New Poems by Rob Plath

 

the day my mother died 

i remember clearing out 
yr nursing home room 
the afternoon you died 
some tulips in a vase 
a little radio 
several greeting cards
a virgin mary statue 
two stuffed animals 
a few photos in frames 
rosary beads 
a cross 
all thrown into a black sack 
in the doorway i looked back 
at the stripped bed 
ready for the next 
gazed at the tree swaying 
outside the window 
then i carried the bag to the elevator 
walked out the double doors 
standing there in blasting june sun 
that refused to give me 
even a few goddamn minutes

————

postcards 

as a kid i remember 
looking at old photographs 
& believing the world 
to be simpler & happier 
seeing my slim father 
wearing a wide grin 
behind an artillery gun 
or my grandparents 
both in aprons 
w/ cigarettes dangling 
from their mouths 
dancing in the kitchen 
or my aunt & uncle 
picnicking on a grassy hill 
in new hampshire 
or my nana smiling 
w/ a hunting dog 
in a winding valley in maine 
everything safe 
& sealed off from pain 
no hint of orphanage beatings 
in my father’s beaming eyes 
no sign of mastectomy 
in my nana’s serene smile 
no clue of suicide 
in my grandmother’s 
playful pose 
no intimation of a demon 
in a bottle upon that 
checkered tablecloth 
jesus, none of this or that 
in those little postcards

————
back in the mid 1980s 
“the mall monster” 
looked like rubeus hagrid 
from harry potter 
only he had soot on his face all the time 
& white stuff in his matted hair 
it also looked like padding was stuffed 
under his flannel shirt 
the buttons almost popping 
from their stitches 
arms bulging at the seams 
& his blue work pants looked 
like two more pairs were beneath
& you could smell his terrible odor 
from 10 feet away 
he always wore the same clothes 
he never said a word 
just walked around the mall 
it always seemed as if he appeared 
out of nowhere 
children screamed 
people walked faster 
we would be drunk on a mason jar 
of one our parents’ liquors we stole 
on a friday night walking around 
trying to meet girls 
& he’d appear & we’d laugh 
& duck into a random store 
rumor was that he worked below 
the mall as a furnace cleaner 
others said he was a patient 
from a mental asylum 
years later i heard the real story 
that his wife & daughter 
were killed in a fire 
& he had tried to save them 
but was badly burned 
so distraught by the loss 
he wandered the halls of the mall 
like an inconsolable soul traversing 
the ancient valley of grief 
a sweet tearful giant’s heart beating 
beneath the ash & thick layers & scars

Read more  poems by Rob Plath here: https://georgedanderson.blogspot.com/search/label/Rob%20Plath

 

New Release: John D. Robinson SONGS OF BASTET (Scumbag Press, 2021)

 

English poet John D. Robinson has a new chapbook coming out on Friday 26 November 2021 through Scumbag Press. He says of the chap, “The poems within are ALL about cats: the cover art and promo art are taken from my paintings.”

 

Here is a poem from the collection: 

 

ON THE DAY THAT OSCAR LEFT ME

I awoke terribly fragile,

shaking and frightened  and

I called in sick,

an ex lover

telephoned and asked

for money

which I didn’t have,

the backyard flooded

and my pot dealer

had gone on

holiday,

the radio broadcast

stories of tragedy

and sadness and

of wars

and payday was

two weeks away;

Oscar had suddenly

shown up a few

months back, wailing

and crying and

hungry and we made

friends and he moved

in and I called him

Oscar and he ate

whatever I could

give him and he

seemed thankful and

then one day he

didn’t come back 

and I

knew that he

wouldn’t return;

Oscar was a beat hobo cat;

I had a real lousy

day the day

that Oscar

left me.

 

(the poem is posted with the permission of the writer)

 Buy the chapbook here upon release: https://www.scumbagpress.co.uk

More Upcoming Charles Bukowski Books in 2015

Just when you thought the bottom of the Bukowski barrel had been thoroughly scraped over the last twenty years or so since his death, more juice is soon to be squeezed out of his balls in three new books:

The Bell Tolls for No One (edited with an Introduction by David Stephen Calonne)- City Lights (225 pages)

Release date: 14 July 2015

This is a follow up to Calonne's earlier edited City Lights collections of Bukowski's writing Portions From a Wine-Stained Notebook (2008), Absence of the Hero (2010) and More Notes of a Dirty Old Man (2011). These are excellent previously uncollected works, but descendingly important in value.

From Amazon: The Bell Tolls for No One is a book of previously uncollected short fiction by Bukowski. Beginning with the illustrated, unpublished 1947 story, 'A Kind, Understanding Face,' continuing through his column 'Notes of a Dirty Old Man,' and concluding with his hardboiled contributions to 1980s glossy adult magazines, this volume encompasses the entire range of Buk's talent as a short story writer, from striaght-up genre stories to postmodern blurring of the line between fact and fiction. The book contains an informative introduction by the editor David Stephen Calonne that provides historical context for these seemingly scandalous and chaotic tales, revealing the hidden hand of the master at the top of his form. Also included are several of Bukowski's own illustrations.

On Bukowski.net the editor mentions that the book was delayed because it was difficult to obtain Robert Crumb's permission for his cover illustration.

Update 19 October 2015:

See my review here: http://georgedanderson.blogspot.com.au/2015/10/new-release-stories-by-charles-bukowski.html

On Writing (ECCO)- 224 pages  Edited by Abel Debritto

Release date: 27 August 2015

On Writing collects many of the letters Bukowski sent to his publishers, fellow writers and friends about his views on writing.

From Amazon: On Writing reveals an artist brutally frank about the drudgery of work and canny and uncompromising about the absurdities of life- and of art. It illuminates the hard-edged, complex humanity of a true American legend and counterculture icon- the 'laureate of American lowlife' (Time)- who stoically recorded society's downtrodden and depraved. It exposes an artist grounded in the visceral, whose work reverberates with the central ideal: "Don't try."

On Cats (ECCO)- 128 pages  Edited by Abel Debritto

Release date:13 October 2015

This book is a compilation of previously unpublished Bukowski’s poems on cats. 

See a recent Guardian article about his two upcoming ECCO books:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/24/charles-bukowski-on-cats-book-published

Also by Abel Debritto an expensive critical biography- Charles Bukowski, King of the Underground: From Obscurity to Literary Icon (2013)

Expect many more ECCO compilations to follow in the future: Charles Bukowski On the Race Track, On Women, On Death, On Drinking, On Sex, On Old Age, On Love, On Skid Row…

Update: 11 April 2016

ECCO books has recently released Charles Bukowski On Love, edited by Abel Debritto.

The blurb:
In On Love, we see Charles Bukowski reckoning with the complications of love and desire. Alternating between the tough and the tender, the romantic and the gritty, Bukowski exposes the myriad faces of love in the poems collected here - its selfishness and its narcissism, its randomness, its mystery and its misery, and, ultimately, its true joyfulness, endurance and redemptive power. Whether writing about his daughter, his lover, or his work, Bukowski is fiercely honest and reflective, using love as a prism to look at the world and to view his own vulnerable place in it. Memorably moving and, at times, hilarious, On Love reveals Bukowski at his most candid and affecting.