bugging Bukowski

bugging Bukowski
turns out Mr. Bukowski thought Henry was a bit of ‘a bore’, and couldn’t get past more than a few pages of him (gleaned from a Bukowski interview).
this was my contribution among those of others to be read as a prelude to Ruth Bioletti’s theatre piece ‘An evening with Charles Bukowski’

Acknowledgements to Michael Montfort for use of this photo ‘Charles Bukowski on Ehrenstrasse in Cologne, West Germany, 1978’

‘Charlie!’
if i called out
to you ‘hey, Charlie!’
i have it on some
authority, like your
own good bad-ass self,
that you would have
come back through
gritted teeth, “Don’t
bug me, baby, I’m no
‘Charlie’ to you, man,
don’t try and collar me
with your stupid forced
familiarity,”, that you
would have bitten hard
at the corner of your
mouth on your cigarette
and told me where to
get off’…so…
let me try again,
“Mr Bukowski, sir,
can i buy, may i buy
you a beer, sir, and
rest assured, there are

out of the sun

out of the sun
written in the days of the ‘ozone scare’, when mankind scrambled to shrink the ‘hole’

when
the light
butts in
under the eaves
this valley
is turned out
of the sun.

trees gather
lightly on
the cool.
the voice
of the bird
closes a
short-handled
blade
deep flower
in the
ear.
a high window
barks out
against the
sun breaking
the ridge
to shadow.

this valley
is turned out
of the sun.
out of the
blast of eden

for water

for water

‘Wave’ by Big Cat

if
there were
another word
for water,
it would be
silver
cool in the
throat of song
and high stepping
in dance,
would flop
around its
axis of sky
narrowed to
a thread of
gleam,
would glisten
on stone, bundle
shell along turnings
the length of shore,
flash loud from
mountain-hid ravine
would clean our
eyes, rest our eyes
in night down ladders
of glow attending its
surface in streetlight,
would cradle the
tongue,