Friday, November 15, 2019

TO BE AS DRUNK AND SUCCESSFUL by Chocolate Waters

as Charles Bukowski.
His bottle tipped into his face, ad infinitum.
I’m not knocking him.
He turned that bottle into
an international reputation
a myth, a movie,
a fancy house in LA,
a younger woman.
People paid him to spit on the stage.
Ahhhh, I bet he wasn’t a drunk at all.
I bet he pretended to be a drunk
because it was fashionable
and then pretended
because it wasn’t.
I bet he just sat behind his typewriter
drinking Snapple all night long,
laughing his glass off.

First published in Caprice, 2005




Chocolate Waters loves to drink and write in bars. She’s produced four poetry collections this way and currently has a new collection, Bittersweet Resurrection (Eggplant Press, NY, NY) coming out in 2019. “Write drunk, edit sober,” said Hemmingway – and she does. She’s lived in Manhattan for nearly 40 years. Sorry, no cats.

1 comment:

  1. Coincidentally, a friend of mine just posted this article about BUK:
    https://theplaidzebra.com/bukowski-wrote-this-letter-about-ditching-the-9-5-thirty-years-later-its-more-relevant-than-ever/?fbclid=IwAR1TCXngLyyBWmG0dTdhcqkHrSWd-vA6PkSxpGSNdmx8rWOmccn33UIjgNc

    ReplyDelete

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