About Poetry....Boneparte's Retreat

The sun is shining and the morning air floats

Past my legs with cold, but waking intentions

I’ve discovered Charles Bukowski and it’s opened my mind and passion

For learning again

Who would have thought?  It’s been a while since I actually sat down and read

“Bonaparte’s Retreat” - one of Bukowski’s poems

Made me sad and I cried.  Words can do that

“you can explore the trappings of your own mind personified through the words of another.”

From someone online, somewhere

I found that especially capturing because it is true

I can feel Bukowski’s intent through his words

Fred was a lonely man who sat at the bar

Everyday and drank and drank and slept then repeated

Everyday he put the song on the jukebox: Bonaparte’s Retreat

Over and over and over

And the patrons grew tired of it - they heard it so often

With no context…

If there were context would it be ok on repeat?

I wonder; did Fred lose a woman; a friend; a dog; a life; a child

Who was Fred before?

What lead him to the lonely barstool with the flowing beer

I looked up the song, Bonaparte’s Retreat and listened to the song

And read it twice more as I listened to the folky violins and banjo pickin

I'm not sure if I listened to the right song, but I liked it

I imagine a skinny man home from the coal mine

Standing on the porch with suspenders and dirty white t-shirt

A straw hat and moonshine bottle with xxx on it

In hand staring blankly at me as I pass

Listening to the song himself

Fred died alone with no one to talk to

In the poem, after he died, Bukowski

Wanted to hear the song again but

Instead the bar tender violently took out the record

From the Jukebox

And said

“It was his song”

But I listened to it on my phone

All morning