One of The Buk's Best

the young man on the bus stop bench


he sits all day at the bus stop
at Sunset and Western
his sleeping bag beside him.
he’s dirty.
nobody bothers him.
people leave him alone.
the police leave him alone.
he could be the 2nd coming of Christ
but I doubt it.
the soles of his shoes are completely
gone.
he just laces the tops up
and sits and watches traffic.

I remember my own youthful days
(although I traveled lighter)
they were similar:
park benches
street corners
tarpaper shacks in Georgia for
$1.25 a week
not wanting the skid row church
hand-outs
too crazy to apply for relief
daytimes spent laying in public parks
bugs in the grass biting
looking into the sky
little insects whirling above my head
the breathing of white air
just breathing and waiting.

life becomes difficult:
being ignored
and ignoring.
everything turns into white air
the head fills with white air
and as invisible women sit in rooms
with successful bright-eyed young men
conversing brilliantly about everything
your sex drive
vanishes and it really
doesn’t matter.
you don’t want food
you don’t want shelter
you don’t want anything.
sometimes you die
sometimes you don’t.

as I drive past
the young man on the bus stop bench
I am comfortable in my automobile
I have money in two different banks
I own my own home
but he reminds me of my young self
and I want to help him
but I don’t know what to do.

today when I drove past again
he was gone
I suppose finally the world wasn’t
pleased with him being there.

the bench still sits there on the corner
advertising something.

No Leaders Please - by Charles Bukowski

no leaders please


invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,
don’t swim in the same slough.
invent yourself and then reinvent yourself
and
stay out of the clutches of mediocrity.

invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,
change your tone and shape so often that they can
never
categorize you.

reinvigorate yourself and
accept what is
but only on the terms that you have invented
and reinvented

be self-taught

and reinvent your life because you must;
it is your life and
its history
and the present
belong only to
you.

A Poem for all my FFFrrriiieeennndddsss

(full version below)

The Genius of the Crowd

there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach love  do not have love

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average

but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect

like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock

their finest art

Me, Buttkowski, and our unhappy theory

My dad once said to me (again 1ooo years ago): "Are you sure you should be reading this Buttkowski guy? He's very depressing." I responded, "It's Bukowski, not Buttkowski, and to me he's not depressing, its comforting that someone knows how I feel when I'm depressed." This sums it up better than anything else I've ever come across:

Beast by Charles Bukowski

my beast comes in the afternoon

he gnaws at my gut

he paws my head

he growls

spits out part of me

my beast comes in the afternoon

while other people are taking pictures

while other people are at picnics

my beast comes in the afternoon

across a dirty kitchen floor

leering at me

while other people are employed at jobs

that stop their thinking

my beast allows me to think

about him,

about graveyards and dementia and fear

and stale flowers and decay

and the stink of ruined thunder.

my beast will not let me be

he comes to me in the afternoons

and gnaws and claws

and I tell him

as I double over, hands gripping my gut,

jesus, how will I ever explain you to

them? they think I am a coward

but they are the cowards because they refuse to

feel, their bravery is the bravery of

snails.

my beast is not interested in my unhappy

theory—he rips, chews, spits out

another piece of

me.

I walk out the door and he follows me

down the street.

we pass the lovely laughing schoolgirls

the bakery trucks

and the sun opens and closes like an oyster

swallowing my beast for a moment

as I cross at a green light

pretending that I have escaped,

pretending that I need a loaf of bread or

a newspaper,

pretending that the beast is gone forever

and that the torn parts of me are

still there

under a blue shirt and green pants

as all the faces become walls

and all the walls become impossible.

Blockhead Returns

About a thousand years ago, or perhaps it was in another lifetime, or possibly sometime in the 90's I wrote a column for NJIT's student newspaper The Vector (with magnitude and direction) entitled Uncarved Blockhead. The name is my goofy play on words of the Taoist principle the Uncarved Block; which means, very loosely, "allowing things to be in their natural state." Or as I like to say, when applied on the personal level, "become what you are."

Not quite sure what I want to post here - but the general direction I'm sensing is sharing thoughts and musings on struggles and adventures I must take (or situations I need to avoid) to keep the gears up in my noggin from rusting, ceasing, or simply going SPROING. Something like that.