Mike Leigh Recites Charles Bukowski

some dogs who sleep At night
must dream of bones
and I remember your bones
in flesh
and best
in that dark green dress
and those high-heeled bright
black shoes,
you always cursed when you drank,
your hair coming down you
wanted to explode out of
what was holding you:
rotten memories of a
rotten
past, and
you finally got
out
by dying,
leaving me with the
rotten
present;
you've been dead
28 years
yet I remember you
better than any of
the rest;
you were the only one
who understood
the futility of the
arrangement of
life;
all the others were only
displeased with
trivial segments,
carped
nonsensically about
nonsense;
Jane, you were
killed by
knowing too much.
here's a drink
to your bones
that
this dog
still
dreams about.

Eulogy of a Hell of a Dame, by Charles Bukowski. 

I've written poems like this, where I talk to the dead, for example, In Memory of D., a patient of mine who hung herself.  It's a lengthy poem, and the long section - Her Story - is me speaking to her.  Then, in the next section - Her Valedictory Song - she sings to me.  So it is for the speaker in Bukowski's poem: Even though his love has been long dead, she lives as vividly as ever in his memory, and he speaks to her in tones at once of pathos and of humor.  What a lovely piece indeed.