To The Whore Who Took My Poems, by Charles Bukowski

some say we should keep personal remorse from the
poem,
stay abstract, and there is some reason in this,
but jezus;
twelve poems gone and I don’t keep carbons and you have
my
paintings too, my best ones; its stifling:
are you trying to crush me out like the rest of them?
why didn’t you take my money? they usually do
from the sleeping drunken pants sick in the corner.
next time take my left arm or a fifty
but not my poems:
I’m not Shakespeare
but sometime simply
there won’t be any more, abstract or otherwise;
there’ll always be money and whores and drunkards
down to the last bomb,
but as God said,
crossing his legs,
I see where I have made plenty of poets
but not so very much
poetry.

Bukowski is a repulsive liquor-soaked, ill-mannered, crotchety old fart chauvinist railing against the world that’s out to get him. And he is fucking beautiful. If you haven’t yet seen the documentary, Bukowski: Born into This, it’s on Netflix, and it’s worth your time. Especially if you’re already in a bad mood. Hank might just cheer you up.

My contribution to APAD, Day 4 is Secrets.

What are y’all reading and writing?