"Desolation" 
photo by Jenn

BATHTUB BUKOWSKI

There is something embarrassing

about a man in the bathtub reading
Bukowski in a cabin at the water’s
edge.  A frozen lake below.  Then
on hands and knees praying to some
god to tell him how to wash the
shampoo out of his hair.  Alone with
nonsense thoughts.  But also of the
retched man he left standing on a country
highway, leaning into the driving sleet,
holding a sign that said Jesus. 


(similar version published in The Furious Gazelle)


On poetry and art . . .

I had finally understood an idea that I still believe in that art is at the core of our most intimate being and a part of the nature of things as surely as is a tree, a lake, a cloud.  When we ignore it, even as spectators, we deaden ourselves in this brief transit. 

               -Jim Harrison

Poetry, like the grizzly bear, is good for its own magnificent selfness and is not a utilitarian cog to improve someone’s life-style.  Poetry may very well help you get behind.  Your legs might grow downward into the ground in certain locations.  You will also turn inside out without warning.

                -Jim Harrison


It [Simon Ortiz’s poetry] is the kind of poetry that reaffirms your decision to stay alive.

                -Jim Harrison

 

[Simon Ortiz, Acoma Poet] has said that he writes poems because writing is, finally, an ‘act that defies oppression’.

                -Jim Harrison

 

“All my life I’ve liked weeds.  Weeds are botanical poets, largely unwanted.  You can’t make a dollar off them.”

                -from the poem “Livingston Suite” by Jim Harrison

“Coming home late from the tavern.  A mouse has drowned in the toilet.  A metaphor of the poet, I think.”

                -from the poem “Braided Creek” by Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser

“If you wished to draw attention to poetry in a country where anything not at least peripherally attached to greed is considered nonsense, you would have to immolate a volunteer poet in a 751 BMW in a Georgio Armani suit wearing a gold Rolex.”

            -Jim Harrison

I was on a clean-up crew after the 2013 Moore, Oklahoma tornado.  There's really no good place for a picture like this, so I'll just put it here.  The whole place smelled like a sewer.  I spent all day digging out a mattress near that house in the distance, because the owner's Korean War service medals were underneath.   I found them all and also a stack of Playboys, which elicited the biggest grin from their owner.  He seemed equally happy to see them both.
     © C.C. Brooks