outlaw poetry and free jazz network

Of Mad Affairs, Tall Blondes & Drunken Poets

intellectual bondage and sex

I was locked into an emotional contract
with a tall blue eyed blonde from the
Badlands of The Dakotas
that everyone thought was my sister

my better judgment
sucked up in the whirling tempest
of this body heat type affair
that would ultimately
give rise to the successful overthrow of my fiancée
and everything good in my life at the time

Shaw was right
youth is wasted on the young
and young I was
full of myself
confused and pissed
thinking I was some kind of a poet
because I could
belch and fart a few words onto a piece of paper
pulled thru the wide legal bale
of my huge black metal typewriter
an antiquated monstrous machine that
easily doubled as a free-weight

black leather jacket
long sideburns
pomp and punk
my pecker was caught in a wringer
and I didn’t have a clue

I was to meet my leggy blonde
at a party down in Long Beach

once there
I pounded a few quick beers
and launched into a conversation with this guy
about the bodacious Badlands babe I was
ruining my life with and
poetry

“Fuck this!”
and “Fuck that!”

during the course of my
beer fueled rant
the guy asked me
if I had ever read
Bukowski

“Who?”

“Bukowski, Charles Bukowski, man.”

“Nope, never heard of him.”

“Can’t believe you’ve never heard of Bukowski.
He once did a poetry reading with a refrigerator full of beer,
and didn’t finish the reading until he’d downed every can in the cooler.
He’s straight ahead, your kinda writer man.
A lotta women hate him tho ‘cause they think he’s a misogynist,
but he just tells it the way he sees it.
A great writer.

A poet’s poet.”

the party stumbled forward
on broken legs
my blonde arrived
I drank more
and talked more poetry and
Charles Bukowski with my party pal

by the end of our conversation
I was hooked
I had to get infected
search out this
beer drinking
mysterious man’s man of a poet

at the time I was gone on the beats
and had yet to taste
the raw meat
of Bukowski

the next week
I began my odyssey
but soon discovered that the elusive Charles Bukowski
wasn’t easily found

the trail finally took me to an old school
bookman on Hollywood Blvd. : Ondine’s
a dark cluttered temple
with narrow empty aisles
and books piled high in crooked stacks
the place reeking with the dull perfume of rotting pulp

“Bukowski? No, don’t have any.
If you want Bukowski, there’s a place on Las Palmas,
Baroque Books. Red Stodolsky,
he’ll have what you’re looking for.
Tell him I sent ya.”

sure as hell
just south of Hollywood Blvd.
where the tourists torture themselves
under their brittle burden of dreams
I found it
Baroque Books
a literary oasis among the cliché
refuse of Hollywood

The University of Red’s
where a person could get all the
Charles Bukowski they could possibly
need or
want
and more

helmed by curmudgeonly Brooklyn Red
with a backlog of stories
and books for sale,
“Whatcha lookin’ for kid?”

“Bukowski.”

“Come on in, kid. Bukowski I got.”

and so it was

I bought
I listened
I learned

the tall blonde and I didn’t last too much longer
beyond the party

at one point she actually
drew up a contract
wherein I didn’t have to do a damned thing
except fuck her all year long
and she would take care of the rest
the deal included a clause
stating that one day a year I could have a pussy holiday
and do whoever I wanted
not a bad deal
but not my game

the affair was what it was
and had worked it’s
dark and final magic on the engagement
the broken bond
swept away
with the bits and pieces of a once unshakable
but shattered trust

the women were done with me

my mind danced barefoot in the aftershock
as chaos gave way to confusion
riding on the breath of years

Ondine got pistol whipped
in a feeble robbery attempt
and soon after sold the lonely bookstore
that still bears his name

tough old Red passed away
taking Baroque Books with him
leaving Hollywood
the whorehouse of
love and death
fat with scenesters
hipsters and hype
all tied up like Christmas
held hostage by virtual terror
masquerading as truth and news

punk rock
now new world
apocalyptic straight edge fashion
and musical nostalgia

my youth
too small for me to squeeze into
gone the way of
the hundred dollar car
and dollar gas

Bukowski dead and buried
yet resting easy
in the wake of his
one man revolution

the only good thing
to come out of that
mad blonde period
when everyone
was in love
with the
pain

S.A. Griffin

from: Last Call: The Legacy of Charles Bukowski. The Saga Continues. Edited by RD Armstrong. Lummox Press, PO Box 5301 San Pedro, CA 90733 www.lummoxpress.com

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