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Pissed at Bukowski
I woke up at 2 a.m. pissed at Bukowski.
I rolled over half expecting to find him there
Snorting with his deviated septum,
Farting louder than the floor fan,
And if I had I would have killed him.
But the bed was empty except for me,
And I remembered that the poor old guy
Was already dead. I thought of his smell,
Then, not now, and almost made myself
Sick with it—that old man stink. Of course,
Bukowski smelled like an old man in his crib.
He got a head start in the stink game.
Don’t cringe when you read this.
Bukowski wouldn’t. He loved talking about
Smells, the fouler the better.
He didn’t believe in limits and gardenias.
He loved his women insulting, stinging,
With beer breath and a three-day stink
All over them. In a dark bar
He always took the back booth,
The smelly one next to the john.
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Robert McDowell directed Story Line Press for 22 years and is the author of two new books: Emily & Virginia, a novel, and Sweet Wolf: Selected & New Poems with Introduction by Chad Abushanab.
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Gabe Leonard, Hard Thing in a Simple Way. Mixed Media on Canvas.
“An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way, and an artist says a hard thing in a simple way” – Charles Bukowski