POEM - THIEVES AND BOOKSTORES

THIEVES AND BOOKSTORES
up the street about a mile
there was one of the big boy bookstores
I spent hours in there each day
reading bukowski, willy vlautin, hunter.
I’d send out my resume
to ten employers in the morning
leave for the bookstore
in the afternoon
it was closer than the library
and better, too
a place to kill the hours
when you wanted to get out of the pity hotel
(which was your friend’s guest bedroom)
but didn’t have money for the bars
good bookstores are like good books
you can disappear in them
find hope or despair
and that’s what I found in those days
hope and despair
because the great authors
whose books I’d pick up and read
were far outnumbered
by the volumes of horseshit
yet the horseshit got published
right there along with the greats
it just confused the hell out of me
so I’d finally leave
when the sky had gotten dark
and out there in the parking lot
the fool thieves wouldn’t believe me
when I told them I didn’t have money
even for their cheap stolen entertainment systems