Peter A. Witt
The day I met Bukowski at a no name bar
Bar was beat up, like an aging prize fighter,
its booths like over-used shoes that’d lost their soles,
where sat a shabby man who drank dark swill
talked of whores like they were his best friends,
along with people with faces etched like
worn stone carvings, who like me rented
cheap hotel rooms at the dive next door.
Shabby bought me a couple of watery beers,
complimented the gravy stains
on my never-washed shirt, leaned close
whispered hot stale breath like
a stagnant puddle in my ear,
be sure to grovel with strangers, he said,
especially those with raggedy undergarments,
they’re earth’s hidden secrets,
as he saluted the barkeep with his middle finger
and sauntered out the door.
Other work by Peter A. Witt