. . . we live without

feeling beneath us

firm ground . . .

— Mandelstam

 
Perhaps I could write like Bukowski, probably

do

sometimes —

                    only one problem

with writing like that

                is the possibility of writing

like that

forever —

        it would go on well after everyone

        has gone to bed

            (not necessarily to sleep)

it would go on even when the trains

        have stopped for the night

it would go on stage like cosmetics in some late night theatre

        & never come off

it would be po’s 24 Hours being read

        from the Departure Lounge at Tullamarine

        but never arriving at any destination

it would journey through every breath and drunken thought

        with minor variations on imagination

        dependent on degrees of alcohol consumed

and endless relay or Mexican wave around a stadium

        which never closed or dropped the baton 
Allison says,        He couldn’t write all the time

                            He’d have to sleep, shave, shower and shit

                            So you don’t have to write all the time

                            to write like Bukowski 
but

what kind of poem would I write

        if I did write like Bukowski? 
It’s Winter — the air-conditioner

is set

too high

& I can hardly

breathe. 
I’m writing on top

    of an old Gregory’s

        (Holden HQ-HJ 6 cyl

        service and repair manual)

kept the book

    though I sold the car 
Bukowski’s The Last Night of the Earth Poems

1992

is sitting beside me

on the hand-carved in China sandalwood chest 
the book is open

    on the first page

        of the last poem

            I read

before I’d had enough of

before I felt as if I could write like

                        Bukowski