A place in the heart

A poet friend that I  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.' (Phillipians4:6)"

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 describes; it is a kind of self-imprisonment that they relish.  And God help anyone who offers them a key.