BUKOWSKI POEMS

BUKOWSI POEMS

BUKOWSKI

the old typewriter
is trying to seduce
Bukowski

endeavouring
to drag him to her table
across the room

so much inertia
here
to conquer

and words he needs
to write
clogged up toxins
he needs
to get out of his system

and balance
the creative lassitude
of his celebrated life

---

LOOKING FOR OUR OWN BUKOWSKI

we rule
the world in rugby

so why should we not
rule the world, the Continent,
the galaxy
with our Bukowski’s

was
the premise of a reality show
and now I am hurtling
in a van
fresh from the airport
looking to find our own Bukowski
combing the bars, scouring
the shebeens looking
for a soul out there in
as yet ungentrified Cape Town
able to
distil door and
alcohol into poetry

to drive us rhapsodic
with his laconic drawl

will we find him?
will we find him?

trying to get
hype-machine into
top gear to
drum up a hype machine
inflect those all
so precious ratings

thinking of the format
as we drive
thinking of every
future episode

pots of gold at the end
of this wholly contrived
quite
amazing rainbow

can see
those lips moving in
my mind’s-eye camera
as we chat even now

---

BLUEBIRD

there’s a Bukowski in my heart
that wants to get out

and in the heart of that Bukowski
a bluebird that needs
to learn
to fly

but first
crack its shell, hatch,
escape, aspire
for the sky and
outer
space beyond

but as
for that Bukowski
I have no
whiskey for
him
no cigarettes
to dole out

and, to add
to my ignominy, no
checkout girls to
flirt with
grocery clerks to give me
at most a second glance

best
I can do, best
I can get
is mountain of
rejection slips, is
debt collectors swarming,
crawling
all over my ass

yet
he survives, he obdures
this Bukowski with
his bluebird

how
it be so
I just
cannot express