Who Is Dostoevsky
(response poem to Dostoevsky by Charles Bukowski)
by Sasha Rabich
Why do we care
That some man is on the firing line,
That some novel is stoking an ever growing flame
This “Grand Inquisitor” “Humiliated and Insulted”
by his “Crime and Punishment” for sending “Notes from the Underground”
There is no subject so old
that something new cannot be said about it.
Yet fools try to move on
as if all on the matter
has been said a dozen times already.
His writing affecting some
but not the some that matter
There are billions who have
never read his work
nor will they ever.
Making the effects widespread
but ever thinning
like the effects of a drop of dew
hitting an ocean
a circle of influence reaching far
but the farther it goes
the weaker it becomes
and never able to reach
the entirety of its ocean.
And only that ocean
Can wash away the mistakes
of` the authors and fools alike.
That some man is on the firing line,
That some novel is stoking an ever growing flame
This “Grand Inquisitor” “Humiliated and Insulted”
by his “Crime and Punishment” for sending “Notes from the Underground”
There is no subject so old
that something new cannot be said about it.
Yet fools try to move on
as if all on the matter
has been said a dozen times already.
His writing affecting some
but not the some that matter
There are billions who have
never read his work
nor will they ever.
Making the effects widespread
but ever thinning
like the effects of a drop of dew
hitting an ocean
a circle of influence reaching far
but the farther it goes
the weaker it becomes
and never able to reach
the entirety of its ocean.
And only that ocean
Can wash away the mistakes
of` the authors and fools alike.
