The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Fri 5/11/2007)

[RetroLounge]

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 -
licence 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.
lightswitch 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.

Charles Bukowski

****************

RL

If you have a request for a certain Poet, post their name in the thread and I will find a poem by them and post it...

if you want to see some of my poetry, see the blog at:
http://www.myspace.com/retropaul

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[wildhorses]

3. OMG please hurry and delete the above post

what a fucking stoopid typo:banghead:

when WILL i learn to proofread BEFORE i hit post message:cry:

[Haole Girl]

2. I bookmarked this.. to read later...

:cry:

I couldn't get past this part...

The dread of life
is that swarm of trivialities
that can kill quicker than cancer

:cry:

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. Good morning to you, my dear Retro...

Somehow I wasn't the least little bit surprised when I saw who the author was...

Who was it who said we die from a thousand small cuts?

This has the same spirit, the same idea.....

Really perfect.....

Thank you, sweetie! :hug:

[BarenakedLady]

5. Excellent

I really like that one especially:

fears in front of you,
fears that hold so still
you can study them
like pieces on a
chessboard…


:thumbsup: