Bukowski's Tapes

I had reasons for not being in that picture,

that day or night, for not being there.

I was behind that light, holding the camera still-

I wasn't a part of it, and I could never be.

I still had to go out and see

what I had to see. That something I had to feel.

It has always been that way too, and habits and years

changed what they could

but nothing else. Some went to search for it

in bullfights across Spain, in wars, racetracks

and barfights, jail and debt and loss. They were

all waiting on god or the worst,

all or the end. None could have it all, and he knew it,

but the grace was in running the race anyway,

knowing you would never win, never quite touch it.

I had a voice I would always listen to,

words I would hear despite the worst kind of madness-

that poetry was the only thing alive

in places and people that life no longer cared for.

Desperation came from life and death,

and the thought would never let me breathe right.

Now I hear him saying over a cigarette that he too

sometimes just needed to lay down in bed, alone,

sometimes for days, in silence, away from people,

to be fulfilled by the absolute absence of humanity.

The world could be as lonely

as lonely faces in the newspapers and magazines.

And that would get me ready to go back out,

walk the blocks and streets down

and endure what I was supposed to endure, none the different

nor special, just

the sweet agony of not even wanting for a chance.