Come On In by Charles Bukowski

I remember when poems
    made many references to the Greek and Roman
    gods.
    if you didn’t know your gods you weren’t a very good
    writer.
    also, if you couldn’t slip in a line of
    Spanish, French or
    Italian,
    you certainly weren’t a very good
    writer. 
    5 or 6 decades ago,
    maybe 7,
    some poets started using
    “i” for “I”
    or
    “&” for “and.”

    many still use a small
    “i” and many more continue to use the
    “&”
    feeling that this is
    poetically quite effective and
    up-to-date. 
    also, the oldest notion still in vogue is
    that if you can’t understand a poem then
    it almost certainly is a
    good one. 
    poetry is still moving slowly forward, I guess,
    and when your average garage mechanics
    start bringing books of poesy to read
    on their lunch breaks
    then we’ll know for sure we’re moving in
    the right
    direction. 
    &
    of this
    i
    am sure. 

the end of an era
    he lived in the Village
    in New York
    in the old days
    and only after he died
    did he get a write-up
    in a snob magazine,
    a magazine which had
    never printed his
    poems. 
    he came from the days
    when poets called
    themselves
    Bohemians.
    he wore a beret and a
    scarf
    and hung around the
    cafés,
    bummed drinks,
    sometimes got a
    night’s lodging from the
    rich
    (just for
    laughs)
    but mostly
    he slept in the alleys
    at night.
    the whores knew him
    well
    and gave him
    little
    hand-outs. 

    he was a communist
    or a
    socialist
    depending upon what
    he was
    reading
    at that
    moment. 
    it was 1939
    and he had a
    burning hatred
    in his heart
    for the
    Nazis. 
    when he
    recited his poems
    in the street
    he always
    ended up
    frothing about the
    Nazis. 
    he passed out
    little stapled
    pages
    of his
    poems
    and
    he wrote
    with a
    simple
    intensity. 
    he was good
    but not
    great. 
    and even the good poems
    were not
    that
    good. 
    anyhow
    he was an
    attraction;
    the tourists always
    asked for
    him. 
    he was always
    in love
    with some
    new whore. 
    he had a
    real
    soul
    and the usual
    real
    needs. 

    he stank
    and wore cast-off clothes
    and he screamed
    when he spoke
    but
    at least
    he wasn’t anybody
    but
    himself. 
    the Village was
    his
    Paris.
    but unlike
    Henry Miller
    who made
    failure
    glorious
    and finally
    lucrative
    he didn’t know
    quite how
    to accomplish
    that. 
    instead of being
    a
    genius-freak
    he was just
    a
    freak-freak.

    but most of
    the writers and
    painters
    who also had failed
    loved him
    because he
    symbolized
    for them
    the possibility
    of being
    recognized.
    they too wore
    scarves and
    berets
    and did more
    complaining than
    creating. 
    but then they
    lost him. 
    he was found
    one morning
    in an
    alley
    wrapped around
    his latest
    whore.

    both of them
    had their
    throats
    cut
    wide. 
    and
    on the wall
    above them
    in their
    blood
    were scrawled
    the words:
    “COMMIE PIG!” 
    another freak
    had found
    him?
    a
    freak- Nazi?
    or maybe
    just a
    freak-freak? 
    but his
    murder
    finally created
    the fame
    he had always
    wanted,
    though it was
    to be but
    temporary. 
    he was to
    have a
    final
    fling
    in this
    his
    crazy
    life and
    death. 
    he had left
    an envelope
    with a prominent
    Matron of the
    Arts,
    marked:
    TO BE OPENED
    ONLY IN THE EVENT
    OF
    MY DEATH. 
    all during his
    stay in the
    Village
    he had spoken
    about a mysterious
    WORK IN
    PROGRESS.

    he had claimed
    he’d written a
    GIGANTIC WORK,
    more pages than
    a couple of
    telephone
    books.
    it would
    dwarf Pound’s
    Cantos
    and put a
    headlock
    on the
    Bible. 
    the instructions
    were
    specific:
    the WORK was
    in an iron
    chest
    buried
    in a graveyard
    30 yards
    south and west
    of a certain tree
    (indicated on a
    hand-drawn
    map)
    the tree
    where he claimed
    Whitman once
    rested
    while he wrote
    “I Celebrate Myself.” 
    the ground
    all about was
    soon
    dug up and
    searched. 
    nothing was
    found. 
    some Romantics
    claimed it was
    still
    there
    somewhere. 
    Realists
    claimed it never had
    been there. 
    maybe the
    Nazis
    got