You get so Alone it all just makes Sense

Sometimes that which provides you with the most solace is not the Spirit nor a friend, but something dear and comforting...like a new book of poems by Charles Bukowski.

In my current life, I am loosely affiliated with academics. Thus, I am a bit stressed out as "it is that time of year." To procrastinate last night, (my hott Saturday night consisted of writing a paper on Cerebrovascular events aka stroke) I went to a book store to see if I could find any books in italian...I am leaving in less that two weeks for Italia and am trying to learn Itanian in-between all of my other committments. There were no books in Italian and somehow I found myself in the Poetry section.

Hank and I have been acquainted for at least 8 years now. He and his crusty take on life have seen me through many difficulities. People are always surprised that such an aredent feminist could love Hank. But I do. Years ago for an English class a friend and I had to give a presentation on Hank. I think the whole class was expecting the typical feminist tirade about him being such a misogynist, but then we got up and praise him. Mouths hit the floor. There is a quote I really want to track down someday that has to do with being a "critical lover" and that is what I am. And I think that is what Hank is.

Yea, he's a bastard. He's crusty and angry and misanthropic, but then you get to lines, which usually occur at the end of a poem, and blow away by the beauty. There is no way he can be all bad. I tend to think that all the crusty misanthropic talk is just to cover up a bare and wounded soul, the type of soul that those of us who care to much have...it is battered and angry and since we feel powerless against the shit that fate has thrown us and those around us, we engage in self destructive behaviors, drinking, smoking, meaningless sex. And that is why sometimes the only comfort a soul can find is in a glass of whiskey and Charles Bukowski.

...I loved you
like a man loves a woman he never touches, only
writes to, keeps little photographs of. I would have
loved you more if I had sat in a small room rolling a
cigarette and listened to you piss in the bathroom.

....I would have probably been unfair to you or you
to me. it was best like this.

Charles Bukowski, an almost made up poem