Usually when I post I have something specific to say. Today? Not so much. I simply haven't written in a while because I've been a bit distracted (by you know, life?) but if I don't write something I just might explode so here we are ...

It's been raining heavily for over a week here in Atlanta. It's just miserable all over the area. The airport is experiencing constant delays, the interstates are backed up, messed up, and wrecked up. School districts are closed or closing throughout the day, entire neighborhoods are cut off because of flooding and people are being evacuated - and in some cases rescued - from their homes and apartment complexes. Many areas are under a 'boil water advisory'. Roads are being flooded and washed away, and in some area older bridges are collapsing because the water has washed away and crumbled the foundations. So far six people, including a two year old child, have lost their lives and several more are missing. It's just horrible. We've gone from drought conditions in the past year to now this. The weather forecasters are telling us we have at least day or two more of this on the way. I live on what used be a horse farm, and the front of our property is about three acres of pasture.  Right now it's about three acres of mush and grass with a rutty, muddy gravel driveway that's barely passable.  You've heard people say "if this keeps up we'll be building an ark"?, well maybe they were joking but we've had 12" of rain in the past 24 hours so I'm seriously considering looking into that gopher wood investment. (By the way, does anyone know what a cubit is?)

I spent some time this weekend with a friend who I think is beautiful and incredibly talented. She doesn't agree at all that she's beautiful. She doubts her talent but I could probably get more agreement out of her there than about her beauty. I wish she could see, for just a moment, through my eyes or any of her other friend’s eyes the way we see her: as a wonderfully giving, open person who is warm and funny and full of imagination and creativity; a beautiful spirit who has lived a life of amazing experiences and met interesting people and can weave intriguing stories about all those things into her writing because she IS a terrific writer. I wish that for her. She needs that in her life.

I discovered a poet yesterday that I’d never read; I’ve fallen in literary love with Charles Bukowski. Why hasn’t anyone told me about him? How could my friends keep him a secret from me? There I was, innocently browsing about the poetry section of Barnes & Noble when the title of a book grabbed by attention. The Pleasures of the Damned. Now there’s a title, eh? When I opened the book I was immediately entranced. I found a chair and couldn’t stop reading - couldn’t stop absolutely devouring - Bukowski’s words. His is not the style of poetry I write but I don’t care. He takes me totally by surprise in his candor and richness. Bukowski doesn’t just tell a story with his poetry he brings you into the character of every line. Am I gushing? I’m gushing. I told you, I’m in love.

Here’s one of his poems, fittingly enough about the poem itself.

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.