A Charles Bukowski Tattoo Narrative

I received an unusual request from an Argentinean reader a few days ago. He had read my review in Bold Monkey of Bukowski’s Portions From a Wine-Stained Notebook and he sought help about a phrase in the story ‘Distractions in the Literary Life’ which first appeared in High Times (June 1984). He wanted to use a phrase from the story and tattoo it onto his body.

The reader had a Spanish translation of a fragment in the story which read “no te mueras en mi infinidad.” He wanted to know what the original phrase was in English. Google initially translated the fragment to me as “DO NOT DIE IN MY INFINITE.” I quickly found Buk’s words at the bottom of page 199 in Portions and it read as follows: “DON’T DIE ON MY INFINITY.”

The context of the quote is hilarious and makes the tat a particularly unique and impressive one. Most of the Buk tattoos you view online are achingly sentimental in the 'Blue Bird' tradition. ‘Distractions in the Literary Life’ is a clever eight-page meta-fictional story, a product of Bukowski’s outrageous imagination. One very hot summer night his alter ego Chinaski types out a “dirty story for one of the mags” on a broken table and it begins to tilt. After buying a deal of coke and getting some close attention from his girlfriend Sandra, he returns to his story.

He begins typing a story about a guy with an odd fascination with a very large mammal. The writing is bizarre but highly memorable. He is disturbed momentarily.

“Hey, Jack Off! Sandra hollers from the other room, “you writin’ some good shit?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know how to end it.”

“Have them drop the fucking bomb.”

“Hey, great! I’ll do it! Nobody, nobody has written a story like this!”

Just then the table leg gives way and I only have time to grab the bottle as the typer crashes to the floor. Never happened to Mailer or Tolstoy. I take a slug from the bottle, then go over to the old typer. Don’t die on me, m.f., in any way at all…It has landed upright. I sit down on my ass, reach out, and tap at the keys. I type: DON’T DIE ON MY INFINITY. It types me right back, like that. It’s tough, like me. I take a drink of joyful celebration for the both of us. Then I get bright: I decide to type on the m.f. floor, I will finish typing the m.f. floor. Celine would dig that.”

                                                                             *

The short story then morphs off in typical twisted Buk tropes. It’s not clear what Bukowski meant by the phrase “DON’T DIE ON MY INFINITY.” In his many interviews he often spoke about wanting to create "immortal" poems and stories. My guess is that in this story as his typewriter crashes to the floor he is hoping his typer will continue to pour out his creative juices & will not fail him. The typewriter, in fact, seems to take on a life on its own- somehow channelling Bukowski’s thoughts as “it types me right back.”

In the final analysis, the story is highly successful. Certainly no one has written a story quite like 'Distractions of a Literary Life.’ Certainly it takes a brave soul to personalise a Bukowski phrase in a permanent tattoo engraving on one's body part. 

Featuring William Taylor Jr

The Next Thing

At this point I can't begin

to guess what might be

left of me.

Sometimes you lose the rhythm of things,

the music goes funny

and the sky forgets your name.

I just know the demons

aren't going anywhere anytime soon,

so  I drink with them on Sunday afternoons,

trying to negotiate some kind of

workable deal,

while down in the alley

a withered woman begs quarters

from confused tourists.

She's having a bad time of it

as the girls stand outside the nudie bars,

half naked and smoking,

as beautiful and as mean

as the sun.

I watch them as the pretty waitress

brings my medicine

and think about how I'll

have to go back to work tomorrow,

hungover

and with little sleep,

and how the waitress

and the girls outside the clubs

one day won't be pretty,

or even alive,

and I'm feeling kind of sad for everything

and how there's nothing to be done

for any of it,

as we all go about our business,

waiting for the next thing

to break.

What the Fear Tells Me

The great  animal fear of the world

is what stays with us,

is what our bones are made of.

Love burns off in the sun,

strength gives way,

anything you can name

slips through your shaking hands.

The fear sleeps, but it's never far

from the surface of things.

