Broken beer bottles
And half-drank wine
Sitting in cups, not glasses
yet, I sit, fresh faced,
On the floor
Meek
Subtle
Meandering without moving
before the book store was just another television commercial, muted
before it had more to offer than one shelf of poetry
before it looked more a like toy store than a factory for thought
when it was an asylum for the fools who's most coveted love affair was with the word
my index finger slides gently, unassuming
and i pull back a book, yellow and paperback, The Rooming House Madrigals By Charles Bukowski
I slice it open like a lemon
and feel the pages spraying a citrus mist, line after line
a crisp fullness
i read just one sentence
and for years i continue
i consume
each line from a drunken poet pissed off at being pissed on
citing woman as a both delicate and devilish
whores and harlots gracing his existence
one he perpetually despises, but never the less, continues
separate like the scales of a fish yet creating cohesion
a sick, disgusting type of beauty
the type you want to ruin before you get caught wanting it
because then
my god
then
you're really fucked.
a type of beauty that plagues the breath
it eats away,
it does not grow
infatuated
with
the words
ones that put me in lasting fever
and every now again i eat
lemons straight from the rhine
it's preparation
because
tragedy one day visits us all
but
i was lucky enough that
it waited until i could
properly congratulate it for finally catching up.
we shake hands and walk away
but i keep his business card in an old cigar box
a tangible reminder
to find beauty wrapped in plastic
unblemished
unaffected
unaltered
new
is to not find it at all.
