When, I think of you,
when I think of you Charles,
which is on most workdays, starting
Monday.
I call you an old, ugly bastard because I am
angry, and
because it is what you were, and
knew it, too.
More than knew it, didn’t you? You loved it.
Made a thing of it.
Fed it to placated masses that always (even
then) sought a madman, a madwoman for
their entertainment.
On commuter trains travelling to their
offices.
Planting geraniums in baskets hanging on
the porches.
Kneading dough in kitchens with windows
open to gardens planted around statues of
small boys pissing
into fishponds.
Keeping Essential Bukowski in their living
rooms, next to green and purple armchairs
with floor lights
arched over them.
I am angry that you are dead. You died in
the year my daughter was born.
I am angry that she is dead, too.
I am angry that your father beat you.
I am angry that you knew all the things you
needed to know to write A Smile To
Remember.
I am angry that kids bullied you.
That you had acne and an accent and a
foreign name.
German in America after the war. What a
shite that must have been.
I am angry that whores were never enough,
nor was the booze, the horses, the rages.
I am angry that nothing came between you
and The Genius of the Crowd.
Between you and The Crunch.
I am angry for all the old men,
all the old women,
decaying in their rooms,
coughing into their handkerchiefs,
palms of their hands,
blue-veined and limp, like a
baby bird lying on the pavement,
alone,
abandoned,
delirious.
I am angry for all the migrants, refugees, escapees,
walking,
walking,
endlessly,
across Europe, across Mediterranean,
across Balkans,
sleeping under the trees, tents made of
sheets, cardboard boxes, blankets.
Drinking snow,
cradling their children, next to
fires lit with matches, cow dung and figs,
next to,
barbed wire fences,
patrolled borders,
concrete walls,
guys with batons, tear gas, and
breastplates.
I am angry Charles,
so angry to chew on my arm,
carve a rose above my left breast, then
watch it blossom.
Crimson. Like blood.
Thank you for reading.
Originally published at: https://danieladragas.com/pub/letter-to-charles-bukowski
