Everyday Canvas

Addressing Bukowski

Prompt: I'm going to toss three titles out there for you to choose from to create your own masterpiece.. whether it be a short story, commentary or poem... Can you weave a work of art using all three titles into one? I can't wait to see where your imagination takes you. There's a bonus/surprise if you can name the authors as well.

"The Jar With the Dry Rim", "The Pope's Penis", and "The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills."


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Hey there, Bukowski,

That thing--“whatever hung deep in your robes” as Sharon Olds referred to--and all that machismo you flung about couldn’t hold Jane by your side. You, like most men, didn’t know of “the spirit is so near that you can't see it,” as Erin Curtis said, Erin Curtis who kept holding the jar for you with the dry rim as she had snapped it from Rumi. For her, you were “the rider who galloped all night and never saw the horse that is beneath him.”

So silly of you, Charles of the Bukowski fame! You felt sad for the "house next door," and at times, felt “raw with love,” but to the “little dark girl with kind eyes” you said, “when it comes time to use the knife I won't flinch and I won't blame you,” not realizing that your ex-wife Jane and I and our friends are women as the 50% of people on earth, the same as the girl with kind eyes, and that knife in your hand, you are holding it over all our heads.

Yet, what moved you, in “praise of God” or rather in praise of the poetry muse, made you the poet with the stark truth, as bare as a barkless tree trunk. How amazing it is to find a poet and writer who isn’t afraid of being an antihero, plus uncovering all absurdities of himself and his life, and how revealing this is of his complex humanity!