4 Hour Hard On

BLOGS AND WEBSITES I LIKE


3 A.M. Magazine


LAist


Kelly Spitzer


Tommy Kane


Dust Congress


Luddite Kingdom Press


Wooster Collective


Canadian Writers Collective


Beverly Jackson's Blog


Myfanwy Collins' Blog


42opus


Smokelong Quarterly


FRiGG


Absinthe Literary Review


Edifice Wrecked


One Whipped Mother


NEON FICTION


Robin Slick {In Her Own Write}


LITPARK

Now, try to say that

five times really fast!

From the book, "Fires",
published in '84 by
Vintage Contemporaries,
a Division of Random House



You Don't Know What Love Is
(an evening with Charles Bukowski)
(c) by Raymond Carver;
all rights reserved

You don't know what love is Bukowski said
I’m 51 years old look at me
I’m in love with this young broad
I got it bad but she’s hung up too
so it’s all right man that’s the way it should be
I get in their blood and they can’t get me out
They try everything to get away from me
but they all come back in the end
They all came back to me except
the one I planted
I cried over that one
But I cried easy in those days
Don’t get me onto the hard stuff man
I get mean then
I could sit here and drink beer
with you hippies all night
I could drink ten quarts of this beer
and nothing it’s like water
But let me get onto the hard stuff
and I’ll start throwing people out windows
I’ll throw anybody out the window
I’ve done it
But you don’t know what love is
You don’t know because you’ve never
been in love it’s that simple
I got this young broad see she’s beautiful
She calls me Bukowski
Bukowski she says in this little voice
and I say What
But you don’t know what love is
I’m telling you what it is
but you aren’t listening

There isn’t one of you in this room
would recognize love if it stepped up
and buggered you in the ass
I used to think poetry readings were a copout
Look I’m 51 years old and I’ve been around
I know they’re a copout
But I said to myself Bukowski
starving is even more of a copout
So there you are and nothing
is like it should be
That fellow what’s his name Galway
Kinnell I saw his picture in a magazine
He has a handsome mug on him but he’s a
teacher
Christ can you imagine
but then you’re teachers too
Here I am insulting you already
No I haven’t heard of him
or him either
They’re all termites
Maybe it’s ego I don’t read much anymore
But these people who build
reputations on five or six books
Termites
Bukowski she says
Why do you listen to classical music all day
Can’t you hear her saying that
Bukowski why do you listen to classical music all day
That surprises you doesn’t it
You wouldn’t think a crude bastard like me
could listen to classical music all day
Brahms Rachmaninoff Bartok Telemann

Shit I couldn’t write up here
Too quiet up here too many trees
I like the city that’s the place for me
I put on my classical music each morning
and sit down in front of my typewriter
I light a cigar and I smoke it like this see
and I say Bukowski you’re a lucky man
Bukowski you’ve gone through it all
and you’re a lucky man
And the blue smoke drifts across the table
and I look out the window onto Delongpre Avenue
and I see people walking up and down the sidewalk
and I puff on the cigar like this
And then I lay the cigar into the ashtray like this
and I take a deep breath
and I begin to write
Bukowski this is the life I say
It’s good to be poor it’s good to have hemorrhoids
It’s good to be in love
But you don’t know what it’s like
You don’t know what it’s like to be in love
If you could see her you’d know what I mean
She thought I’d come up here and get laid
She just knew it
Shit I’m 51 years old and she’s 25
and we’re in love and she’s jealous
Jesus it’s beautiful
She said she’d claw my eyes out if I came up here
and got laid
Now that’s love for you
What do any of you know about it
Let me tell you something
I’ve met men in jail who had more style
than the people who hang around colleges
and go to poetry readings
They’re bloodsuckers who come to see
if the poet’s socks are dirty
or if he smells under the arms
Believe me I won’t disappoint em
But I want you to remember this
There’s only one poet in this room tonight
Only one poet in this town tonight
Maybe only one real
poet in this country tonight
and that’s me

What do any of you know about life
What do any of you know about anything
Which of you here has been fired from a job
Or else has beaten up your broad
or else has been
beaten up by your broad
I was fired from Sears and Roebuck five times
They’d fire me and then hire me back again
I was a stockboy for them when I was 35
and then got canned for stealing cookies
I know what it’s like I’ve been there
I’m 51 years old now and I’m in love
This little broad she says
I think you’re full of shit
and I say baby you understand me
She’s the only broad in the world
man or woman
I’d take that from
But you don’t know what love is
They all came back to me in the end too
Every one of em came back
except that one I told you about
the one I planted
We were together seven years
We used to drink a lot
I see a couple of typers in this room but
I don’t see any poets
I’m not surprised
You have to have been in love to write poetry
and you don’t know what it is to be in love
That’s your trouble
Give me some of that stuff
That’s right no ice good
that’s good that’s just fine
So let’s get this show on the road
I know what I said but I’ll have just one
That tastes good
Okay then let’s go let’s get this over with
Only afterwards don’t anyone stand close
to an open window

