The Rogue Voice

A LITERARY JOURNAL WITH AN EDGE

February 01, 2008

Poetry

WHEN I THINK OF YOU, BUKOWSKI

When I think of you, Bukowski,
I realize I have no guts.
I'm still trying to be an academic.
Bukowski, I can't quote from Byron.
I don't really want an M.F.A.
Bukowski, I've tried
to convince the scholars
of your godhood.
My professors all think I'm crazy,
but isn't that a good thing?

Bukowski, you never said
the Sinner's prayer,
but you have eternal life.
I eat your flesh,
I drink your blood.
(This is not sacrilege, Bukowski.)

Bukowski, the buildings
of the City of Angels
are bulldozed from history,
but your poems
fertilize the wreckage,
illuminate the smog,
and turn the sewers to
gold.

When I think of you, Bukowski,
Bukowski dead,
Bukowski rotting,
Bukowski as fertilizer
for the mutant roaches
that haunt those tenements
where winos screamed
and were bards,
where the souls of the streets
were lifted up to glory,
where women fucked
and the stars exploded
out of the sky . . .

When I think of you, Bukowski,
dying in happiness
after
living in sadness,
I realize that you
are here with me now.
When I think of you, Bukowski,
now dust in the aching void,
I laugh,
I cry,
I scream,
and I
feel.

I feel everything.

And the living
hardly make me feel
anything
at all.

—Larry Narron



poem to women

there is no greater energy than writing poem
there is no greater energy than making love
than fucking than waking than holding than releasing
there is no greater thing than woman
there is no nor no nothing no anything as great as anything
nothing is greater than man
than woman with man than man with child than woman who
gives affection to woman
there is no greater earth
there is no greater love poem to islam
than this love for women for boys for ocean for sky for nothing
ever has anything less than giving away nothing less than love
for woman

harry e. northup

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