Friday, May 7, 2010

Hum bewafa hargiz na the, Par hum wafa kar na sake..

I found this in my inbox just now. B. had sent it to me about a year ago. I thought I had lost it. I panicked and searched for it. Here it is. Safe in cyberspace. So I never have to worry that I might lose it again. All I have ever wanted to say about unfinished business is right here.

An Almost Made Up Poem


I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny
blue hands, no, your hands are not tiny
they are small, and the fountain is in France
where you wrote me that last letter and
I answered and never heard from you again.
you used to write insane poems about
ANGELS AND GOD, all in upper case, and you
knew famous artists and most of them
were your lovers, and I wrote back, it’ all right,
go ahead, enter their lives, I’ not jealous
because we’ never met. we got close once in
New Orleans, one half block, but never met, never
touched. so you went with the famous and wrote
about the famous, and, of course, what you found out
is that the famous are worried about
their fame –– not the beautiful young girl in bed
with them, who gives them that, and then awakens
in the morning to write upper case poems about
ANGELS AND GOD. we know God is dead, they’ told
us, but listening to you I wasn’ sure. maybe
it was the upper case. you were one of the
best female poets and I told the publishers,
editors, “ her, print her, she’ mad but she’
magic. there’ no lie in her fire.” I loved you
like a man loves a woman he never touches, only
writes to, keeps little photographs of. I would have
loved you more if I had sat in a small room rolling a
cigarette and listened to you piss in the bathroom,
but that didn’ happen. your letters got sadder.
your lovers betrayed you. kid, I wrote back, all
lovers betray. it didn’ help. you said
you had a crying bench and it was by a bridge and
the bridge was over a river and you sat on the crying
bench every night and wept for the lovers who had
hurt and forgotten you. I wrote back but never
heard again. a friend wrote me of your suicide
3 or 4 months after it happened. if I had met you
I would probably have been unfair to you or you
to me. it was best like this.

Charles Bukowski.

8 comments:

Deboleena said...

Oh. Till I read the name at the end I thought your friend B had written this. I was preparing myself to hunt B down and marry him/her.

Shit.

Rohan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anushka said...

You're back!

Pankaj said...

welcome back TUIB :). Gosh, Bukowski is unspeakably good.

we know God is dead, they’ told
us, but listening to you I wasn’ sure

wow.

All of it wow!

Tangled up in blue... said...

Sugar Magnolia, i agree with that sentiment there..I have often been seized with the desire to go back in time and marry Bukowski! :D But I dont think that wud have been such a great idea..since he was a little too colourful for me anyways..;) And around a year ago, when I began to read his poetry I was obsessed with him, which is why my friend B sent me this one. And its lovely, isnt it?

Tangled up in blue... said...

Oye, Orange Cat, now I'm curious..what were u gonna say? :P

Anushka, Yup!!! :D

Pankaj, Thank you! yeah, I know..totally agree! :)

Soin said...

its weird to find pointless words filling your brain and making sense.free

Tangled up in blue... said...

soin, which words did u think were pointless? ;)