I am not normally a fan of bukowski, but finding this in a book on the back of somebody’s toilet over the holidays piqued me. It was one of miss myrtle’s paintings come to life in the written word.
for
Idle in the forest of my room
with tungsten trees, owl boiling coffee,
webs cowled in gold over windows
staring outward into hell;
cigarette breath: statues of perfection,
not stuffed or whirled in cancers
of ranting:
engines and wheels crawl to gaseous
ends along the sabre-tooth;
my trees climb with monkey-rhyme,
climb out throught the ceiling
breaking the TV antennas and
the dull howl of canned laughter,
canned humor, canned death;
idle, idle in this forest,
calla lillies, grass, stone,
all nighttime level peace
of no bombers or faces,
and I dream the stone dream,
the grass dream,
the river running through my
fingerbones
one hundred and fifty years away,
leaving shots of grit and gold
and radium,
lifted and turned
by dizzied fish
and dropped,
raising flecks of sand
in my sleep. . .
The owl spits his coffee,
my monkeys chit the gibberish plan,
and my walls,
my walls help endure the seizing.
-Charles Bukowski