the crunch

-bukowski

too much too little

too fat
too thin
or nobody.

laughter or
tears

haters
lovers

strangers with faces like
the backs of
thumb tacks

armies running through
streets of blood
waving winebottles
bayoneting and fucking
virgins.

an old guy in a cheap room
with a photograph of M. Monroe.

there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in the slow movement of
the hands of a clock

people so tired
mutilated
either by love or no love.

people just are not good to each other
one on one.

the rich are not good to the rich
the poor are not good to the poor.

we are afraid.

our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big-ass winners

it hasn’t told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.

or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone

untouched
unspoken to

watering a plant.

people are not good to each other.
people are not good to each other.
people are not good to each other.

I suppose they never will be.
I don’t ask them to be.

but sometimes I think about
it.

the beads will swing
the clouds will cloud
and the killer will behead the child
like taking a bite out of an ice cream cone.

too much
too little

too fat
too thin
or nobody

more haters than lovers.

people are not good to each other.
perhaps if they were
our deaths would not be so sad.

meanwhile I look at young girls
stems
flowers of chance.

there must be a way.

surely there must be a way that we have not yet
thought of.

who put this brain inside of me?

it cries
it demands
it says that there is a chance.

it will not say
“no.”

Too many names

And a Neruda . . .

Why did I choose this poem? Because it vindicates something I had written here about how names are so trivial and yet so mysteriously so consequential. Ha!

( Listen )

Monday entangles itself with Tuesday

and the week with the year:

time cannot be severed

with your weary shears,

and all the names of the day

the water of night clears.

No man can call himself Peter,

no woman Rose or Mary,

we are all sand or dust,

we are all rain in the rain.

They have told me of Venezuelas,

Paraguays and Chiles,

I don’t know what they’re talking about:

I know the skin of the Earth

and I know that it has no name.

When I lived among roots

they delighted me more than flowers,

and when I talked to a stone

it echoed like a bell.

It is so slow the spring

that lasts the winter long:

time has lost his shoes:

one year’s four centuries.

When I go to sleep each night

what am I called, not called?

And when I wake up, who am I

if it wasn’t ‘I’ who was sleeping?

This is to say that as soon as we

are thrust out into life,

that we come newly born,

that our mouths are not filled

with all these dubious names,

with all these mournful labels,

with all these meaningless letters,

with all this ‘yours’ and ‘mine’,

with all this signing of papers.

I think to confound things

mingling them, hatching them new,

seeing through them, stripping them naked,

until the light of the earth

has the unity of the ocean,

a generous integrity,

a crackle of starched perfume.

Neruda and Bukowski

I’ve been reading a lot of Neruda and I like Bukowski a lot. So what I’ll do is declare this a Neruda and Bukowski week. And maybe even next and next. Till I’ve exhausted them both.

First, Bukowski :

me and Faulkner ( Listen )

sure, I know that you are tired of hearing about it, but
most repeat the same theme over and over again, it’s
as if they were trying to refine what seems so strange
and off and important to them, it’s done by everybody
because everybody is of a different stripe and form
and each must work out what is before them
over and over again because
that is their personal tiny miracle
their bit of luck

like now as like before and before I have been slowly
drinking this fine red wine and listening to symphony after
symphony from this black radio to my left

some symphonies remind me of certain cities and certain rooms,
make me realize that certain people now long dead were able to
transgress graveyards

and traps and cages and bones and limbs

people who broke through with joy and madness and with
insurmountable force

in tiny rented rooms I was struck by miracles

and even now after decades of listening I still am able to hear
a new work never heard before that is totally
bright, a fresh-blazing sun

there are countless sub-stratas of rising surprise from the
human firmament

music has an expansive and endless flow of ungodly
exploration

writers are confined to the limit of sight and feeling upon the
page while musicians leap into unrestricted immensity

right now it’s just old Tchaikowsky moaning and groaning his
way through symphony #5
but it’s just as good as when I first heard it

I haven’t heard one of my favorites, Eric Coates, for some time
but I know that if I keep drinking the good red and listening
that he will be along

there are others, many others

and so
this is just another poem about drinking and listening to
music

repeat, right?

but look at Faulkner, he not only said the same thing over and
over but he said the same
place

so, please, let me boost these giants of our lives
once more: the classical composers of our time and
of times past

it has kept the rope from my throat

maybe it will loosen
yours

from Third Lung Review.

Hazaaron Khwahishein Aisi

da Dum is a foot in an iambic pentameter.

I will begin this with a reading of this very beautiful poem by Ghalib.

The English translation of it, which is in the same audio file is from here.

Listen

hazaaroN KHwahishaiN ‘eisee ke har KHwahish pe dam nikle
bohot nikle mere armaaN lekin fir bhee kam nikle

Dare kyooN mera qaatil kya rahega uskee gardan par
wo KHooN, jo chashm-e-tar se ‘umr bhar yooN dam_ba_dam nikle

nikalna KHuld se aadam ka sunte aayaiN haiN lekin
bohot be_aabru hokar tere kooche se ham nikle

bharam khul jaaye zaalim tere qaamat ki daraazee ka
agar is turra-e-pur_pech-o-KHam ka pech-o-KHam nikle

magar likhwaaye koee usko KHat, to hamse likhawaaye
huee subah aur ghar se kaan par rakhkar qalam nikle

huee is daur meiN mansoob mujhse baada_aashaamee
fir aaya wo zamaana, jo jahaaN se jaam-e-jam nikle

huee jinse tavaqqo KHastagee kee daad paane kee
wo hamse bhee ziyaada KHasta-e-teGH-e-sitam nikle

mohabbat meiN naheeN hai farq jeene aur marne kaa
usee ko dekh kar jeete haiN jis kaafir pe dam nikle

zara kar jor seene par ki teer-e-pursitam nikle
jo wo nikle to dil nikle, jo dil nikle to dam nikle

KHuda ke waaste parda na kaabe se uThaa zaalim
kaheeN ‘eisa na ho yaaN bhee wohee kaafir sanam nikle

kahaaN maiKHaane ka darwaaza ‘GHalib’ aur kahaaN waaiz
par itana jaante haiN kal wo jaata tha ke ham nikle.

Translation from here.

A thousand desires such as these,that each takes a lifetime (an eternity)
I found many desires and yet they aren’t enough

I have heard of Adam coming from Heaven
Disgraced a lot I came from your street (home)

If someone wants to write (her) a letter, let me write it
It is morning and I have started from home with a pen on my ear

There is no difference between living and dying in love
I live by the sight of that unfaithful (infidel) taking whose name I die

For God’s sake don’t remove the curtain from Kaaba tyrant
Lest that unfaithful (infidel) sweetheart appear from there too

Where a door to the tavern ‘Ghalib,’ and where the preacher
All I know is yesterday he was going (in) when I stepped out