The results are in and the first winner of our poetry giveaway is….drum roll please…..Becky L.! Her favorite poem is Nirvana by Charles Bukowski, which you can find in the collections The Last Night of the Earth (Ecco, 2002) and Run With the Hunted (Ecco, 1994.) Becky, please get in touch with us via online@bookpeople.com to let us know how we can deliver your prize – the poem X-Ray by poet David Hickey, printed on some kind of crazy cool plastic paper made to look like an actual X-ray.
For those of you who did not win, hold out hope! We’ll be pulling another winning name out of the hat tomorrow and also on Friday. Friday’s winner will receive the grand prize – the broadside signed by Billy Collins.
And now, here’s Nirvana by Charles Bukowski, as read by Tom Waits.
Nirvana
not much chance,
completely cut loose from
purpose,
he was a young man
riding a bus
through North Carolina
on the wat to somewhere
and it began to snow
and the bus stopped
at a little cafe
in the hills
and the passengers
entered.
he sat at the counter
with the others,
he ordered and the
food arived.
the meal was
particularly
good
and the
coffee.
the waitress was
unlike the women
he had
known.
she was unaffected,
there was a natural
humor which came
from her.
the fry cook said
crazy things.
the dishwasher.
in back,
laughed, a good
clean
pleasant
laugh.
the young man watched
the snow through the
windows.
he wanted to stay
in that cafe
forever.
the curious feeling
swam through him
that everything
was
beautiful
there,
that it would always
stay beautiful
there.
then the bus driver
told the passengers
that it was time
to board.
the young man
thought, I’ll just sit
here, I’ll just stay
here.
but then
he rose and followed
the others into the
bus.
he found his seat
and looked at the cafe
through the bus
window.
then the bus moved
off, down a curve,
downward, out of
the hills.
the young man
looked straight
foreward.
he heard the other
passengers
speaking
of other things,
or they were
reading
or
attempting to
sleep.
they had not
noticed
the
magic.
the young man
put his head to
one side,
closed his
eyes,
pretended to
sleep.
there was nothing
else to do-
just to listen to the
sound of the
engine,
the sound of the
tires
in the
snow.
BookPeople 