Quality Time

I like to read poetry on the toilet. In fact, it’s the only place I read poetry. No other spot in the house feels quite right. And I only read poetry in the morning. There’s something quite nice about starting my day with a good strong cup of coffee, a healthy constitutional and a couple of quality poems. I’m always on the lookout for a poem that will set the bar, challenge me to have the kind of day the poet obviously had in order to achieve that level of brilliance. Not that this happens often. Usually, the poem falls short or my day does.

Sometimes I wonder how the poets I read would feel knowing just where I read their work. Funny, though, I only think about that when I’m reading living poets. Dead poets, I’m quite sure, would be happy to know they are being read at all.

Speaking of dead poets, I just finished reading “Slouching Toward Nirvana,” by Charles Bukowski. This is Bukowski’s twelfth posthumous book of poems. The guy’s been dead since 1994 and he’s still averaging just under a new book a year. I really wish he would knock that off. Doesn’t he know how much of a slacker that makes me feel?

Here’s a little gem from Bukowski’s poem “you can’t make a lion out of a butterfly” about a boxer friend of his:

in the ring
right after the fight
Butterball had told me:
“that guy couldn’t raise half a
hard-on in a high-class
whorehouse.”

And this from “to hell and back”:

Once you’ve been to hell
and back,
you don’t look behind you
when the floor
creaks and
the sun is always up at
midnight
and things like
the eyes of mice
or an abandoned tire
in a vacant lot
can make you smile.

Start your day with a good poem. Just don’t sit too long. It leaves a ring.