(content warning) The Bukowski tapes

[billy]

in the background they’re always laughing.
whenever he belches, or swears,
or misses a line and rambles,
waves of macho hooting roll
over the microphone, drowning the wasted hermit.

he recovers and continues, unfazed,
though it must annoy him, these dickheads
who come to see a poet crumble,
use naughty language and drink, naughty feels week considering the person
like children poking the homeless with sticks,
then running away when they stir beneath
their bundle of sodden cardboard.

“death”, “piss and shit”, “old times” and “law” much more like the man
reduced to third-rate comic bits.
sometimes they laugh when something’s funny.
mostly they think it’s hilarious when
he pauses to swig from his beer.
'what a rebel!', 'how rad!', etcetera.

ah well. he only did it for the drink anyway.
we survive how we can.
indignation is a rich man's pursuit,
and finally for those left alive.

my one nit is in the body, my real problem with this is the last verse. for me it's out of sync with bukowski the man and the poet. he didn't give a toss what we/anyone thought, at least not openly. he was more of a 'fuck you' kind of guy.
i think you got the audience spot on. many saw him as a spectacle. many from what i heard openly jeered and mocked him. that said many loved him and his attitude, seeing the poetry, the real poetry in the man. i was neither one of the first or the latter, though as i read some of his work i see it has a lot of quality and insight within it.

for me i think you cut the last verse and add two or three more that really show us the man/poets side of his act. make it as gritty as he was. (using your POV of course.) i think you have a decent poem here jack but i also think if you work on it you could have a publishable homage to the man poem.

thanks for the read.

i deleted the duplicate (if you want it back i can replace it