Thursday 19 February 2009

Splash.

Whilst I was randomly on the internet, I found this truly awesome poem, all I have to say really :):

Splash

the illusion is that you are simply
reading this poem.
the reality is that this is
more than a
poem.
this is a beggar's knife.
this is a tulip.
this is a soldier marching
through Madrid.
this is you on your
death bed.
this is Li Po laughing
underground.
this is not a god-damned
poem.
this is a horse asleep.
a butterfly in
your brain.
this is the devil's
circus.
you are not reading this
on a page.
the page is reading
you.
feel it?
it's like a cobra. it's a hungry eagle circling the room.

this is not a poem. poems are dull,
they make you sleep.

these words force you
to a new
madness.

you have been blessed, you have been pushed into a
blinding area of
light.

the elephant dreams
with you
now.
the curve of space
bends and
laughs.

you can die now.
you can die now as
people were meant to
die:
great,
victorious,
hearing the music,
being the music,
roaring,
roaring,
roaring.

Charles Bukowski

6 comments:

The Weaver of Grass said...

I agree - a fantastic poem - wish I had written it. How did the Hard Times essay go (to get back to normality after that poem!)?

Eclipse said...

The Hard Times esssay went okay - handed in my final version of it ... Should get my grade for it on Monday! x

Dominic Rivron said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dominic Rivron said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dominic Rivron said...

Sorry for the deleted comments above - I kept messing up.

Anyway, to the poem. Well found. I didn't know it. Instantly one of my favourite Bukowski poems, like this one:

A poem is a city
a poem is a city filled with streets and sewers
filled with saints, heroes, beggars, madmen,
filled with banality and booze,
filled with rain and thunder and periods of
drought, a poem is a city at war,
a poem is a city asking a clock why,
a poem is a city burning,
a poem is a city under guns
its barbershops filled with cynical drunks,
a poem is a city where God rides naked
through the streets like Lady Godiva,
where dogs bark at night, and chase away
the flag; a poem is a city of poets,
most of them quite similar
and envious and bitter...
a poem is this city now,
50 miles from nowhere,
9:09 in the morning,
the taste of liquor and cigarettes,
no police, no lovers, walking the streets,
this poem, this city, closing its doors,
barricaded, almost empty,
mournful without tears, aging without pity,
the hardrock mountains,
the ocean like a lavender flame,
a moon destitute of greatness,
a small music from broken windows...

a poem is a city, a poem is a nation,
a poem is the world...

and now I stick this under glass
for the mad editor's scrutiny,
the night is elsewhere
and faint gray ladies stand in line,
dog follows dog to estuary,
the trumpets bring on gallows
as small men rant at things
they cannot do.

Charles Bukowski

Kat Mortensen said...

A professor I had once, long ago told me I write like Bukowski (without the obscenities). I've never read much of him, but I can now see why.
Thanks for posting this.

(At first I thought it was yours and that you are a real prodigy.)

Kat