catching butterflies

for Bukowski

you never got around
to catching those
butterflies you
told your father you were
going to catch
when he asked you
what you were
going to do
when you graduated
high school.

instead you sat
at your typewriter
knocking out
drunken poems
about:
women
booze
horses
and your
father.

maybe now you
have the time to
catch those magnificent
little butterflies.

you’ve earned it.

 

-published in The Bukowski Review #3