the work of bukowski has a way of keeping me alive
the way he tells his stories of suffering through poverty and heartbreak, doldrums and rages, starved, psychic bleeding words and whiskey and cigarettes and anything else anything to dull the pain of being in this idiotic hellscape
dealing with the stupidity of people
it brings a certain grace, a poise, almost a kind of dignity to my own world
reading his poems keeps me halfway sane, keeps me alive
If one taught the next, all would be well We’d all do better, or so I’d assumed The goose steps into boiling water Swears it’s winning, surely not doomed
Document spiraling downward trajectory Greed and hatred and empty pleasures Hand off to the relay baton of truth With wisdom, health, all other treasures
Naively, I swore we could live in harmony But Life assertively called my bluff The end is nigh for the world, and for love But it cannot seem to come quickly enough
I surgically excise a little piece of my dreams and eat it
I consume the humble morsel with all the ceremonial reverence of a dog finding a piece of popcorn on the sidewalk
after that, I stitch myself up and move on to my other responsibilities
translating the mystical scriptures of global cataclysm into numbers
branding those numbers into the surfaces of things and into the hides of living things
weeping in the corner
staring at the wall where there is no window, only spatters of blood and inlaid cryptic symbols in thin strips of iron and lead
moving theoretical aberrations and infeasible methods of measuring alternate universes from one side of the killing floor, sticky with blood, to another, less appropriate space on the other end of the plant, where they can more efficiently collect dust and neglect, and rot in moist darkness
trying to write a chord progression for the rhythm section underneath the melody of never-ending screams of existential dread and physical agonies beyond imagining
until the bell rings in the late evening and it’s time to hose off and crawl into the pod for a few hours
it’s a gig
it keeps the lights on
it keeps me alive
and devours all of the best parts of me
each year, a five-percent raise helps to offset fifteen-percent inflation
we’re hiring, if you’re interested
you can fill out an application by writing out a promissory note for your utterly useless soul on the skin of a stillborn lamb, in the blood of a fatted calf, mixed with the brains of a wolf and the heart of a donkey
leave it behind the barn beneath your first born wrapped in swaddling clothes
all of that fuss is unimportant, really
it only serves to give the impression you had to do something difficult to get in
it creates a sense of belonging, family, just like the ankle monitors and the drone cameras
It couldn’t be helped, It was something that I had to do, Or I’d have been in bad shape For weeks to come
I sat and listened to that Goddamned hold message For an hour and five minutes
They repeated it Every twenty seconds; I counted
“We’re sorry, but all of our agents “Are busy assisting other customers. “Please hold and we’ll be with you “As soon as possible. “There are currently more than “Three callers ahead of you.”
I put my phone On the ‘speaker’ setting, And laid it on my belly
I was smart and plugged it Into the charger, Figured I would Kill a few birds with one piece Of terminal boredom
I added another layer of Multitasking to my Very minor ordeal
I read Bukowski’s Love is a Dog from Hell While I waited
Forty minutes in…
It was frequently difficult To concentrate, with that Stupid message, every Twenty seconds—“We’re just a “Tiny bit sorry… “All of our agents are “Pretending to be busy, so we “Can feel like we’re important, “And squeeze a few more bucks out, “By not paying any more staff than “We absolutely have to. “There are three callers ahead of you.”
But the breaks in my focus, They gave me an excuse to jump back Several lines and reread what I Had just read, to make sure that I Hadn’t missed anything
The boredom, The stupid interruptions, The longing for a life that is not A prisoner of circumstance, A slave to bureaucracies, To be able to do something else… Any fucking thing that is something Other than this stupid shit…
“We’re sorry, but all of our agents “Are playing solitaire and circle jerk. “Please hold onto your sanity… “Or don’t; we could all use a good laugh. “There are currently “Two callers ahead of you… “We think. We could be wrong. [Shrugs.] “Who the fuck knows, really? “We’re not fucking philosophers.”
It went well with the poetry, It matched Chuck’s experience Of life
Always waiting Waiting on life to just Come off it, already
Forty-five minutes
“We’re sorry, but all of our agents “Are placing bets on horses, “Arguing with whores, “Getting drunk and feeling lonely, “Feeling happy, angry, nothing at all. “Anything but assisting customers. “Please hold and we’ll be “Finished shitting as soon as possible. “There is one caller ahead of you.”
Maybe that last part was Charles Talking to me,
I forget
I do know that he said (And I’m paraphrasing here, Paraphrasing wildly… speculatively, Because ol’ drunk Chuck said That’s the only way to do anything)
He said that we’re all sitting here, Knowing, knowing that life, The real life, is available, out there, If only the small-minded Would get out of the way, And let the rest of us have it
We’re not entitled to it, We realize that; No one is entitled to Anything
But the rich, the powerful, And the boorish, dreary, Unimaginative oafs, They seem to have All the access To all the best stuff
But they’re too greedy, Too fearful, too lacking in vision To step aside and let someone else Have a crack at the good stuff; They feel they never have enough, Or that only they can Handle it all properly
I know you’re angry; I don’t blame you It feels like American freedom is spent But please try to remember that it’s illegal To talk about killing the president
I know it’s hard watching these racists; To a coward, sadist, false king, they bent But it’s still a crime to make idle threats About murdering the stupid president
I don’t ever want you to get locked up So, don’t do something you’ll later lament Don’t even jokingly say to someone That you’re planning to kill the president
