Bukowski's Two Cents

Replacement Poem

How To Be An Agnostic

                        --based on a passage from Paul Beatty’s Slumberland

Proof that God exists: the Chattanooga choo choo; mai tais with blue umbrellas; chimpanzees; sweatpants on bloated days; solar spots; hatchbacks; men with shaven armpits; the Galapagos; F. Scott Fitzgerald; F. Scott Fitzgerald’s love for Zelda; the Slinky; Mr. Rogers’s sideburns; automatic payment; and Sophia Coppola.

Proof that God doesn’t exist: hyenas; holes in footie pajamas; basic cable; $8 smoothies; people who would pay $8 for a smoothie; lost luggage; “Don’t Speak” on two stations at once; the last two weeks of April; the long slow lonely boring days of paid vacation; and Sophia Coppola.

Proof that God may or may not exist: doorknob shocks from static; jazz hands; the fashion industry; using three words for things that can be said in one; constellations; espresso; paper; PBS; and Talia Shire.

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Original:

Proof that God exists: Hawaiian surf, Welch’s grape juice, koala bears, worn-in Levis, the Northern Lights, the Volvo station wagon, women with braces, the Canadian Rockies, Godard, Nerf football, Shirley Chisolm’s smile, free checking, and Woody Allen.

Proof that God does not exist: flies, Alabama, religion, Chihuahuas, Chihuahua owners, my mother’s cooking, airplane turbulence, LL Cool J, Mondays, how boring heaven must fuckin be, and Woody Allen.

Letter Poem

Dear John

I want to commit suicide
In your claw-footed, white bathtub
To see what red really is, what blood,
My blood, really looks like against
Your ajax-sanitized surfaces.
I want rivulets of blood to seep into
Porcelain pores and stay and stain
In patterns of spurts and splashes.
I want to make your white tub pink,
A pink that lasts after twentyfivethousand bubble baths
A pink that withstands scrub brushes
A pink that matches your water-wrinkled fingertips.
I want those fingertips to trace the stains.
I want those fingertips to wonder why.
I want those fingertips, wrinkles, arm hairs, wrists
To touch and trace, fall into a trance,
Be mesmerized by memory.
I want those fingers to touch a thin, sharp blade
That cuts the stubble clean off morning faces,
That causes red ingrown hairs to form on folds of skin
Along the neck and cheek.
I want that metal blade to be cold every morning.