A certain ugliness

Ive been scribbling a few poems over the weekend, inspired by the raw poems of Charles Bukowski. Inspired, not because of any genius with words, or even the grotesque nature of them at times ( thats there of course) but the very mundane nature of his subject matter, drawn straight from his life. so... here goes...


The girls
with their perfect lips
and high cheeks
were some kind of art I
didnt presume to be able to aquire
But merely look at in the museums
of cafe strips and the megaplex
But to my shock one of them, or maybe two
seemed interested in me.
And so I found myself at the high school formal
with my secret ugliness and a stuck up bitch
She didnt like me for very long
but she had already asked me to the formal (funeral?)
So I had to go
coming down the stairs with a girl from
one of the most prestigious private girls schools in the North West
and not six months before I had been hitchhiking somewhere
in the middle of the Eyre Peninsula crying my eyes out
And hearing God by the side of the road

And now Im a man
in my shoes that trudged through the mud
of Thailand and kept my feet dry
while I took photos of AIDS victims and walked
the alleyways of bangkok slums
But theres no raw sewage outside the video shop
Middle class girls dont beg
their tracksuit ensembles
with their beautiful men
their dogs and coffee
and noodle box laksas are all grown up
and High school formals just a photo in a long line
of predictable milestones

a step away from malnutrition
a step away from sex
a step away from love
Death
with a certain ugliness
that is not really present in my face
but will stain us both black and red