
"No Love Deserves The Death It Has"
by DOUG DRAIME
My shoes are off and the hammers
of decision have stopped. I have an
ice cold Corona and I take a long
pull on it and think of Jack Spicer and
the moon tonight, which is an odd
shade of gray. Spicer dying of his
"vocabulary" the same year I spent 3 months
in Nam, not recorded on any of my Army
records, trying so intently not to die ...
like exploding dinosaurs or burning cities.
I was looking to destroy more than
invented ways of dying: "The negative that
cannot happen" and "No love deserves the
death if has." I died one night in a fire fight,
in my mind, as those around me were
dead and maimed. The moon is casting its shadow
over the mountains like blue-green sulfur,
as I sip my beer. And I think of my mind and
Jack Spicer's mind and my callused feet as
I stand here unfolding an AP story given to me
two years ago by a friend at the newspaper
I worked for, about Bukowski dying. Bukowski's gone!
I figured he'd at least make to 95 like his
German grandfather. I walk from my deck and back into
the house, and draw a steaming hot bath and light a Dutch Master
cigar in memory and honor, remembering the haunted
and exhilarating streets of East Hollywood, and my
little house in the back on Winnona Boulevard, Bukowski:
a negative that cannot happen. When I'm done with
my bath, I walk back outside to finish my beer in one
gulp and open another one, not bothering
to hold back the tears.