Come On In!. Charles Bukowski

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СКАЧАТЬ are other

      problems:

      those writers of poems

      that sound like poems

      think that they then must

      go around

      reading them

      to other people.

      this, they say, is done

      for status and recognition

      (they are careful

      not to mention

      vanity

      or the need for

      instantaneous

      approbation

      from some

      sparse, addled

      crowd).

      the best poems

      it seems to me

      are written out of

      an ultimate

      need.

      and once the poem is

      written,

      the only need

      after that

      is to write

      another.

      and the silence

      of the printed page

      is the

      best response

      to a finished

      work.

      in decades past

      I once warned

      some poet-friends

      of mine

      about the masturbatory

      nature of poetry readings

      done just

      for the applause of

      a handful of

      idiots.

      “isolate yourself and

      do your work and if you

      must mix, then do it

      with those who

      have no interest at all

      in what you consider

      so

      important.”

      such anger,

      such a self-righteous

      response

      did I receive then

      from my poet-friends

      that it seemed to me

      that I had exactly

      proved my

      point.

      after that,

      we all drifted

      apart.

      and that solved just

      one of my

      problems

      and I suppose

      just one of

      theirs.

       in the clubhouse

      he is behind me,

      talking to somebody:

      “well, I like the 5 horse, he closed well last

      time, I like a horse who can close.

      but you know, you gotta kinda consider

      the 4 and the 12.

      the 4 needed his last race and look at

      him, he’s reading 40-to-1 now.

      the 12’s got a chance too.

      and look at the 9, he looks really good,

      really got a shine to his skin.

      then too, you also gotta consider the 7 …”

      every now and then I consider murdering

      somebody, it just flashes in my mind for a

      moment, then I dismiss it and rightfully

      so.

      I considered murdering the man who

      belonged to the voice I heard,

      then I worked on dismissing the thought.

      and to make sure, I changed my seat,

      I moved far down to my left,

      I found a seat between a woman wearing a

      sun shade and a young man violently

      chewing on a mouthful of

      gum.

      then I felt

      better.

       a famished orphan sits somewhere in the mind

      a heavyweight fighter called Young Stribling

      was killed in the ring

      so long ago

      that I am certain

      that I am the only one remembering him

      tonight.

      I am СКАЧАТЬ