Charles Bukowski and Aristotle: Into Extra Innings
I.
Charles Bukowski rolled up his sleeve,
Picked up a splintered page
(the Woman wishes
he took in less;
she hates his shape)
and picked his stone teeth with “dichotomy,”
threw it down and said,
“Let’s do this.”
He’s a brick,
his heart is a sand dollar,
his fingers a panpipe.
And he has a Trying stuck in his teeth
(the Woman left the heat on
too high, so
the linguistics burned to stringiness,
blood on the inside,
a clot on the outside.)
So Charles Bukowski said,
“Let’s do this.”
II.
Aristotle sharpened
his pen on his rib
and traced a vein that snaked
fat and silver through the meat,
eyeing Buk’s blinking pores all the while.
He autographed the poet’s wrist
with a pink rubber razor blade,
saying “the Intravenous de Milo
never had any arms…”
saying “You say Inspire, I say Carbon Copy.”
Charles Bukowski threw out the meat.
He mattered, rinsed – and then a repeat:
he draped all the greasy fat and grief
on Aristotle’s shoulders.
“What’s with all the festered flesh?
You should want to be healthy, or
are you fine, and how are you fine
with staying The Way You Are?
The day needs to brush its teeth
Before speaking to me”
(the Woman nods
an “I sold you so” smile).
III.
Every night the boys go home, at first “at last!”
Each turns off his light,
each turns on the gas,
each plagiarizes a woman’s hands
to get undressed;
each wake up to find
he was too depressed
(too dead to die
too tired to die).
Charles Bukowski and Aristotle
enter into extra innings:
one more life for every time
we’ve wanted them to die.
IV.
Charles Bukowski wears black every Sunday,
fingers the Woman; races Aristotle to the station,
picks up his ticket
(a Girl stamps it),
and boards to Anywhere Fingernails Are Too Loud.
On the train that rocks like his bed used to,
he crosses his legs like folding paper,
opens up a blue folder, straightens the letters,
looks out through lidded stones, and closes the folder again.
Backwards? Forwards?
Flat words? More words?
Once he rolled up his tongue,
and his own fist was an airbag.
Charles Bukowski is a stomach.
Once he rolled up his need and fastened it
with a soft pearl button.
Then he threw up sand all night long.
Aristotle stepped into the station right at closing time;
he’s still waiting for a bullet like a train.
(Once God tried to swat a fly with a bullet,
and shot two black holes in my face!)
Aristotle’s hair: pulled back, scalp and flesh and grain
and scalp and thistle all unbuttoning.
Aristotle paced and traced-over the outside
with fingernails that were not loud enough.
Now he’s always at the bar
waiting for either the cancer or the train,
each day adding a line to the barcode tattoo
scarring the back of his neck.
The threads of his clothes hang like strings
of a disappointed guitar.
V.
The same 3 sounds always drop at once:
A woman opening,
A silly girl visiting too often,
And the crack in her lips closing.
Charles Bukowski looked out the window,
Wondering if his bus ticket counted as literature,
And sadly said,
“We aren’t learning anything.”
(a Girl grows
an “I sold you so” smile).
Carbon