This has been a month for re-reads. Today, I finished reading Charles Bukowski’s The Continual Condition, a posthumous collection of his unpublished poetry. I love Buk’s poetic voice. Here is a poem entitled “This Kind of Fire.”

This Kind of Fire

sometimes I think the gods
deliberately keep pushing me
into the fire
just to hear me
yelp
a few good
lines.

they just aren’t going to
let me retire
silk scarf about neck
giving lectures at
Yale.

the gods need me to 
entertain them.

they must be terribly
bored with all
the others

and I am too.

and now my cigarette lighter
has gone dry.
I sit here
hopelessly 
flicking it.

this kind of fire
they can’t give
me.