Go Bukowski, it’s yer (100th) birthday

Bacchic poet laureate
Drunken bard and ladies man
Oh, how this troubled troubadour
Of the dregs and the whores
Spoke to my pubescent agonies
And manhood defiiements of the mind

Rhapsodies and rhymes
Portraits of a man drowining
In his own madness
My neurosis answered
From your kingdom of dimly lit taverns
And desolation morgues

Trash bin philosopher
Scavenging through existential ironies
And empirical monuments to the ill-fated human condition
Sing to me life's hells and hallelujahs
Of its wayward women dreaming  of pearls
And misbegotten saints searching  for redemption
Of its darkest nights
And brightest morning after
Of its mishapped tragedies
Laced with weeping and laughter

Boxcar hobo wanderer
Down liquor-slicked highways
Toting only your bottle and quill
Nights wallowing in puke and perfume
And waking up in an empty room

Manifold life without regrets
Myriad loves and losses
Pearls of wisdom amids harvests of dragons
The bottle stands dry and alone
The quill laid down and silent
The taverns fall into a reverent hush
To a lone traveling star.  

ain't no room
for bluebirds
in this shit box, baby
so
drown it
in a bottle of what's cheap
and  
set the alarm
and punch that clock
and fumble through
another day
of sort  
and shuffle
and wash it all down
 
and goddamn how
that skirt rides up
and she knows it
and i know it, too,
and all this heart
and tender soul
is delicate  
just under the skin
like a woman
soft as summer's night,
flawed and lovely
under the sheet
but then
there ain't no room
for bluebirds
 
not in this shit box, baby

  
It was sometime after his death  
That I learned we had attended the same school  
( some fifty plus years apart of course)  
And though I was just beginning my journey    
He had already paved so many roads    
   
I drove the same streets  
Went to the same places to eat  
I grew up loving the city just like he had    
I worked different jobs to pay the bills  
While writing remained a passion in the back of my mind  
   
I went back to school  
Got me a business degree    
And though I felt accomplished I also felt there was something missing    
I should have studied literature  
I should have studied
I should’ve    
I should  
I...  
   
I got older and realized the monotony of it all  
Working long hours    
Less time with the family  
Time passing by  
With only wishes and dreams on the back of my mind    
   
So I delved deeper into poetry    
Asking and answering my own questions    
What the hell do I want?  
   
In reading, writing and learning  
I began to question my own skill  
Am I good enough to be published?  
Am I good enough to make money?  
Am I good enough to be recognized?  
   
I don’t want to be a pretentious shit    
When I’m still learning to grasp the English language  
Or pretend I understand everything at an intellectual level  
I’m not that smart, maybe average  
But I’d like to keep it real, maybe a little savage  
And I thank Charles for that  
   
The city got bigger  
Expensive  
You can’t raise a family on an average wage  
So I packed up and left  
Now my passion is in plain view    
Everyday becoming more of a reality    
...with many endless possibilities

I spent many of my younger days,
Vast quantities in fact,
At the bars.
I met many interesting people.
Most were dumb-assess.
Others displayed a mild intelligence.
Then there was the Satanist.
Who rode somewhere in between.
He sat next to me, and began to chat away.
I have no idea how we got on the subject,
Such a pointless conversation at a bar,
One of religion.
He talked seemingly for an eternity.
Yet somehow, I remember very little.
Before his arrival,
I was drinking alone
Very much content.
I pretended to listen,
Conserving my spot at the bar,
A place where a man could get a drink quickly.
He told me about how people,
At least the true believers of Satanism,
Do not worship Satan.
Or some other shit like that.
He told me all his beliefs.
Then he asked me mine.
I told him that I believed I was sitting at a bar
Drinking a beer.
We raised our glasses in cheers, and he said that he could not argue with that.
Then he shut the fuck up.
For no more words needed to be spoken.

Old copies of playboy strewn    
they looked tired, time served  
I thought of a time when Miss Worlds "speak"  
" I just want world piece" fat chance    
the girlfriends anniversary flowers    
drooping like sex dives dull domesticity    
"just going out for a breath of fresh air Honey"  
she was sewing some leggings that had a split in the arse  
the tv played Mcdonalds yellow arches  
 I slammed the sticky front door  
everywhere I looked was outrageous BMI  
where did all the waist go    
the Hourglass Bar, full of waspish women    
Tinder fodder just click and collect  
ah at last the gates of the park, jammed open  
dilapidating,  flower borders and undergrowth  
festooned with beer cans and needles    
sown from urban decay, joggers elbowing the way  
yapping dogs, some children playing leap frog  
scraping the feaces from your shoes  
the whatever life that stick's like glue  

Post script from beyond
he gave us the sideways glance of irony
100 years the firefly's still entrance
fag ash, and a glass of Bourbon
pith that never was suburban
 my respect Charles Burowski

Your birthday, is one day ... what’d you do with the other 364?
 
“Slavery was never abolished, it was only extended to include all colors” ~ Charles Bukowski  
 
I scribbled those words
his words  
onto my DUP tombstone so long ago  
that I don’t remember the when
 
but the why is burning red
white  
and blue black.
 
I see the new plantation as he did  
Her womb is fertile.  
Ripe with money.  
 
My last name, “Heyward”  
is that of my family’s slave master,  
Thomas Heyward.  
 
a co-signer of the Declaration of Independence and notorious slave owner in South Carolina.
 
I’m a bastard of America’s greatest oxymoron,  
men who wrote of freedom but kept my mother’s mothers as concubines.
 
His tory still rules  
Gigabytes replaces cotton  
OxyContin today’s tobacco.  
 
We keep our chains charged
and always on us  
in case someone needs to fetch us for work undone  
 
or we get called for a fuckin’
birthing more bastards  
cause the work is a plenty  
Amazon is always hiring.  
 
I don’t suppose Bukowski would have Facebook or the Gram  
[a gram, maybe]
 
I don’t either  
but I’m not as pure as he  
 
Because here I lie at 2:33 AM  
tapping out his birthday card on my iPhone  
while trying to wean my three year old off McDonald’s tit.  
 
I’ve tried purifying myself by marching  
and chanting through these crooked streets  
 
while the sheriff and his kind  
stand at the ready.  
badges and name tags covered  
with black tape  
not white hoods.  
 
Bukowski was right.  
Because when the sheriff and his men  
swing their clubs  
They don’t care who.  
 
Soccer moms in yellow t-shirts chanting  
“Don’t shoot your mother!”
Phil Dunphy dads in orange with leaf blowers
to bounce back the tear gas.  
 
Black boys with rocks shouting  
“Fuck the police!”  
An old white man who didn’t move fast enough
as the sheriff marched through  
and had his head bounce off the ground.  
 
I haven’t caught my beating,
yet.  
 
Probably’ll be about the same  
as when I spitting up blood  
in the hospital for two nights
coughing and hacking [coronavirus]
much like Bukowski at his end.
 
damning the world  
he couldn’t change.