He let himself in--stepping
across my threshold like a real
organ grinder's monkey with clipboard
clutched like breastplate, or hymnal,
cracking stale jokes that fell flat as
cat '0 nine tails on a freak's welt-
streaked back--while my condo
sweltered, a veritable Wal
Mart hothouse:


“You called about the AC?” he
chirped, passive-aggressively.

“Oh noooo,” I said, “you’re barking
up the wrong tree, Lil' Chihuahua.
But please tell me what the fuck
you are doing with my Crib Key?”

“Listen. You’re lucky I don’t just assume
your Identity. You don’t look at all well,
and my trusty tail bone ivy tattoo that
drives the Stip Bimbos wild could easily
crawl right up your intestinal struts
and tear a new one, like, permanently.”

“Okay, then. Why not we 2 work out some 3
Stooges Hybrid Patty Cake action, whereby
you get to lay on the Ruth's Chris Steakhouse
Combinations with butterscotch undercuts
slapping me senseless and silly like
the freaking sissy that I am?”

“Like I said, I am only here
to repair your AC. But I can
sense that you are completely
out your damned tree!”

“Mister AC, if you can't abide my
kitchen, leave me here to fry, I
would then be filled with the
purest of fucking glee.”

“You’re Cocoa Puffs, homey.”

“Cuckoo... Cuckoo
for Cocoa. Puffs. And I can
sense that you’re on your way
out presently-- so I thank you
for that much, from the very
bottom of my black leather
heart.”

You heard right. ;)

Here in my humble blog, Bennett reads his classic shard, entitled "Only Business", with musical accompaniment from these guys


Click To Listen!

"...I'll play it and tell you what it is later..."


"...You can tell whether [a person] plays or not by the way he carries the instrument, whether it means something to him or not. Then the way they talk and act. If they act too hip, you know they can't play shit..."

"...I've practised on my tone for almost... 50 years, and if I can't hear my tone, I can't play. If I can't play, then I won't get paid. If I don't get paid, then I'll lose the house, you know? It's like a chain reaction. If I lose my tone, I can't fuck, can't make love, can't do nothin'. I'll just walk into the ocean and die, if I lose my tone..."

THE BORG SHARDS
(c) '06, John Bennett; All Rights Reserved


THE BORG, I

This is not America. This is the Land of Borg. A place spawned by TV.

TV, the PC and cell phones. Mothers giving birth to machines. It's already begun. Look around. I saw three of them just yesterday--one walking down the street, another sitting on a bench, a third in his car at the bank drive-up window, a compact piece of technology growing out of one ear, clinging like a leech, perhaps receiving messages from outer space, perhaps playing music, perhaps taking pictures of the inner brain where neurological synapses are already being phased out by micro chips; perhaps all three.

I have a walking stick made of purple-heart Amazon wood with a silver tip and an elk-antler handle. I'm going to grow my silver beard back and my hair down to my shoulders and barefoot and dressed in burlap I'm going to strike out with my shaman's stick at the Borg growing out of us.

The time is ripe for an old-fashioned prophet. He needs to appear now before our direct link to God is cut off by inventions.



BORG, II

Think small. Think infinitesimal. Think virus. Think biological implants, deep in the labyrinth of Borg. A spray of California poppies in their hard drive. Daisies in their circuitry. Crab grass in their memory bank. Lima beans in their digital warehouse. Ants zinging crazed through the dark bloodless maze of their gigabytes.

Do not go gently into that dark night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.



BORG, III

A 45-minute nap and he comes up off the couch like Prometheus, slams down a triple-mocha, and goes on the attack.



BORG, IV

Think singular. Sever connections. Renounce 12-step study groups. Focus.

Go for the crucifixion. Resurrect in three days and spread the message. Get it right this time.



BORG, V

A scribe in a hut on a mountain side, drinking saki and eating brown rice and collard greens. Taking dictation from voices floating down from the moon.

By sunrise he is asleep on his straw mat in the corner. It is a dreamless sleep, an emptiness waiting to be filled. A transition chamber.

The odds of his being found out are slim. He is the world's salvation.