Look Pretty

The neighborhood looks so different now, a whole city appeared across the river and is creating a scene, but everything is new, everything is clean. Her balcony has a view that's worth most of the rent alone. She says she loves to sit there, loves to look at it, the Empire State glowing grandly just across the water and all three bridges in the distance. It just reminds me of that summer in Greenpoint, and the feeling that the city is so close, but much too far away. I am glad to return to my snug Village street, with the City's ground safe beneath me.

Charles Bukowski came on the screen tonight, disgusting old pervert Bukowski with young women in his arms and dirty fingernails from too many cigarettes, he talks so much shit but then there's that moment. At the front of the stage, with those papers in his hands, and the words that come out make you nod your head out loud but weep a little inside. He says to keep the ember glowing, even through that job, even through doubt and rage, and one day even that little ember can spark a fire. The critics twist themselves inside out to infer meaning, paint allegory, but let them have their way, they can't change anything. His windshield has a giant crack down the middle. It's beginning to look like me. It reminds you.

You do not have to be good,
or right,
or beautiful,
at anything,

as long as you are amazing
with the Word.