Charles Bukowski and Me

Once again, I offer up a poem against all copyright laws. But I can’t help myself. Here’s a poem from Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way, by Charles Bukowski. His words are rough and I love them. My response to his poem and then the revision to my response (just posted today - 3/28) appears after.

so you want to be a writer?

if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.

if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.

don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in
you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

*****************************************
And from me – after reading CB:

empty status

entrails ooze out slowly.
putrid.
i stare from the great distance between my guts and brain.

the booze bottle is empty and still
i am tortured.

words on a page.
words in the air.

there is no repressing them.

they demand a full hearing.
no matter how deadening,
how dull.
no matter how empty.
like the booze bottle
with just the faint scent of gin.
and a few, stale drops lingering at the bottom.

____________________________________
and the revision:

i stare at the great distance between guts and brain
putrid
ooze

the booze bottle is empty and still
i am tortured

words on a page
in the air
in my head
floundering on my tongue and
the tips of my fingers

there is no repressing them

they demand a full hearing
no matter how deadening
how dull
no matter how empty

like the booze bottle
with just the faint scent of gin
and a few stale drops lingering at the bottom