Those who say otherwise

are liars and always running.

God's an empty bottle

in the face of it,

whatever you've constructed

to keep it at bay

gives like splintered wood.

It's a fine afternoon;

there's wine and sunlight,

pretty girls beneath it.

But the fear is there in every shadow.

I drink beer to try and keep it quiet,

offer these words

as a kind of appeasement,

but it's in me like a heart.

I dearly want to call

and tell you this,

because I think you'd

understand,

but the fear tells me

you won't pick up,

and it's probably right;

just like when says

I should have listened to my father,

and how I'll never find

a good ending

for this poem.

All That Fire

Eventually you end up

wherever it is

that trouble leaves you,

caught like a wounded thing

between all the days behind you

and those still to come

with nothing much

to say for yourself.

But that girl,

she really knew

how to burn.

The thought of her caught

forever in those flames

she wore like skin,

and laughing

the way she did,

its the kind of beauty

that leaves scars

in secret places;

the kind of beauty that breaks you

in ways you didn't know

you could break.

And while even people like yourself

eventually do their best

to forget and move on,

her ghost still burns

in dreams and the spaces

between things,

and the world is just the ash.

William Taylor Jr.

940 Post St. # 1

San Francisco,  CA  94109

bardamu67@sbcglobal.net

William Taylor Jr. lives and writes in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco. His work has been published widely in journals across the globe, including The New York Quarterly, The Chiron Review, and Poesy. An Age of Monsters, his first book of fiction, was published by Epic Rites Press in 2011. The Blood of a Tourist (Sunnyoutside, 2014) is his latest collection of poetry. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee and was a recipient of the 2013 Acker Award.

Featuring the poetry of Jon Bennett

Off a cliff

Oftentimes I think

I should learn to parasail

or surf, maybe boogie board

but then I think

so much trouble

and besides

I’m already going

in a straight line.

 --

Therapy

Ronny was in the circus

I don’t know what it was he did

because he was born with cerebral palsy

he’s not in it anymore

mostly he just drinks

“I used to have this girl,” he tells me,

“we’d get a tank of gas

and when it was half down

wherever we were, we’d camp

those were good times, now

I can hardly walk.”

He’s been waiting for me to listen

but I’ve had a rough year.

“Good times,” he says

and I can’t help but feel

we’re both on empty.

--

Soda Pop Man

His route took him to

Temptations, Centerfolds, The Lusty Lady,

all the full nude places

could only sell soda, no alcohol.

“I touched her beaver,” he’d say, or,

“I got her autograph.”

There was sawdust on his glasses

and he always squinted

because he worked in perpetual dark

I couldn’t imagine him in anything

besides coveralls that said, “Arlin”

in that nice cursive.

I would pay him out

the two of us in a cloud

of that cheap perfume

you want to say you hate

but like orange pop,

the sweeter it was

the better.

 --

Update 15 May 2017: Find more poems here: https://georgedanderson.blogspot.com.au/2017/05/featuring-jon-bennett.html

See also March 2020: https://georgedanderson.blogspot.com/2020/03/featuring-jon-bennett.html

Jon Bennett writes and plays music in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood.  His novel, 'The Unfat,' sci-fi involving autism, is available on Amazon, and his CD 'Submarine,' through iTunes, Spotify and Pandora.  You can purchase signed copies of either by contacting him at https://www.facebook.com/jon.bennett.967

Three Poems by Mike Meraz

Had to suffer

Through a

Bad date

Last

Night

As she asked

Me my favorite

Bands

I thought of

Music

Cigarettes

And

Solitude

I got up

And went to

The

Bathroom

Looked at

The

Clock

And tried to

Think of a

Way

To slice an

Orange

Without

Cutting

It.

_______________________

Girl in

Homely

Sweater

Looks like

Cinderella

Given

Up

On things

No one

Ever

Picked

Up the

Slipper

And that's

Fucking

Okay

She's

Probably

Writing

The

Great

American

Novel

Anyway.

