you are not bukowski and neither am i

by Tom Harding

Thursday 4th August 2011 11:21 pm (first posted Wednesday 3rd August 2011 10:39 pm)

 

you are not bukowski

and neither am i

but it's understandable  that you try,

understandable knowing what put you here

understandable as anything in this life.

understandable because our voices have been crippled

understandable because of what the world has done to us as men

because we lug the rotting carcass of masculinity 

from one small room to the next

because of the newspapers and the television

and all the other detestable noise

yes it's understandable

that you should take yourself to a room

and act alone and this manner, typing

as if hammering nails into wood

as if firing shots into blue sky

understandable that you want to be alone

and let it all run off the page

understandable that you say to hell with form

because it's smells too much of the very prisons that sent us here 

understandable that blogs, tweets and posts

don't sit right 

understandable that you kill all modifiers, loading 

short syllables like slugs into a chamber

lining them like shot glasses along bar

yes it's all understandable

because of what's been done to your language

because you have lived too long with nothingness

because the tomb is still within yourself

and after two thousand years of madness 

still nobody knows what it's all for

because irony is their best answer

but is still no way to live

because  their solutions end at the surface

and we’re still so far from what seems natural

because beauty is momentary

but the retirement age goes up

because the recession double dips

and the morning always hurts

because we're still removed from the point of it all

yes, because we're still so far from the point of it all.

it's understandable then 

when something makes sense

is it any wonder, then, that you try?

but you are not bukowksi

and neither am i.