CHARLES BUKOWSKI A POEM IS A CITY poetry Full English TEXT
Charles Bukowski
A poem is a city
American literature
poem, 1969
English text
Charles Bukowski All the poems > here
Charles Bukowski
A poem is a city
A poem is a city
filled with streets and sewers
filled with saints, heroes, beggars, madmen,
filled with banality and booze,
filled with rain and thunder
and periods of drought,
A poem is a city at war,
a poem is a city asking a clock why,
a poem is a city burning,
a poem is a city under guns
its barbershops filled with cynical drunks.
A poem is a city
where God rides naked
through the streets like Lady Godiva,
where dogs bark at night,
and chase away the flag;
a poem is a city of poets,
most of them quite similar
and envious and bitter…
A poem is this city now,
50 miles from nowhere,
9:09 in the morning,
the taste of liquor and cigarettes,
no police, no lovers,
walking the streets.
This poem, this city,
closing its doors,
barricaded, almost empty,
mournful without tears,
aging without pity,
the hardrock mountains,
the ocean like a lavender flame,
a moon destitute of greatness,
a small music from broken windows…
A poem is a city,
a poem is a nation,
a poem is the world…
and now I stick this under glass
for the mad editor’s scrutiny,
the night is elsewhere
and faint gray ladies stand in line,
dog follows dog to estuary,
the trumpets bring on gallows
as small men
rant at things
they cannot do.
…
..
.
Charles Bukowski – A poem is a city
American literature – poem, 1969
Original full English text
Charles Bukowski All the poems > here
Audiobook video
Charles Bukowski “A poem is a city”
Charles Bukowski Bibliography > here
