---

 

This writing was accepted for publication in the 108-page perfect-bound ISSN#/ISBN# issue/paperback book “The Way She Was” cc&d, v317 (the January 2022 issue) Order the 6"x9" paperback book:

Order this writing in the book Unfinished Business the cc&d Jan.-April 2022 magazine issues collection book		get the 410 page Jan.-April 2022 cc&d magazine 6" x 9" ISBN# perfect-bound paperback book:

Order this writing in the book Running Out of Time the 2022 poetry, flash fiction, prose, & art collection anthology		get the one-of-a-kind poetry, flash fiction, prose, artwork & photography collection anthology as a 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Bukowski & Company

E.P. Fisher

To be any kind of writer in America
You have to develop a presence on stage, a persona,
Like a sewer rat coming out of a storm drain
With a face like you just got mugged by a man-hole cover
That’s the only way you get any kind of respect...
Take Charles Bukowski, his pock-marked puss like the moon,
A martyr to cigarettes & alcohol, ranting down in Skid row
Going postal in a backroom sorting mail,
In a kind of slow-motion suicide by erotic asphyxiation
As you layout your collection of Playboy centerfolds
And put your head in the noose...

Or you could do your imitation of Jack London,
Arrested for vagrancy, riding the rails, betting on dogfights,
Whose house was burned down because he was a socialist,
His works –sanitized’ & only taught in high school.
Hemingway tried to imitate his manly pursuits,
Standing with bandaged brow outside Shakespeare’s Bookstore
And later wrestling with swordfish in the Gulf.
He apologized to Castro for his crude fellow countrymen,
And always sat with his back to the wall in a corner of a bar in Havana,
Fearing he was being followed by the FBI
(Especially after he won the Nobel prize!)
Shooting himself in the mouth with a shotgun
The same way mobster hitmen tell the world you talk too much.
Or you can hide out in Paris like Baldwin did,
Getting lost in some lonely neighborhood in Montmartre

As for me, I sit in my lazyboy & watch the evening news
In a cut-throat country with murder in its heart
Where you can order French fries & coleslaw & a naked woman to go
If you’re quick enough & already dead inside,
If you can see all the way to Rio or Katmandu
While the angel of doom pours you another cup of coffee

Doing dangerous things with style is what Bukowski called art
As he grabbed another beer from the refrigerator
Or took a sip of vodka from a pitcher at the podium.
It’s the madhouse & mayhem of tragic trivialities that make you a man
Like all the other well-manicured poets who missed the point
Their eyes rolling back into the dark vault of their skulls
Slouch into your wheelchairs, whiter now than a blank sheet of paper,
And realize, alas, you’re less than nobody...

Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...