This is the second image of this series, now accompanied by poetry unencumbered by rules, and possibly direction. Not the straightforward language I love in Bukowski’s works, but how can anyone expect clearheadedness from a tiny man who experiences the daily questions, the constant attention of a giantess who wants to know his every thought? In case he ever has any.
Bukowskiing 2
Why do you always ask
which one I love the best?
I love them both equally, and I know you are going to say
that I have to pick one and I can’t and don’t
You chose me the way light moves through space
You shrank me the way the sun rises
unstoppable, inescapable, unerring
You made me yours, a part of your geography
Don’t make me part of your politics
My brain is too small to lean to this side, or that
but it lobbies endlessly for your decision
left, right, center, where you tell me I belong
I’m where you want me to be
no discussion or argument or a face made of masks
but how can you feel it?
laughter that rings through your body from your back pocket
smiles born into taut darkness
How do you do it? How can you tell?
You feel that too?
You feel everything? Even that?
Especially that. Always that.
My answer to your questions is wordless, thoughtless, and real
If you move me, it will move with me
grab me and shove me from left to right
and when you are tired of East and West, go out and
tell your friends when they ask about me
that “I’m in the middle of things”
“In a dark place” you’ll say with a smile
“Cheeky bastard” you’ll begin to laugh uncontrollably
and they’ll look at you and frown as I tickle
your funny bone and your tail bone and your tale bone and your tall bone
And I’ll make my own jokes to my audience of blue fabric
I have a bone to pick with her
I’ll throw her a bone
bad to the bone
Then I won’t be able to think anymore
because you are walking again and you know what happens
when you walk and the earth moves
and the moons move and I’m their satellite
In the orbit of your curved path
rotating the only trajectory I know
gyrating in concert with masses too large to understand
gravity too strong to resist
pulling me closer and closer to the end and the beginning
So don’t ask me to choose
I never will and I never can
you chose me, you make me, you build my method
I go where you go, where you put me
pick pocket me, bury me there, that, then
You’ll always hear a peep out of me
a back talk out of me, a rearview mirror of your thoughts
that are larger than they appear
I’ll always watch your back oh I’m ruining it?
I’ll shut up now
Very real. I don’t mind your constant attention that much! Sure it’s overwhelming and exhausting, well, you know… I’ll shut up now.
You will always hear a back talk out of me as your back talks over me, rolls over me, corrects me and shows me right where I belong. I’ll peep, but know I always know my place.
Your beautiful words make my heart pound, my little toy. I always know your place.
“That much”. sighs
“Overwhelming and exhausting”. sighs
Yes, little one. Do shut up now, before your giantess takes your comments to heart, and gives you a true reason to feel overwhelmed and exhausted. I might do that, anyway. You need constant reminders of how annoying you can be sometimes. Constant. Daily. Hourly. Minutely. :-)
This gets better as I reread it. I don’t know what state I was in before but the jokes are clearer now. I’ll have to practice reciting it and see what further is revealed. This is fantastic.
Thank you! I’m not sure I should call it “Bukowskiing” since his writing is always painfully direct. No mistaking what he’s talking about… but what I see… the way I see it, the little man knows what he means, and is direct, as blunt as he can possibly be. His giantess knows exactly what he means, so it goes both ways. Sooo… it’s sort of a “private” Bukowskiing, but as you see, not so obtuse it’s rendered incomprehensible.