Bukowski Birthday Poem
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Charles Bukowski died on March 9, 1994.
I was chopping potatoes at my cafe when I heard.
It was 5:41 in the morning.

I sat down and cried for two minutes.
This is actually a long time
if you’re busy.

Today is August 16.
Charles Bukowski’s birthday.
He’d be in his 100s, but he’s dead.

After I cried, I got up and continued chopping:
onions, mushrooms, garlic and peppers.
I wiped down the counters and tables and dusted the shelves.
I filled all the salt and pepper shakers.

I degunked the ketchup and hot sauce bottles
and mixed up the batters and started the soup.
I had to write the special board and new signs for the pastries.
Turn on the burners and grills and gear up.

Then came a growing loudness.
The eaters!
They kept coming.
And wanting.

All the orders.
I want to sneak out the back door
and escape the parade of pale green tickets
flapping above the grill like tiny flags of surrender.

Burn scars twine up and down my arms
like buttons & clasps.
O wait. Bukowski?
Well, I loved him for a minute.

I loved his clarity
and bluntness.
I loved his surprisingly well-crafted
lack of pretention. His cocky grit.

But then I saw him hit his wife.
On camera.
And I couldn’t get over it.
Ugliness matters a lot.

I’m now in treatment for ugliness.
I don’t read Bukowski anymore at all
except on his birthday, like today.
I pick up Love Is a Dog From Hell:

I drive around the streets
an inch away from weeping
ashamed of my sentimentality and
possible love.

Fuck that.
Dive into the glorious mire of emotion,
Buk.
Sink into the bath of it.

And back to ugly, I got the opposite of ugly
A new puppy.
She’s licking my feet right now
as if they were rump roasts.

You know, my puppy looks a bit like Charles Bukowski
but with lighter hair
and darker eyes
and much better behavior.

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