online literature since 2007

Monday, February 22, 2010

sublime form


I would like to dedicate this poem to me
writing only because I want to write beauty
and not because I have beauty to write.
Charlie Bukowski didn’t think of the beauty
that he had in his life. 
He didn’t think he
had any so he wrote because he was good at
writing.  He didn’t fool anyone. He didn’t
have anyone to impress.
He did what he wanted
when he wanted and he was a sexist, alcoholic
bigot and the people worshipped him for it.

I do not worship him but I take a knee in his
presence and read the ink he wrote
over gold letters
like the bible. 
I want to go back and
delete everything in this poem that does not make
it edgy and ugly like Bukowski.  I think I have many
people to impress if I only write for those wanting to
be impressed.  All I would have is sheep when
I am not a Shepard. 
I am North of salvation. Sounds beautiful
but what the fuck does it mean? Nothing,
so I impress the reader by drawing back to the only
line that has worked so far:
I do not worship him but I take a knee in his
Presence and read the ink he wrote
over gold letters
like the bible. 

This poem is growing fatter
though I have fed it nothing. Simile. Metaphor.
I write for that audience I have created that will only
ever be impressed and confused.  I invite that audience
to my greatest reading in a great beautiful hall. I burn
the hall into scorched velvet and crispy grasshoppers.
I no longer have an audience.
I will never again have
an audience I trust.  I cannot trust what I don’t create.
When I trust what I create its not trust.  The mercy of
the real is there to absorb you and critique you until
all but honesty is left of you.  And even then its not
good enough.