“You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense”

The best way to explain my lull in writing and needing to come back to it can be summed up by the poem I randomly opened to by one of my favorite poets, Charles Bukowski. This drop of fate and the words of a friend have inspired me to get the ball rolling again. Here’s the poem…

when I was a starving writer i used to read the major writers
in the
major magazines (in the library, of course) and it made me feel very bad because-being a student of the word and the way, I
realized
that they were faking it: I could sense each false emotion, each
utter pretense, it made me feel that the editors had their
heads up their asses – or were being publicized into publishing
in-groups of power
but
I just kept writing and not eating very much- went down
from 197 pounds
to 137-but- got very much practice typing and reading
printed rejection
slips.

it was when I reached 137 pounds that I said, to hell with it,
quit
typing and concentrated on drinking and the streets and the l
ladies of
the streets – at least those prople didn’t read Harper’s, The Atlantic or
Poetry, a magazine of verse.

and frankly, it was a fair and refreshing ten year lay-off

then I came back and tried it again to find that the editors still
had
their heads up their asses and/or etc.
but I was up to 225 pounds
rested
and full of background music-

ready to give it another shot in the
dark.