Not a bad idea to reconsider what ‘Reality’ signifies, after a century or more of bonafide Krapola…

_______RS

Notes: A tanka in 5-7-5-7-7. When I felt the inner stirrings to commit to a renaissance of my writing, maybe a dozen years ago, I glanced around and noticed that Charles Bukowsky was receiving considerable acclaim en ce moment. So I figured I should do some selective reading of his stuff. Yuk! It’s not that his observational talents weren’t praiseworthy; it was a matter of what obsessed his attentions. And in the end sculpted his being. The strange thing was what qualified for the laudatory label “realism” then — as now, even moreso. What you see: you become. I knew I would be nothing like this… a kind of anti-Bukowski. One could argue, I suppose, that directly staring into the grunge without sunglasses is a necessary ‘Swedish Bitters’ for the social indigestion that is widespread. But if so, you then need to be able swivel your glance away, else you fall into the Medusa condition. Word!

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