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by ron androla |
| bukowski dream walk into funeral-parlor but never do see the casket or body. a lot of people, strange people, people off the street, mill & group around various spots -- little old babushka'd lady with her rosary beads & mutterings, i stare at her at the end of a long pew. there are photographs of bukowski's face, smiling, drinking. people are crying. people are whispering in a respectful manner. i don't say a word. i don't walk up to the dead man since i do not want to see his dead face. as i leave there is a small group of hip poets, i guess, with one rasta-hair'd guy talking like he's a personal friend of charles bukowski. seems like a smart-ass. fans with heads bowed listen & nod. i raise my head walking by. i breathe in deeply & exhaling a sigh i wake to cold air-conditioning & daylight. this is not the first time bukowski has whirled within my dreams. altho this is the first time dead & unseen after waking from dream about dead bukowski oh 4 o'clock already. woke about 2:15. two cups of coffee. got mail. new CHIRON REVIEW. about the only mail i get connected to the poetry scene these days. fuckers, i miss those old paper mail days. had to make phone-calls to clear up insurance shit. tried calling doug, but he's on the internet & they don't have an internet answering-machine like us. ann bopped in a little after 3 after work, bopped out with addison to the dollar store. then i wrote the poem about dreaming of bukowski's body in a funeral-home in some weird place. & i didn't want to see his face dead. then i ate an oatmeal cookie scanning CHIRON. the thing there in kansas in august. i've never gone. can't now either. but what has eventually happened, what the point of this poem really is is this consciousness vision of the late, great poet michael mcneilley in that alley in kent ohio how many years ago? two? three? preposterous that some people call themselves poets in light of mcneilley being a poet. mcneilley being a poet. mcneilley being (being) a poet. nobody has to dream of mcneilley -- just talk, just think loud, & he is here. a nice sunday i'm still sweating altho both air-conditioners are running (jogging, socks of bells & shoes of spikes across the hellish heads of wailing sinners in hell -- pavement cracked open -- silly us, we prance, prance upon the mucky, painful faces; they scream, hell screams) & i've showered, smoked, neither shit nor shaved, sipped 2 big mugs of ann's brewed coffee. i must always tell you these certain things. thunder within the rumbling air-conditioner -- rain today, clouds, grayness, yes. it's still morning & i don't jog. woke sweating altho the air-conditioners were running all night. hair like arm-long palm-leaves angling left from hurricane wind -- droop of palms, tenor of dirty, turquoise sky after terrible weather. opening eyes only to see the time on the clock, ann scratches my sweat-filmed back & my head is shoved wet into 2 pillows. all the beer is gone. 24 big green bottles of sweat. it was 1974 franconia new hampshire in the middle of the white mountains, franconia college, former millionaire's hotel built in 1903 on the top of a hill, trillions of miles from earth. i don't know who else existed but there was ann, gus, charlie, barie -- bob grenier poetry professor -- lots of fellow hippies we were gentle stoners hip to hope knowing the future wld never be this current nightmare. i think the drinking age was 18 in new hampshire back then, regardless, we drank -- i'm drinking now, 30 years later. i have paid more dues than there are dues & i am the happiest man on the planet. franconia college does not exist anymore, bankrupt 1977, then the whole old building was torn down.what i learned is poetry is blood. keep smoking pot. nobody knows a goddamn thing about being a poet, but me, & you. |
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