__________________________

I text her,

"I'm going to

Go back to

My life of

Being alone

And writing,

It's the only

Thing I'm

Good at,

Wish you

Well."

She texts back,

"Wish you

Well too."

A day later

I get a text,

"Hey"

It worked.

Featuring the poetry of Frank Reardon

DUST

at nineteen he ran through
the jungles
with a telephone on
his pack
screaming out for his mama
while bullets aimed directly
at the receiver
placed
ten inches from his head
zipped by his body.

at twenty
he carried a pack of Marlboro's
in his helmet
and played poker
outside the crumbling walls
of Hue
with the other unfortunate boys
who made it past
the initial three week
trial period.

at twenty-one
he smoked opium
and listened to The Doors
in sandbag bunkers
with Big Jim Stone
from Fort Wayne,
together they learned
the essential hate trade
with the words gook
and charlie.

at twenty-two
he kissed a Saint Michael medal
with long napalm tears
covered in mud
when he couldn't
remember if he had killed
five or fifteen men
with a Jamming Jenny.

at twenty-three
after taking two in the leg,
one worth a ticket home,
the other, smashing one
of his baby makers
into a million pieces;
he was airlifted high above
long lines
of black body bags
shining
in the Vietnamese sun

at twenty-five
they gave him a minimum
wage job
in the post office
where he spent long nights
locked in the bathroom
vomiting guilt, death,
screams and panic attacks

at forty-five
he developed a skin condition
called Orange
and he sold his war stories
to anyone who would listen
to the emotional vampire
who pushed his forearm weight
down on a child's throat

at fifty-three
he had a massive heart attack,
the jungle escape routes
in his arteries hardened
from years of smoke, misery,
fear, hate and judgement

at fifty-five,
after many years of midnight
ghosts that haunted
his dreams, who came to him
screaming with legs, arms
and faces blown off.
After years of unknown voices
screaming "baby killer"
into his empty skull,
After thirty long fuckin' years
the mental hospital finally
taught him how to cry
when they unlocked
their enormous iron doors

at sixty
he went to Washington D.C.
to visit The Wall,
and he searched for hours,
looking for names, names
that haunted
his sleepless nights,
names that he tried to put
back together but couldn't,
names he carried on his shoulders
like ten tons of steel
day in and day out

and when he finally found one,
he soon found another
and then another,
he moved his fingers
along the chipped away granite
that spelled out their names,
and when he took a breath
it was his first breath
in forty years
because he finally realized
that a forgotten friend in the hands of the living
is made from dust.

LONELY LARRY

Everyday Larry walks into the lumber yard
with his head down due to years of bad posture.
His hair, fake or not, looks like a blond toupee,
and he twiddles his fingers in mad circles
when he speaks. Mona, the cashier,
calls him "Lonely Larry." She says it whenever
he leaves the room. "Lonely Larry, poor-poor,
Lonely Larry." During the day Larry is a lumber
merchandiser and he takes his job very seriously
even if his corduroy pants are pulled up over
his belly button. He looks like a giant Weeble
most days, and he's a massive billowing shit-talker
from years of love lost, everyday. While fastening the Velcro
straps on his gray sneakers, Larry likes to remind
me of his youth, how in his 20s he was a ladies' man,
a sure-fire chick magnet. He says it was
all due to his over-use of cologne and gold chains.
I find it hard to believe, especially since his work apron
has his name painted on it with large purple letters
and bedazzled silver rhinestones, though he's done
a great job convincing himself of his prowess. Whenever Kayla,
the woman with the perfect ass, the woman who can
speak perfect French, says "hi," Larry's
fake deep voice turns high-pitched and nasally.
He's 60, but whenever that French painting
struts by with her big black boots he turns
into himself:  quiet, nervous, perverted, the shy little boy.
At night Larry is a quiz show genius, a Game Show Network
lunatic. Sitting in his father's old leather recliner,
he tries to solve puzzles on The Wheel of Fortune
while sucking root beer from a straw. "Buy a vowel!"
he shouts as he twists off the top of an Oreo
so he can lick the cream filling.
"Why won't she buy a fucking vowel!?" he asks
his purple and yellow canary sitting in its brass cage,
but the bird never replies, it just sits
on a perch rapidly moving its head and chirping a song.
Poor-poor Lonely Larry, the game shows are over
and the symphony has gotten so cruel
with night songs that Larry must go under his bed
and pull out the old box with the frayed cardboard cover.
Inside: ancient comic books that he had saved since
he was a child. And with teeth clenched upon bottom lip,
he savours each action packed square,
each crime fighter's heroic action, each word floating
inside its cartoon bubble. The hands are weak, the sweat
is real, the foreboding feeling in the dark pulls
at lost eyes and surrounds him with panic.
Soon Larry will climb into bed. "Gotta get up at 4 a.m.
and do it all over again," he'll whisper to himself.
It's the same thing each day and night, the perfect
hell on earth, relived day after day and night after night.
The perfect assassin with the perfect bullet,
inching closer and closer by the second until

