Bukowski

[Mike Sullivan]

The Shoelace

a woman,
a tire that’s flat,
a disease,
a desire:
fears in front of you,
fears that hold so still
you can study them
like pieces on a chessboard…

it’s not the large things that send a man to the madhouse.
death he’s ready for,
or murder, incest, robbery, fire, flood…
no, it’s the continuing series of small tragedies
that send a man to the madhouse…
not the death of his love
but a shoelace that snaps
with no time left …

The dread of life
is that swarm of trivialities
that can kill quicker than cancer
and which are always there -
license plates or taxes
or expired driver’s license,
or hiring or firing,
doing it or having it done to you,
or roaches or flies
or a broken hook on a screen,
or out of gas
or too much gas,
the sink’s stopped-up, the landlord’s drunk,
the president doesn’t care and the governor’s crazy.
light switch broken, mattress like a porcupine;
$105 for a tune-up,
carburetor and fuel pump at sears roebuck

and the phone bill’s up and the market’s down
and the toilet chain is broken,
and the light has burned out -
the hall light, the front light, the back light,
the inner light; it’s darker than hell
and twice as expensive.

then there’s always crabs and ingrown toenails
and people who insist they’re your friends;
there’s always that and worse;
leaky faucet, christ and christmas;
blue salami, 9 day rains,
50 cent avocados
and purple liverwurst.
or making it
as a waitress at norm’s on the split shift,
or as an emptier of bedpans,
or as a carwash or a busboy
or a stealer of old lady’s purses
leaving them screaming on the sidewalks
with broken arms at the age of 80.

suddenly
2 red lights in your rear view mirror
and blood in your underwear;
toothache, and $979 for a bridge
$300 for a gold tooth,
and china and russia and america, and
long hair and short hair and no hair,
and beards and no faces,
and plenty of zigzag but no pot,
except maybe one to piss in
and the other one around your gut.

with each broken shoelace
out of one hundred broken shoelaces,
one man, one woman, one thing
enters a madhouse.

so be careful
when you bend over.

[Mike Sullivan]

The Genius Of The Crowd

there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average human being
to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average

but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect

like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock

their finest art