COMPLAINT

The thing is, I need a little poison.

I’ve lived too safe in the recesses

of this space I’ve defined. In the

harsh winter of my sixty-fourth year,

I watched icy fingers reach from the

tops of trees and break themselves

on the bellys of passing clouds.

I need to stand, and stare for a

long time at Renoir’s Boating Party

and lose my breath for the color red

all over again.

The ends of my nerves like those

icy fingers of trees need to

tangle in a starry night.

I need to get sweaty on the floor

with any one of Picasso’s uglies,

you know what I mean, come unglued,

implode sideways, drink venom.

Maybe a persistent vacation in the sere

interior of Catalonia, holding hands

with a melted watch would suffice.

Where’d I leave that book,

Love is a Dog from Hell?

Words smelted to iron, made into nails.

Bukowski stuff.

I will find a way to survive,

and leave the angstless  

to their own devices.

Reviews

[Ken Simm.]

According to the infamous Lazerue Long, (Robert Heinlein ) "So far you have survived 100% of the worst times in your life. It can only get better"
Excellent educational cyicism and trust me I'm a teacher.

[Vol]

Hey, Ken!
And I've had a lot more heartbeats than I'm going to have...

[Lorry]

As long as you keep thinking like this Vol, you'll survive. They'll eventually realise that not everyone can be fit through a round hole, or square or whatever the life experts try to label everyone.
We're all just unlabelled life experts, without the PhD, bought online from a university no one has heard of. At least until we pop our clogs and it puts all of our gasses at a peep! (I think that may be a Scottish term. It means to take us off the boil.)
I used to know someone who labelled herself a life expert. She met a nasty end by disappearing up her own A hole 😊

[Vol]

Always insightful, Lorry, Thanks! Hahahaha! Nasty end, indeed! And I LOVE the "it puts all of our gasses at a peep! Wonderful metaphor and image! We all run around like what we are up to is important, worn out by the rapid-fire sensory overload of this 21st century. We do not even know how to be alone in silence.

[Lorry]

True. I do though, but as soon as I start doing it, people keep asking what I'm doing, and then it's gone 😊

[jacob erin-cilberto]

You will survive, Vol.
And your writing will be your legacy.
This is really good stuff...and much better than Bukowski (a mean drunk who wrote okay stuff but had such a following who seemed to dote over his tortured artist image.)
Picasso imploded, yes. And Renoir with his color red. Reminded me of a line in Eddie and Cruisers II.
Eddie, as Joe West, was at the art gallery looking at his new girlfriend's work. And he and some woman were looking at a piece of hers, talking about how she used Reds.
This poem floated my boat...lots of red and reads.
j.

[Vol]

Jacob, Wow! Thanks! High praise, indeed! (blush)
The thing I like about Bukowski is he single-handedly destroyed the post-modern movement. The stupidest time in English literary history... From Hunter S. Thompson to Alan Ginsberg, to Ferlinghetti... Their "nothing has meaning" core led to "one hand clapping," and Jackson Pollack's wasted canvases as art. Those spectators of "The Emperor's New Clothes" and wished they had such style. I could go on for days. In any case, you are right, his poetry is only okay in places, but I can't get past the debt we owe him. One of these days, the deadwood of academia will wake up and realize they are teaching the odor of corpses and the P-M's will become a forgotten footnote.
Vol.