Wednesday, November 28, 2012

poem of the day 11.28.12


bukowski convention

i had a dream that i was at a poetry reading
that turned into a charles bukowski convention
and suddenly all of the poets there turned into white dudes
with beer bellies and facial hair
eyes that weren’t narrow and squinty suddenly became so
and all of the women there turned into twenty-three year old red heads
with great tits and tight asses
and each of the poets who got up to read
talked with a slight lisp
and they read their poems about their red headed girlfriends
with great tits and tight asses
their long legs in fishnet stocking
when they weren’t threatening to fistfight the audience
some of the poets walked around talking about
trying to get the word down
everywhere you turned it was about the word
the word
and we all worked terrible jobs
some were janitors or file clerks or factory workers or librarians
there wasn’t a college professor amongst the lot of us
which was good because we would’ve eaten a professor alive
we all had our poems on stained paper
the words we’d found while walking though the fire
our poems about fucking our red headed girlfriends
with great tits and tight asses
shooting our sperm like whales
poems about our apartments in the slums and ghettos
poems about our shitty jobs and our tyrant bosses
poems about hangovers and vomit and taking steaming beers shits
no one had a sonnet about true love or nature
but i swear there were a dozen poems about being stuck in traffic
or listening to mahler while drinking cheap wine
reading celine and fante and hemingway and hamsun
to try and stave off the madness
fighting with the wives and girlfriends
and all of the poets at this reading that turned into a convention
were stumbling around drinking cans of cheap beer
calling their women whores and bitches
in their lisping cadence
challenging each other as to who had it worse
who got the word down better
that precious word
the whole bunch of us more like playground bullies than poets
asking each other where we’d been published
talking shit and taking names
making connections
challenging each other to fights in the back alleys
fights we hoped to lose so that we could write
immortal poems about being brave yet downtrodden
wearing nametags that either said buk or hank
and there wasn’t an original soul amongst us
just a bunch of poets
doing the same tired and retreaded act
over and over and over and over and over again
until it was time for the convention to convene
for a lunch of hard boiled eggs and fried chicken gizzards
served with two bottles of german white wine
for each and every one of us hardcore, badass bards.

                                                                        

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