The Place In The Heart

A poet friend that I highly respect posted a Charles Bukowski poem, alerting her friends on Facebook to the fact that: "it was her favorite Bukowski poem of all time."

Because its title: No Help For That immediately set the tone of the poem for me, I hesitated to tune into the poem, the way one hesitates before stepping off into oncoming traffic at a busy intersection's crosswalk. I knew where the alcoholic Bukowski was going, because I'm familiar with the vacant heart of an addict. I decided: I wasn't going there, not today; not with the restlessness and dissatisfaction, I myself, was already feeling. I waited till the next day to retrieve the poem and read:

There is a place in the heart that

will never be filled

a space

and even during the

best moments

and

the greatest times

times

we will know it

we will know it

more than

ever

there is a place in the heart that

will never be filled

and

we will wait

and wait

in that space.

I've known that kind of emptiness, a feeling that has a way of loitering around inside oneself, for so long, it becomes personified, taking on an uncanny resemblance to self, then clinging to one, much the way a shadow does. My friend's Facebook page blew up with responses! Many liked the poem--giving it a thumbs up, some loved the poem tagging it with the symbol of a heart. ( We live in a sad age where words have lost their power, as modernity prefers to "sign" rather than speak or write.) All were, no doubt, quite familiar with the despair Bukowski wrote of and yet none seemed confident of the means to which they might rid themselves of the inhospitable feeling. It seemed as though they recognized the address of their own untenanted heart, but prefer to keep watch at its threshold, rather than do something about it.

I offered the prescription that none-the-less helped that which ailed me and wrote: "I filled that space with God and He changed my life. For much of the time, I feel better now. And I'm a better person, a better writer... a better poet."

I got a variety of responses to my post, none more telling than this:

"Honestly, pressing religion on people is highly unappealing

and does nothing but reinforce the unpleasant feeling that

if I don't accept your opinion you will only persist. Which

is not the point of this conversation at all. You gain nothing

by quoting the bible to atheists other than driving me to not

want to enter conversation with you at all."

Our atheist friend's response was to my offer of:

"This will work for anyone who honestly gives it a try: 'Do not be anxious about anything, but in every thing, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard you.' (Philippians4:6)"

Always, I am looking for the meaning behind things. I watch how people behave and ask: Why? I interpret dreams. I record parts of conversations in my mind and then replay the sound bites, looking for clues. I study the words people use... holding them up to the light...turning them over and over.

There weren't many clues offered in that thread about the Bukowski poem, because atheists are locked inside the place in the heart that the pseudo- Beat poet laments, and yet it is a kind of self-imprisonment that they relish. And God help anyone who offers them a key.