Drunk all the time by Michael Estabrook

Fascinated I watched Barfly
the movie about the young
Charles Bukowski living
in his rotted underwear in squalid
boardinghouse rooms infested
with cockroaches or sleeping
it off in the gutter or behind some
damn dumpster drunk all
the time, writing stories and poetic
murmurings when he could see
long enough through the clouds
of his wretched existence.
And I wondered as I watched how
anyone could live like that in
the world but not in the world,
bruised and coughing, underfed,
smoking, drunk all the time,
wondered how anyone could
live like that and still
be such a great poet. And after
the movie (damn me damn me!)
I found myself rummaging
like a demented bear through
the kitchen cabinets and shelves
hoping to find an overlooked
bottle of wine or
some cooking sherry.

Michael Estabrook small press poet since the 1980s striving always for greater clarity and concision rendering language more succinct and precise more accessible and appealing a Sisyphean adventure for sure. Retired now writing more and working more outside just noticed two Cooper’s hawks staked out in the yard or rather above it which explains the nerve-wracked chipmunks. The Poet’s Curse, A Miscellany is a recent collection (The Poetry Box, 2019).