sure, I know that you are tired of hearing about it, but
most repeat the same theme over and over again, it’s
as if they were trying to refine what seems so strange
and off and important to them, it’s done by everybody
because everybody is of a different stripe and form
and each must work out what is before them
over and over again because
that is their personal tiny miracle
their bit of luck

like now as like before and before I have been slowly
drinking this fine red wine and listening to symphony after
symphony from this black radio to my left

some symphonies remind me of certain cities and certain rooms,
make me realize that certain people now long dead were able to
transgress graveyards

and traps and cages and bones and limbs

people who broke through with joy and madness and with
insurmountable force

in tiny rented rooms I was struck by miracles

and even now after decades of listening I still am able to hear
a new work never heard before that is totally
bright, a fresh-blazing sun

there are countless sub-stratas of rising surprise from the
human firmament

music has an expansive and endless flow of ungodly
exploration

writers are confined to the limit of sight and feeling upon the
page while musicians leap into unrestricted immensity

right now it’s just old Tchaikowsky moaning and groaning his
way through symphony #5
but it’s just as good as when I first heard it

I haven’t heard one of my favorites, Eric Coates, for some time
but I know that if I keep drinking the good red and listening
that he will be along

there are others, many others

and so
this is just another poem about drinking and listening to
music

repeat, right?

but look at Faulkner, he not only said the same thing over and
over but he said the same
place

so, please, let me boost these giants of our lives
once more: the classical composers of our time and
of times past

it has kept the rope from my throat

maybe it will loosen
yours

-Charles Bukowski, “Me and Faulkner”

There have been many things that have kept the rope from my throat (thus far, anyway). The poems of Bukowski count as one of them. He calls up slovenly roach-infested rented rooms, whiskey and raw whores- the ultimate ugliness. He himself was not an attractive man, as he bore permanent scars from a bad case of acne vulgaris which affected him through his teenage years.

But he took the ugliness around him and in him and managed, through words, to reflect something beautiful. His work is raw, like an exposed tendon. And he’s admittedly no Faulkner. Yet, he lifts you up. Especially if you’ve ever been as low and in as dire circumstances as he describes.

I have descended into darkness more times than I care to think about or discuss here. I’ve checked into (and, fortunately, out of) my share of one-night cheap hotels, wore holes in my shoes walking miles in an unknown direction. I told myself it was all about the journey and ended up nowhere. My interest today is that which pulls me from the wreckage, redeems me, even if it is only a few lines of poetry or measures of music.

It’s nice to know somebody feels you.

Feel me.

…now i shall have to get myself out of this ditch.

How joyfully I would vanish there, sinking deeper and deeper under the rains.”

-Samuel Beckett, Molloy

by Edvard Munch

I am nothing like Beckett’s degenerate old Molloy in physical appearance or situation. I am not clad in rags, limping along with some sucking-stones in my pockets to stave off hunger pangs. I am not wandering alone through bleak and rocky countryside. But his words resonate with me nonetheless. And I have a ditch to get out of, even if I would rather vanish under the rains created in my own chemically-imbalanced mind.

Here’s hoping that keeping this blog will help me to do so, and perhaps encourage some like-minded readers at the same time.

***

I spoke with a bipolar friend the other day, and we were comparing notes on our states and conditions.

“How’s that going?” I asked, meaning his mental illness.

“It has its ups and downs,” he deadpanned.