Alone With Everybody by Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski (1920-1994)





the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.

nobody ever finds
the one.

the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills.







Bukowski, like many writers, had his ups and downs. He was first published in the 1940s. Soon after, he gave up writing and joined the work force and bars. Myth says he didn't write or publish anything for nearly 20 years. READ MORE

poet, poems, bukowski

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Wilson by Deborah White

His smile was
dawn's slip
into a darkened room.

The hat he wore
(syrup sticky
from the dumpster
outside the local Waffle-House)

sat cocked to the left
on his head,

the mimic of Pisa
a dream never seen.

His hands slick as a greased
hairless feline, rummaged

my purse with hope
that its void could spare
a dollar or two.

His voice purred, hypnotic
baritone, sensuous as Flack's croon
of promised sunrises.

But, it was the speak
of his eyes that engaged me,
telling a story of way when.

Portals to swirled
Coffee-House yesterdays,
highs of maryjane,
taps of beatnik pads,
delusions of petal power.

Cool Cat Wilson
gorged with peace,
love and happiness.

He's boarded here
and now's bus, taking rides
that fray his pants,
tatter his hat,
gray his beard,

ride man, ride
there's no getting off.


poetry

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Daddy by Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath

You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time---
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off the beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene

An engine, an engine,
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gypsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been sacred of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You----

Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two---
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.

Personal Note: I haven't posted a poem by Sylvia Plath in quite a while. She's another of my favorite poets. She paints her depression in a vivid and moving way.

Ballad by Sonia Sanchez

Sonia Sanchez






forgive me if i laugh
you are so sure of love
you are so young
and i too old to learn of love.

the rain exploding
in the air is love
the grass excreting her
green wax is love
and stones remembering
past steps is love,
but you. you are too young
for love
and i too old.

once. what does it matter
when or who, i knew
of love.
i fixed my body
under his and went
to sleep in love
all trace of me
was wiped away

forgive me if i smile
young heiress of a naked dreams
you are so young
and i too old to learn of love.

From Homegirls & Handgrenades by Sonia Sanchez. Copyright 2007

Technorati Tags: sanchez, poet, poems, love, ballad

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Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins

Billy Collins --One time U.S. Poet Laureate

I can't begin to tell you how much I love Billy Collins. His poetry is fresh and uplifting. His writing inspires my writing. Hopefully one day, I'll become a poet close to his caliber.

Now on to my favorite poem by Billy Collins --

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.