At Eastern Market DC nearly six years ago, I bought an indie black t-shirt of Charles Bukowski holding a can of beer. It says: "To do a dangerous thing with style is what I call art." If he only knew that a poetry student would fashionably sport around his face as a bohemian-nouveau trend.
Bukowski like Joseph Brodsky like Hemingway have a scotch in one hand and shotgun in the other personal flair, yet still have the capacity to craft delicately. He seems less dangerous and a little more know-able.
No. 6
I'll settle for the 6 horse
on a rainy afternoon
a paper cup of coffee
in my hand
a little way to go,
the wind twirling out
small wrens from
the upper grandstand roof,
the jocks coming out
for a middle race
silent
and the easy rain making
everything
at once
almost alike,
the horses at peace with
each other
before the drunken war
and I am under the grandstand
feeling for
cigarettes
settling for coffee,
then the horses walk by
taking their little men
away --
it is funereal and graceful
and glad
like the opening
of flowers.
