Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Sunday, September 21, 2014

Charles Bukowski / The best love poem I can write at the moment

Bukowski and Georgia Peckham Krellner

THE BEST LOVE POEM 
I CAN WRITE AT THE MOMENT
listen, I told her
why don’t you stick
your tongue up my ass
no, she said.
well, I said
if I stick my tongue
up your ass first
then will you stick
your tongue up my
ass?
all right, she said.
I got my head down
there and looked
around
opened a section
then my tongue
moved
forward
not there, she said
ahhahahaha
not there, that’s
not the right place
you women have
more holes
than
swiss cheese
I don’t want you
to do it
why?
well, then I’ll
have to do it back
and then at the next
party
you’ll tell people
I licked your ass
with my tongue
suppose I promise
not to tell?
you’ll get drunk,
you’ll
tell
o.k., I said
roll over and
I’ll stick it in
the other
place
she rolled over and
I stuck my tongue 
in that
other place
we were in love 

we were in love 
with except 
what I said at 
parties 
and we were not 
in love 
with each others
ass holes
she wants me to 
write a love 
poem 
but I think if people 
can’t love each others 
ass holes and farts 
and shits 
and terrible parts 
just like they love 
the good 
parts 
that ain’t
complete love so, 
as far as love goes 
far as we have gone 
this poem 
will have 
to do.

Thursday, September 18, 2014

Charles Bukowski / How To Be A Great Writer


How To Be A Great Writer
by Charles Bukowski



you've got to fuck a great many women
beautiful women
and write a few decent love poems.

and don't worry about age
and/or freshly-arrived talents.

just drink more beer
more and more beer

and attend the racetrack at least once a

week

and win
if possible

learning to win is hard -
any slob can be a good loser.

and don't forget your Brahms
and your Bach and your
beer.

don't overexercise.

sleep until noon.

avoid paying credit cards
or paying for anything on
time.

remember that there isn't a piece of ass
in this world over $50
(in 1977).

and if you have the ability to love
love yourself first
but always be aware of the possibility of
total defeat
whether the reason for that defeat
seems right or wrong -

an early taste of death is not necessarily
a bad thing.

stay out of churches and bars and museums,
and like the spider be
patient -
time is everybody's cross,
plus
exile
defeat
treachery

all that dross.

stay with the beer.

beer is continuous blood.

a continuous lover.

get a large typewriter
and as the footsteps go up and down
outside your window

hit that thing
hit it hard

make it a heavyweight fight

make it the bull when he first charges in

and remember the old dogs
who fought so well:
Hemingway, Celine, Dostoevsky, Hamsun.

If you think they didn't go crazy
in tiny rooms
just like you're doing now

without women
without food
without hope

then you're not ready.

drink more beer.
there's time.
and if there's not
that's all right
too.

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Diane Wakoski / The Mechanic

The Mechanic

by Diane Wakoski

Most men use
their eyes
like metronomes
clicking off the beats
of a woman’s walk;
how her lips press
against the cloth, as figs before
they split their purple skins
on the tree,
measuring how much of her walk
goes into bed at night,
the jar of the sky
being filled with the Milky Way
glittering for every time
she moves her lips

but of course
the secrets
are not the obvious beats
in the song
that even a bad drummer can play

hearing the speed of the motor
- it too made up of beats -
so fast,
subtle, I suppose,
they register
as continuous sound
or the heart which of course
beats without any fan belt to keep it
cool.
it is a test,
a rhythm,
they could not see
with those measuring eyes
though perhaps there are some
whose fingers and ears
are so close to the motors
with clean oil passing through their ears
and draining properly into the brain pan,
perhaps a few…

who can tell
what the secret bleeding of a woman
is all about

As a woman
with oily stars sticking
on all the tip points
of my skin
I could never
trust a man
who wasn’t a mechanic,
a man who uses his
eyes,
his hands,
listens to
the
heart.

Diane Wakoski
Selected Poems, 1962-1987



Monday, September 15, 2014

Luz Helena Cordero / Arms


ARMS
By Luz Helena Cordero
Translated by Nicolás Suescún


Many arm themselves for war.
It is necessary.
Others arm themselves for the world.
It is called for.
Some arm themselves for death.
It is natural.
You arm yourself for love
and you are so defenseless
against war,
against the world,
against death.



Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Luz Helena Cordero / Silence


SILENCE
by Luz Helena Cordero

I don’t know where to put this silence.
It goes around the house
it gets into the closets
it climbs onto the pictures
it jumps on the books
it turns on the shower and sings
it eats my food
it drinks up the water in the jug
it looks out of the window
it wants to swim in the sky.
It is stubborn this silence
sticky
it pulls at my skirt
it clambers onto my shouldera
it monkeys with my hair.
I yell to drive it away
but it comes back immediately,
affectionate.
I don’t know where to put this silence.
Maybe if I tie its hands
and squeeze its neck
I won’t listen to it anymore.
No one will understand anything.
What can a dead silence do
on an unharmed woman?




Friday, September 5, 2014

Shuijing Zhulian / Intimacy


INTIMACY
by Shuijing Zhulian
Translated by Simon Patton

it’s been ages since we’ve lain down together
relishing a fine cool breeze blowing in through the window
under the coverlet
my hand rests on your chest
politely seeking its place
your heart-beat is like a freakish sea-tide
breaking against my arm

how quickly one tires of this action
I cannot be certain whether or not you’re comfortable
if the breeze really isn’t that cool
then can I continue to leave my hand where it is
checking all these
incoherent heart-beats?





Monday, September 1, 2014

Robert Frost / Fire and Ice



Fire and Ice 

by Robert Frost 

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice