~

[modest mouse]

the secret

don't worry, nobody has the
beautiful lady, not really, and
nobody has the strange and
hidden power, nobody is
exceptional or wonderful or
magic, they only seem to be.
it's all a trick, an in, a con,
don't buy it, don't believe it.
the world is packed with
billions of people whose lives
and deaths are useless and
when one of these jumps up
and the light of history shines
upon them, forget it, it's not
what it seems, it's just
another act to fool the fools
again.

there are no strong men, there
are no beautiful women.
at least, you can die knowing
this
and you will have
the only possible victory.



-Charles Bukowski




*Any errors are mine, I could not locate a C&P.

 

[Rubyfruit]

You know you have me under wraps, Mr. MM, when you get me to click on your thread with nothing in the title.

That was beautiful.

Thank you.

Ruby

 

[modest mouse]

It didnt seem any title was fitting and I didnt want to call it "the secret" for a title so I went with my favorite punctuation.

Its an amazing poem. Few poets cut through banality to this extent when talking about man's relationship to humanity.

 

[modest mouse]

*Bump*

To counteract the current state of the board and because I'm a shit.

 

[TN_Vixen]

y'know mousie...

you can keep denying our undying passion and your magnetic attraction to me and my absolute beauty .. but it ain't working and we both know it.

heh

 

[MissTaken]

I like it!

I was thinking about how bedazzled we get with our lover when "it" is new. Then, remembering that feeling when the lover becomes a man.


A man like any other....who farts in bed and leaves the seat up!


Unless I missed a point, this poem brought those thoughts back to me.

 

[Svedish_Chef]

Low

Sometimes I wanna take you down,
Sometimes I wanna get you low.
Brush your hair back from your eyes,
Take you down, let the river flow.

Sometimes I go and walk the street
Behind the green sheet of glass.
A million miles below their feet
A million miles, a million miles

I'll be with you girl
Like being low
hey, hey, hey like being stoned.
I'll be with you girl
Like being low
hey, hey, hey like being stoned.

A million poppies gonna make me sleep.
With just one rose that knows your name
The fruit is rusting on the vine
The fruit is calling from the trees

Hey, don't you wanna go down
Like some junkie cosmonaut
A million miles below their feet
A million miles, a million miles

I'll be with you girl
Like being low
hey, hey, hey like being stoned.
I'll be with you girl
Like being low
hey, hey, hey like being stoned.

A blue blue is the sun.
A brown brown is the sky.
A green green are her eyes.
A million miles, a million miles

Hey, don't you wanna go down?
Like some disgraced cosmonaut
A million miles below their feet
A million miles, a million miles

I'll be with you girl
Like being low
hey, hey, hey like being stoned.
I'll be with you girl
Like being low
hey, hey, hey like being stoned.

 

[modest mouse]

TN_V,


At times clarification is not required.

***

Miss T,

I take a significantly different view of the poem, but no POV is incorrect. Bukowski always leaves a few doors open to walk through.

***

Chef,

All I can see is Sandra Bernhard and her lips as I lace up the gloves.

 

[modest mouse]

More Buk...

woman on the street

her shoes themselves
would light my room
like many candles.

she walks like all things
shining on glass,
like all things
that make a difference.

she walks away.

 

[MissTaken]

MM,

Thanks for bringing up the thread again and for sharing another poem.

I read "The Secret" again, and whether it is my mood, or that I amy have read it more carefully, my POV changed to the degree to which I was surprised to see a response there from me.

 

[Guest]

Thanks

Thanks for The Secret, MM. I loed it - very cutting, indeed.

 

[modest mouse]

Miss T,

One of the strengths of Bukowski is that he doesn't hit you over the head with his words but rather allows you to bring yourself to the work, taking whatever you wish from it.

***

Storm,

Glad you could find something in it for you.

 

[Guest]

 

[seXieleXie]

< hijack >

señor mouse, i spoke to the "professional" about your little... "problem" and he said to stop rubbing it, cut back on the blow, and it should clear right up. hopefully the next time you make a 6 hour trip to see me we'll have better luck.

< /hijack >

 

[Starfish]

Fuck this shit. I am hot.

 

[modest mouse]

Lex, I'm sorry girl, how many times do I have to apologize?

Something different from Emily Dickinson (1891)........





"Hope" is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I've heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of Me.

 

[Calamity Jane]

Low

Sometimes I wanna take you down,
Sometimes I wanna get you low.
Brush your hair back from your eyes,
Take you down, let the river flow.

Sveedy, that's one of my favorite songs! Now I need to dig out my Cracker CD.

 

[Guest]

On your back I trace the letter A

On your back I trace the letter A.
You must sense how my hand's caress
travels first along your spine,
from the uppermost vertabrae
to your waist, and then inclines
back again--in languid absent-mindedness
until that moment when the lines all intersect
and I create, with one sharp motion,
a cross of the type that in pre-Christian sects
evoked a). insanity and b). commotion.

Yes, I know that the body's a locked up safe
and I search for its armor's alphabetical chink
in all epithelial directions-- for the link of links
and the pick of picks--from O to A.
For it's just this way, twixt A and O
that one finds myth, just as Io
escaped from the fly. He first chased her
straight and then they backtracked
until, having endured manifold tortures
She completed a circle with him ...
I trace that circle with my nail on your back
til O thrObs hOt Over all yOur limbs.
Like a blind safecracker in a bank vault
in the darkness I gathered all my strength
to the very ends of my fingers and at length
like Braille, the first martyr to touch, straining
I saw that the five points, whose strings
I draw are still one less than his gestalt.1

I'm surrounded by some overmuch
silly, long and sticky spider web of touch.
I fully recognize the figures,
but fail to see how my five fingers
can direct it--since it seems its elevated ridges
comprise a tongue that needs six digits.

I do not know which of this language's signs
will make your skin resonate down the spine,
but I'm ready to try the whole alphabet
through all its permutations until I elicit
that festive plangent aria: O-o!.. A-a!


~ I.V. Kutik (1960- ____ )

 

[Guest]

Re: Lex, I'm sorry girl, how many times do I have to apologize?

 

[Svedish_Chef]

Sveedy, that's one of my favorite songs! Now I need to dig out my Cracker CD.

I'll be with you girl...

Now ride me dammit.

 

[Calamity Jane]

I'll be with you girl...

Now ride me dammit.

How could I resist such an order from the Goblin King himself?

 

[modest mouse]

Unregistered, thank you for your post. I've saved it.

***
(From the Dhammapada, translated by Thomas Byrom)
***

We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts
With our thoughts we make the world.
Speak or act with an impure mind
And trouble will follow you
As the wheel follows the ox that draws the cart.

We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.
Speak or act with a pure mind
And happiness will follow you
As your shadow, unshakable.

How can a troubled mind
understand the way?

Your worst enemy cannot harm you
As much as your own thoughts, unguarded.

But once mastered,
No one can help you as much,
Not even your father or your mother.






***
Several years ago I'd taken the time to write this out on a Tshirt with a cloth marker. Its simplicity perches even heavier on my shoulder today. As in the Pain poem that I posted, I wonder how much energy is falsely devoted.

 

[Laurel]

a bit of quincy troupe

The other brandysweetened

night, I dreamed we

was kissing so hard and good, you

sucked my tongue right on out

my trembling mouth

and I had to sew it back in

in order to tell you about it.

 

[Laurel]

more quincy

yesterday, in new york city
the gravediggers went on strike
& today, the undertakers went on strike
because, they said, of the overwhelming
number of corpses
stretched out on tables
in the overworked, embalming rooms
(unnecessarily, they said, because of wars
& plenty stupid killings in the streets
& et cetera & et cetera, et cetera)

sweating up the world, corpses
propped up straight in living room chairs
ensconced at dinner tables, jamming up cars
on freeways, clogging up rivers, stopping up elevators
grinning toothless in stairwells
taking up kids' space in front of tvs
standing in line for bank tellers
stinking up bedrooms
in the gutters, dead as rudders
corpses, everywhere you turn

& the undertakers said they were being overworked
with all this goddamned killing going on
said they couldn't even enjoy all the money they was making
like a bandit, said that this shit has got to stop

& today eye just heard, on the radio, that
the coffin makers are waiting, in the wings, for their chance
to do the very same thing, & tomorrow & if things keep going
this way, eye expect to hear of the corpses
themselves, boycotting death
until things get better
or at least, getting themselves
together, in some sort of union
espousing self-determination, for better
funerals & burial conditions, or something
extraordinarily heavy & serious, like that