so you want to be a writer? ~ Charles Bukowski

if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.

if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.

don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

***

You may recall that it was a poem by Mr. Bukowski which inspired me to create the PSOetry category for this blog. Not easy to figure out why, is it? He is frickin’ awesome. And did you know that the screenplay for the movie, Barfly, was written by Bukowski and he based Mickey O’Rourke’s character on himself? Oh, yeah, baby. The world is, indeed, a fun place.

xo, Angela

Courage

~Anne Sexton

It is in the small things we see it.
The child’s first step,
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.
The first spanking when your heart
went on a journey all alone.
When they called you crybaby
or poor or fatty or crazy
and made you into an alien,
you drank their acid
and concealed it.

Later,
if you faced the death of bombs and bullets
you did not do it with a banner,
you did it with only a hat to
cover your heart.
You did not fondle the weakness inside you
though it was there.
Your courage was a small coal
that you kept swallowing.
If your buddy saved you
and died himself in so doing,
then his courage was not courage,
it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.

Later,
if you have endured a great despair,
then you did it alone,
getting a transfusion from the fire,
picking the scabs off your heart,
then wringing it out like a sock.
Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,
you gave it a back rub
and then you covered it with a blanket
and after it had slept a while
it woke to the wings of the roses
and was transformed.

Later,
when you face old age and its natural conclusion
your courage will still be shown in the little ways,
each spring will be a sword you’ll sharpen,
those you love will live in a fever of love,
and you’ll bargain with the calendar
and at the last moment
when death opens the back door
you’ll put on your carpet slippers
and stride out.

***

I was on a call last night when the conversation took an unexpected turn and where it all ended up was in the discussion of poetry. I was reminded of this, my most favorite poem by most favorite poet. This is the first and, so far, the only poem that has actually made me cry.

It’s about time I included it in our ever growing collection. I hope it moves you as it moved me.

xo, Angela

Most of us probably can recall being spoon fed Buffalo Bill’s Defunct as an introduction to poetry (poetry? yuk!) in grade school. The writer of that poem went by the literary sobriquet of e.e. cummings. His name was actually Edward Estlin Cummings and I’ve always loved his poetry…every single bit of it.

It is easy on the brain and melts in your mouth. With every bit of inspired doggerel and each blithe vowel-chime e.e. cummings has taught me the miracle of words: that they are both everything and nothing. How could that not appeal to a Catholic school girl who believed in Three-Gods-in-One?

And now, three poems….

the boys i mean are not refined

the boys i mean are not refined
they go with girls who buck and bite
they do not give a fuck for luck
they hump them thirteen times a night

one hangs a hat upon her tit
one carves a cross on her behind
they do not give a shit for wit
the boys i mean are not refined

they come with girls who bite and buck
who cannot read and cannot write
who laugh like they would fall apart
and masturbate with dynamite

the boys i mean are not refined
they cannot chat of that and this
they do not give a fart for art
they kill like you would take a piss

they speak whatever’s on their mind
they do whatever’s in their pants
the boys i mean are not refined
they shake the mountains when they dance

***

i like my body when it is with your

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite a new thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh . . . . And eyes big Love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me quite so new

***

it may not always be so: and i say

it may not always be so; and i say
that if your lips, which i have loved, should touch
another’s, and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart, as mine in time not far away;
if on another’s face your sweet hair lay
in such a silence as i know, or such
great writhing words as, uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;

if this should be, i say if this should be-
you of my heart, send me a little word;
that i may go unto him, and take his hands,
saying ,Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall i turn my face, and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands

***

If you really like e.e. cumming’s stuff–and how could you not?–I suggest buying a book or two because you need to actually see his poetry to truly appreciate it. His writing style was unconventionally brilliant in that he often broke rules and misspelled words or used atypical typography to create a kind of “visual” poetry which complemented the rhyme and/or theme of the verse. A very good example of this would be a leaf falls on loneliness.

He is just so fucking awesome!

xo, Angela

There’s something in the air, I guess. Or the water. Or maybe it lurks in the hearts and minds of secret kinksters everywhere? I obviously read a lot more into some of this stuff than others do. But, hey! Look what I do for a living. Can you blame me? Can you, can you, can you?

Without further delay ‘cuz I know you’re dying to see what I came up with for this. Three cuckold poems. Kinda-sorta:

Betrayal
Angela Hickman

his mouth caught her by surprise
but she kissed him back. not kissing him
really, but the man she loved, through him.

and she thought of how horrible she was,
to kiss another, while her love was away.
but love is the loneliest feeling in the world,
so she couldn’t judge herself, or the feeling
of his hands on her skin, long after he had gone.

***

Wan Chu’s Wife in Bed
Richard Jones

Wan Chu, my adoring husband,
has returned from another trip
selling trinkets in the provinces.
He pulls off his lavender shirt
as I lie naked in our bed,
waiting for him. He tells me
I am the only woman he’ll ever love.
He may wander from one side of China
to the other, but his heart
will always stay with me.
His face glows in the lamplight
with the sincerity of a boy
when I lower the satin sheet
to let him see my breasts.
Outside, it begins to rain
on the cherry trees
he planted with our son,
and when he enters me with a sigh,
the storm begins in earnest,
shaking our little house.
Afterwards, I stroke his back
until he falls asleep.
I’d love to stay awake all night
listening to the rain,
but I should sleep, too.
Tomorrow Wan Chu will be
a hundred miles away
and I will be awake all night
in the arms of Wang Chen,
the tailor from Ming Pao,
the tiny village down the river

***

The Moon Versus Us Ever Sleeping Together Again
Richard Brautigan

I sit here, an arch-villain of romance,
thinking about you. Gee, I’m sorry
I made you unhappy, but there was nothing
I could do about it because I have to be free.

Perhaps everything would have been different
if you had stayed at the table or asked me
to go out with you to look at the moon,
instead of getting up and leaving me alone with
her.

***

When I went looking for more info to hook you up with, I really couldn’t find much of anything on Ms. Hickman or Mr. Jones. And I am pretty sure many of you are already familiar with Richard Brautigan (Thanks Mr. M. for the book you sent me…you know which one!), and are perfectly capable of copying and pasting, or typing, his name into a search engine if you’re in the mood.

And I am off to bed.

xo, Angela

Nancy Drew
Ron Koertge

Merely pretty, she made up for it with vim.
And she got to say things like, “But, gosh,
what if these plans should fall into the wrong
hands?” and it was pretty clear she didn’t mean
plans for a party or a trip to the museum, but
something involving espionage and a Nazi or two.

In fact, the handsome exchange student turns
out to be a Fascist sympathizer. When he snatches
Nancy along with some blueprints, she knows he
has something more sinister in mind than kissing
her with his mouth open

Locked in the pantry of an abandoned farm house,
Nancy makes a radio out of a shoelace and a muffin.
Pretty soon the police show up, and everything’s
hunky dory.

Nancy accepts their thanks, but she’s subdued.
It’s not like her to fall for a cad. Even as she plans
a short vacation to sort our her emotions she knows
there will be a suspicious waiter, a woman in a green
off the shoulder dress, and her very jittery husband.

Very well. But no more handsome boys like the last one:
the part in his hair that was sheer propulsion, that way
he had of lifting his eyes to hers over the custard,
those feelings that made her not want to be brave
confident and daring, polite, sensitive and caring.

***

You may recall that Mr. Koertge was featured here once before with his poem, Kryptonite, one of my all-time favorite poems. I think he is one very cool, poet; don’t you?

• About the poet
• Other poems
• An interview

xo, Angela