The Polish Hammer Poetry Corner
The Polish Hammer Strikes Again
I’ve been doing this for a long time. Writing, that is, with the intention of allowing any number of unknown people to judge me by the bullshit I put down on paper. I started getting my poetry and stories published in the early nineties, right around the time Bukowski looked at his last cat’s ass. I probably didn’t know what I was doing. Not really. I’m sure there were moments when a rudimentary rhyming scheme still managed to surface in my poems. Some of the poetry still clung to a lyrical quality due to my Jim Morrison hero worship. Those poems have long since flamed up in a backyard inferno, the smoke travelling back to the squirrelly, cross-eyed Polack muses from which they originated. I’d like to say I’ve learned something about the craft since then. I suspect I haven’t. I no longer dabble in rhyme, and even that I can’t say with perfect honesty since I do occasionally compose rhymes I spit in epic, back alley, rap battles I engage with my nemesis, Lithuanian Bob MC.
I write all this, I suppose, as a way of introduction to readers who do not know me and as a reintroduction to those who might remember me from my days writing the column “Observations of a Dumb Polack” for Brian Fugett’s Zygote in my Coffee. This is going back, shit… fifteen years at least, an entire Marvel Universe worth of movies ago. I remember starting that column with good intentions. Those were heady days as I recall. I was in my early to mid-thirties, full of piss and vinegar and sperm, but mostly full of myself. I was so convinced of my talent, the inevitability of my eventual success, that I didn’t bother to improve. In the end, I could barely be bothered to write anything more inspiring than fan fiction to myself. And even that devolved into diatribes and ad hominem attacks against literary peers. None of it came from a place of anger, really, just a source of savage amusement.
Some may say I was being a dick for the sake of being a dick. Who am I to argue that?
Around the time Zygote in my Coffee disappeared from the internet, I stopped writing. Somewhere along the line, the lyrical poetry of my youth transformed into the confessional writing of my middle age. Confessional writing is all well and good until the kids get old enough to Google. Then it gets uncomfortable. My first wife died in 2013. We were estranged at the end, and she went to the grave believing my opinions of her character were defined by everything I wrote. None of it flattering as anyone who can operate a search engine will tell you.
That’s enough to give one pause the next time he sits down to write bitchy poems about not getting his Hamburger Helper in a timely manner.
So, I just stopped. For the better part of ten years, I wrote nothing much at all. I can’t say I missed it. I stopped writing the way I stopped believing in God. One day, it’s there, the next day it’s gone, and I didn’t put much thought into it unless someone mentioned it.
I certainly caught up on a lot of television. I applied myself more at the job, something I didn’t know much about despite fifteen years of employment (I’m pretty sure it involved hydraulic cylinders). The weird thing is, I still compulsively bought fancy pens and expensive Moleskine notebooks which I hoarded in a big cardboard box.
Two years ago, I started writing again. No preamble. No plan. I came home from work one day in March of 2023 and began writing a story about my wife’s houseplant becoming sentient and attacking me for no good reason. I haven’t put the pen down much since that afternoon. I still don’t think I’ve learned much about the art, but I like to think my motivation is much purer. I don’t write to convince you how groovy I am (just trust me that I am). I want to tell you a story. For your edification. For my amusement. If you independently come to the conclusion that I’m a groovy cat. Great. If not, no worries. It’s not like I’m going to write a column questioning your sexuality, your mom’s loose morals, or your literary integrity. I’m almost beyond that sort of petty bullshit.
So, now, thanks to Michele, I’m back in the column writing business, what’s my next column going to be about? What’s any of this about? I don’t know, I’ll tell you when I write it. In the meantime, I’m going to sit here in my room, surrounded by shelves of books, mounds of horror collectibles, and some original Clive Barker artwork framed and affixed to the wall overlooking this pad of paper as I listen to The Builders and the Butchers gold album revolving on the record player and I’m going to enjoy this moment, having written these words, content knowing I’ll write again. And whether it’s literary fame or machine shop obscurity that awaits me. It matters not at all.
Karl Koweski is a displaced Region Rat now living in rural Alabama. He writes when his pen allows it. He’s a husband to a lovely wife and father to some fantastic kids. He collects pop culture ephemera. On most days he prefers Flash Gordon to Luke Skywalker and Neil Diamond to Elvis Presley.
THE POLISH HAMMER POETRY CORNER is a weekly column, posted each Tuesday morning.
