I was re-reading Last Night Of The Earth Poems for about the 12th time yesterday when this landed in my sight – “Dinosaria, we” – one of my favorite Bukowski poems from the later years. And it struck me just how true some of these lines were, particularly when talking about the jails overflowing and the madhouses closed, the lawyers so expensive it’s cheaper to plead guilty. May you live in interesting times indeed…
when most people get face-to-face with
The Almighty,
their questions will probably
be different than mine.
i won’t ask why we are here
or what is our purpose in life.
i’ll ask
why Jimi?
why Janis?
why John Lennon?
why Stevie Ray Vaughan and
John Belushi, why Bradley Nowell
and Jim Morrison?
why leave us with the mediocre
talents, the dry ones who only gain
relevance by their tired longevity – those
who refuse to do anything but fade?
and while I don’t wish death or harm
on anyone,
why are the brilliant pulled away from
us so soon and the lukewarm
allowed to stay so long at a low simmer?
sure, you gave us decades of Bukowski and Hunter
and Clapton and Miles Davis -
but did you really have to take Charlie Parker
and Robert Johnson to balance
those scales?
don’t mean to question the methods
or the wisdom – I just feel like now that it’s
all over, maybe you can let me in
on what it’s all about.
well, that and…
where’s Hank Williams playing tonight?