it burrows in us all
and plants the great seed of denial.

BLUEGRASS BABY

She likes to dance on the back deck
in her tight jeans and listen
to Bluegrass: Bill Monroe, Earl Scruggs,
Lester Flatt. She spins in circles.
Her hair, an array of sharp knives,
cuts through the sun and splatters
it all over the sky. She's fast banjo honey.

She's still spinning.

JEREMIAH

Somewhere outside
Tomah, Wisconsin,
upon numb ass,
tired and defiled,
the Amish man
who smelled of bologna
and odd starch
leaned in and asked
if I was a farmer.

His beard of no moustache,
his hat of straw,
his shirt of blue tears,
and his crazy eyes
from another man's nightmare
patiently
awaited my response
with a boot tap.

I contemplated
the question
for a moment
as I watched
the big dipper
touch the new earth
from the night window
of a narrowing
greyhound seat.

Fuck.

KEEP TRYING

As I piss on the empty beer cans
outside the backdoor,
I watch the steam
of all that's still possible
rise up from the ashes
like an angry set of fangs
preparing to bite down on all
that has been given.

UNCLE LEO'S CLOUD OF SMOKE.

at my grandfather's wake
Uncle Leo & i
smoked cigarettes
together
in the Croswell Funeral Home
basement,

Leo's face: drawn out,
blank, quiet
& listless
as he inhaled
Lucky Strike
after Lucky Strike
into his bony
&narrow face,

Leo must've smoked
15 non filtered
cigarettes
to every one of mine

& it did not phase him,
in fact, he never once
coughed or uttered
a single word to me,

until, i asked
"Uncle Leo,
what was my grandfather
like when he was younger?"

Leo leaned forward
from the chair
& let the slits
of his blue eyes
cut through
the smoke cloud

"he was the toughest
son-of-a-bitch
i ever knew!" he shouted
"there was not one
person
who could've out drank,
out worked,
out punched,
or out lived Francis!"

& as quickly as he
appeared
to me
he once again
vanished,

back to his
safe & secure cloud
of smoke,

where each one
of his inhales
sent him
back to his youth
so he could have
at least
one more beer
with his brothers
in South Boston
Dorchester,

&his cloud of smoke
continued to grow
bigger
&bigger
around our heads

because
he had to keep
lighting
more & more
cigarettes

because
with each exhale
came the agonizing
reminder
that he was truly
the last one
left.

Frank Reardon was born in 1974 in Boston, Massachusetts, currently lives in Monot, North Dakota. Frank has been published in many reviews, journals and online zines. His first book, Interstate Chokehold, was published by NeoPoiesis Press in 2009 as well as his second collection Nirvana Haymaker 2012. His third poetry collection Blood Music was published by Punk Hostage Press late 2013. In 2014 Reardon published a chapbook with Dog On A Chain Press titled The Broken Halo Blues.