Episode 122: Charles Bukowski

The Trackless Path

Charles Bukowski

What a perfectly wicked man.

Perfectly wicked!

Perfectly wretched!

But truly, honestly so.

Give me one man

Who is what he is,

And nothing more pretended.

You know that you secretly

Hang upon his poems.

Because they are real.

You steal away

When you believe

That no-one is watching.

And it is you we see

Cowering.

Hunched over.

Hanging upon:

"If it doesn't come bursting out of you...

Don't do it!"

But then of a Sabbath

You dress in your Sundays

And sit at the feet

Of your whited sepulchers.

You pretend

That you believe

The polished poison

That drips

Like Calamine Lotion

Into your itching, bleeding ears.

Tell us lies, you say.

Tickle us with your forked tongues

And make us believe

That you are truly good,

That one can be good.

You know that it is lies

But you clamor:

Tell us again

How you slew the dragon.

Tell us how you ever

And ever

Were and are

All that we hoped you to be.

We know it is lies,

but tell us again

so that we too,

May one day

Worship at our own feet.

Charles Bukowski...

Spin us a poem

From the dirty.

Wretched.

Street that you are.

Only there do we worship

The thing that is real

The thing that is best

As it is - No more.

We too

Are wretched

But are loath to admit.

Aspiring hypocrites,

We sit huddled round

To hear...

The Truth.

Not the Truth

Of what man believes,

But The Truth

Of what

We really are:

Just wicked.

Wretched.

Miserable men.

Like good old Charles Bukowski.