’ll read it on the subway,
forcing myself through every poem
because for me,
they cost money.
and I’ll think about all the work I would have done
in college
to make Charles Bukowski fall in love with me.
so here’s the first poem
that I flipped to
and lingered upon
in the book I shall not name
by my poet of the week
Charles Bukowski.
Re-union
when you left I thought you’d never
return and finally I got to feeling good
about that.
now it’s starting all over
again
right here
right now.
I watch
the pyramids stand by quietly as the monkey eats his
fleas.
somehow
once again
we seem to be as
content as a package of peanuts
bleached by the sun
and then
caught like
a
ringing bell.
