Going Through Old Files Getting Ready to Write Again, and Finding a Poem That Makes Me Think of My Brother Luke
Hi Everyone! Happy Friday!
One of the things I want to do this year is write again...I mean, I write here, and for my job Monday through Friday...but I mean work on some of my book-length projects...things I haven't touched in a year or more, being hugely pregnant and then with the twins...
The first step is getting organized, seeing where I left off...no small feat. And interesting what you find when doing so...
I found a poem, one of only two poems I've ever memorized in my life, I love it because it says to me what writing is about, not giving up on your dreams, you know? What the real reward for doing it is.
Also, it's by Charles Bukowski, one of my favorite writers of all time. My brother Luke's (the one who died), too. When we were living together our house was full of his books, and one night we went to see a documentary about him up at UCSB with the drummer in Luke's band. The drummer's girlfriend was always involved in these fancy party-type things and we met the drummer at one of them, there was a photographer taking pictures of people for the society pages of the newspaper or whatever, and a picture of us ended up there, with the same last name it looked like we were a married couple. "This is why I can't get a date in this town," Luke said. Actually, that crowd, where we made the occasional appearance (not really our scene)...pretty much everyone assumed we were just some "cute surfer couple," as the drummer's girlfriend (now wife) tells the story, not brother and sister, I'm assuming because wherever we went we were always together, plus having the same last name...
Missing Luke...wish I had a copy of that picture...I know the drummer's girlfriend has one because she mentioned it last time I saw her...
But, I hugely digress...
Anyway, here's the poem. Excited to be starting to write again...feels good.
afternoons into night
Charles Bukowski
looking out the window
smoking rolled cigarettes
drinking Sanka
and watching the workers
come on in
I wonder, how much longer
can I get away with this?
stories and poems and
paintings
surviving on that.
an insane girlfriend
years younger
who loves me
types at her novel
in the kitchen
my stories, my poems...
what is a poem?
a book by Celine sits on
the edge of the bathtub.
I read it when I bathe
and laugh.
the workers come in now
I see their faces,
the insides scraped away,
the outsides
missing.
I've had their jobs,
their goldfish
security
Segovia plays to me
so softly from the
radio, the daylight's going.
look here--
the trip's been worth it,
while jetliners go to New York and
Georgia and Texas
I sit surrounded by hymns that
nobody can ever take away
as the workers bend over
hot soup and cold
wives.
Thanks for spending some time here this week. Hope you have a lovely weekend. :)
XOXO
Image Credit: luckyfish.
