What Would Bukowski Write?

I wonder what Bukowski would be writing
now. More Bukowski poems, of course.
Rooted in his life, some stuff made up,
who cares, and then, in a line anywhere
in the poem, a statement strikes like a snake.
You get an insight not offered up as one.
It tears into you. His poems usually ignore

the wider world beyond San Pedro
and other Hank haunts, as if the world,
because it was so stupid and mean,
wasn't worth his time, and it isn't,
and it's getting worse. Maybe he would

have said something about Trump, though--
how low down, dirty, and mean he is.
A pimp. A psychopath--the kind that kicks
a sleeping drunk on The Row to show off
to his friends, other rich boys. Kick and laugh.
The kind that deserves to end up
on the losing side of a brawl one night,
knocked out, beaten, bloody, and down,
nobody gleeful about it but lots of people
feeling like it was an exorcism.


hans ostrom 2018