Street Togetherness

'Street Togetherness'  © Gary Hill 2005

I pick up the skirt,
I pick up the sparkling beads
in black,
this thing that moved once
around flesh,
and I call God a liar,
I say anything that moved
like that
or knew
my name
could never die
in the common verity of dying,
and I pick
up her dress,
all her loveliness gone,
and I speak to all the gods,
Jewish gods, Christ-gods,
chips of blinking things,
idols, pills, bread,
fathoms, risks,
knowledgeable surrender,
rats in the gravy of two gone quite mad
without a chance,
hummingbird knowledge, hummingbird chance,
I lean upon this,
I lean on all of this
and I know
her dress upon my arm
but
they will not
give her back to me.

“For Jane: With All the Love I Had Which Was Not Enough” by Charles Bukowski (1920-1994)


I have heard people talk of Charles Bukowski in disparaging ways, typically as the "drunken poet". And he was widely known to proudly use alcohol to excess for most of his adult life. "His language is the poetry of the streets viewed from the honesty of a hang-over", as one commentator puts it. Yet, despite the emotionally-numbing effects of his drug of choice he was able to create this work, one of the most achingly beautiful love poems I have ever read. The author, ravaged by grief at the death of his first lover, finds no solace in either religion or drugs and so pours out his angst into these words. This was a man who feels.

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