HOW WAS IT, BUKOWSKI
Even giving
your unsettled lines
a punching out
without any apologies
to sugar daddies
or mommy goddesses
in your sleepy St. Frankie
of a city loudspeaker
hiding out
by drunken suitcases
in a blinded heat
with a heavy fever
fighting for breath
between many legs and lips
frozen by sensation
from hard Finnish vodka
in a midnight spell
out in a hotel room
and flat broke
on the windowpane
where you die
in a million over estimations
when your life is over,
cuffed with the scent
of a feminine blond’s boot
in heels of cheap perfume
yet uneasy
with only a few cold bucks
in your denim pocket
for rental bills,
needing only a dog’s corner
to take a leak
with distillations of desire
for careless love
unbeaten by time
just asking for another
sound for words.
I just don’t see old Buk that way. I don’t see him drinking “Hard Finnish vodka?” I picture him in his wine-stained cigarette-hole ridden boxer shorts. Does the feminine blond mean he was bisexual? I think the cult of Bukowski has gotten way too big for his britches and he wouldn’t have wanted any of this.