Explosion

Similar to many people I'm sure, the recent death of Osama Bin Laden has brought me back to the fear and disorientation I felt during 9/11. I was in first grade at the time, so while every adult felt like a child losing his innocence, America's actual children felt as if we were thrown into a bullfight with a blindfold tied around our heads. We were unknowingly in the process of 'losing our innocence', while all the long feeling completely excluded from what we, considering our parents' reactions, knew was a very significant event. Like the blindfolded matador, we could sense the power and strength of the beast, but we were completely unaware of where it was coming from, where it would charge and how we should respond.

After hearing of Osama's death, once again, I felt fear emanating from my lack of understanding, and also torn, in how I should react. Should I celebrate America's success or should I fear the unknown possibilities that lie in the future? Finally...I turned to a poem:

Explosion by Charles Bukowski

as I angle between traffic the radio sings to me.
the Angel of Death smiles.
the sun splashes on the windshield, cleansing
the floating ghosts of my dead past.

I put it to the floor and the machine leaps
forward beautifully.
the Angel of Death continues to smile
as I hold it at an even 80.

I am between dream and reality, I am ageless.
my lost childhood reaches out a long arm and touches
me.
the dogs of my youth sit pressed eagerly side by
side on the rear seat.
my mother speaks to me again: "smile,
Henry, why are you always so sad?"
"you don't understand," I reply.

I exit the freeway and once on the boulevard
I see the burned city.
my city.
everybody's city.
city of the
world.

but I am unmoved inside my automobile
as inside my head
a gorgeous yellow flower
slowly
opens.

then I'm at the racetrack.
I am in my lane moving to the parking lot.
I park, get out, stand.
I stretch my arms 2,000 feet into
the sky.

the horses sense my arrival.
the horses acknowledge me.
they say, "we will run for you.
we love you.
we all love you."

the universe applauds as I
take one step after the
other.
one step after the other
to where
it all
begins
again.

Flamingo Watching by Kay Ryan

Wherever the flamingo goes,

she brings a city’s worth

of furbelows. She seems

unnatural by nature—

too vivid and peculiar

a structure to be pretty,

and flexible to the point

of oddity. Perched on

those legs, anything she does

seems like an act. Descending

on her egg or draping her head

along her back, she’s

too exact and sinuous

to convince an audience

she’s serious. The natural elect,

they think, would be less pink,

less able to relax their necks,

less flamboyant in general.

They privately expect that it’s some

poorly jointed bland grey animal

with mitts for hands

whom God protects.

Nightclub by Billy Collins

Nightclub

You are so beautiful and I am a fool
to be in love with you
is a theme that keeps coming up
in songs and poems.
There seems to be no room for variation.
I have never heard anyone sing
I am so beautiful
and you are a fool to be in love with me,
even though this notion has surely
crossed the minds of women and men alike.
You are so beautiful, too bad you are a fool
is another one you don't hear.
Or, you are a fool to consider me beautiful.
That one you will never hear, guaranteed.

For no particular reason this afternoon
I am listening to Johnny Hartman
whose dark voice can curl around
the concepts on love, beauty, and foolishness
like no one else's can.
It feels like smoke curling up from a cigarette
someone left burning on a baby grand piano
around three o'clock in the morning;
smoke that billows up into the bright lights
while out there in the darkness
some of the beautiful fools have gathered
around little tables to listen,
some with their eyes closed,
others leaning forward into the music
as if it were holding them up,
or twirling the loose ice in a glass,
slipping by degrees into a rhythmic dream.

Yes, there is all this foolish beauty,
borne beyond midnight,
that has no desire to go home,
especially now when everyone in the room
is watching the large man with the tenor sax
that hangs from his neck like a golden fish.
He moves forward to the edge of the stage
and hands the instrument down to me
and nods that I should play.
So I put the mouthpiece to my lips
and blow into it with all my living breath.
We are all so foolish,
my long bebop solo begins by saying,
so damn foolish
we have become beautiful without even knowing it.

Oh Bukowski..

Here's one of my favorite poems by Charles Bukowski...who was a bit of a crazy badass.

2 Flies

The flies are angry bits of life;
why are they so angry?
it seems they want more,
it seems almost as if they
are angry
that they are flies;
it is not my fault;
I sit in the room
with them
and they taunt me
with their agony;
it is as if they were
loose chunks of soul
left out of somewhere;
I try to read a paper
but they will not let me
be;
one seems to go in half-circles
high along the wall,
throwing a miserable sound
upon my head;
the other one, the smaller one
stays near and teases my hand,
saying nothing,
rising, dropping
crawling near;
what god puts these
lost things upon me?
other men suffer dictates of
empire, tragic love…
I suffer
insects…
I wave at the little one
which only seems to revive
his impulse to challenge:
he circles swifter,
nearer, even making
a fly-sound,
and one above
catching a sense of the new
whirling, he too, in excitement,
speeds his flight,
drops down suddenly
in a cuff of noise
and they join
in circling my hand,
strumming the base
of the lampshade
until some man-thing
in me
will take no more
unholiness
and I strike
with the rolled-up-paper -
missing! -
striking,
striking,
they break in discord,
some message lost between them,
and I get the big one
first, and he kicks on his back
flicking his legs
like an angry whore,
and I come down again
with my paper club
and he is a smear
of fly-ugliness;
the little one circles high
now, quiet and swift,
almost invisible;
he does not come near
my hand again;
he is tamed and
inaccessible; I leave
him be, he leaves me
be;
the paper, of course,
is ruined;
something has happened,
something has soiled my
day,
sometimes it does not
take man
or a woman,
only something alive;
I sit and watch
the small one;
we are woven together
in the air
and the living;
it is late
for both of us.