Bukowski no. 33

She came around the corner shuddering and I asked what the matter was. All of her skin that I could see was flushed with the heat of blood and she clenched her jaw a little and said “People are so disgusting!” Half-joking, I asked “Did someone touch you?” She half-laughed then suddenly the revulsion came back into her face and she said “No. It’s just the way that they look at me.” I told her that she was very pretty and that sometimes people cannot help but stare. She shrugged and walked away. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen but never loved. I felt certain that I looked at her the same way that the others did but most times when she felt my eyes on her she’d turn and smile and speak to me. I watched her walk away and she looked damn good even with her hair pulled up. I was glad that I was not in love with her. Beauty is easily muddied by emotions and I preferred her as she appeared in my daydreams. Perhaps her hair turned to serpents in the sunlight. Perhaps she would decide to eat me alive on a bright spring morning. Perhaps I will see her tomorrow. I am not sure if she exists.

Blight

We know from Hesiod that Zeus fashioned mankind for the Age of Bronze out of the ash tree
and that these warlike people lived on until the Flood of Deucalion covered mountains.
In the Year of a Lord 2016,
Chalara and the Emerald Ash Borer may make those sacred trees extinct
or practically so, much as the elms disappeared from Europe decades ago
excepting ten thousand here or there—
though once they were planted atop the graves of heroes and withered only
when they grew tall enough to gaze upon the desolate ruin of Troy,
and there were millions more planted by the breath of the winds
and Ptelea the Hamadryad was not yet the pitiable husk she would become.

She had all the ass that the gods ever gave a woman
but it was a damned shame whenever her mind came out her mouth.
Eavesdropping on her conversations was perilous,
as she would quickly alter the arc of thought from television programs
to the things she genuinely believed about the world.
She was a woman who did not know the meaning of the word “inevitable”
and had opinions that crashed like a tornado through a forest,
but I was often distracted by the rhinestone fleurs-de-lis
fastened onto the back pockets of her jeans so I got along with her well enough
except the day she was singing pop country music loudly
and I spat out the most offensive insult I know,
telling her that she was lucky she was pretty.

It’s a hell of a world where creatures like she or I get to eat and drink and fuck
while the nymphs are quietly dying, all because some asshole a hundred years ago
brought the spores or eggs of poison carelessly across an ocean.

In the country of my birth,
our trees do not have souls.
We have the beetles anyway.

Autobiography no. 9

I was going to write a poem but instead
I knocked a mason jar of water onto my notebook.

Autobiography no. 8

Since I was a boy I was skilled with mathematics.
I was no prodigy but I was capable of factoring certain complex polynomials
or solving chess problems
and my mother would take me to the grocery store with her
because I was faster than a calculator.

Often people have expected me to find success,
reasoning that my talents would lead me to a comfortable life,
but once my love said to me “I am going to have a baby”
and I noticed she did not say “We”
and then I asked when the child would be born
and after that I never wanted to do math again.

Autobiography no. 7

“Why are you here?”
I said.

Two thousand and sixty years ago, Gaius Julius Caesar the Dictator was killed
with knives as he made his way to the floor of the Senate.

I don’t know if she knew or cared about any of that
but it was two in the morning and she kept pouring Scotch into my glass
although her restaurant had been closed for four hours
while we sat on barstools with most of the lights blanked out.

She asked why I was there and I looked at her cheekbones
and the sharp curve of her teeth as she smiled
and I told her I was around because no one had kicked me out yet.

“Why are you here?”
I said.

At certain moments she would breathe sharply as if possessed by an idea
or a windstorm and I thought that I should try to kiss her,
but I waited long enough for her to drive away.

Autobiography no. 6

She was over forty-five but still was sporting
the white-trash red hair dye that you find on teenagers or strippers.
I won’t say that I hated her for that, but it didn’t help matters.

I was throwing pizza dough at this restaurant in Little Rock that failed after six months
and she was always trying to break my balls
and she was as dumb as anyone I ever met only she was louder.

Day after day she kept bothering me and eventually I snapped at her
and she pursed her lips together and said,
“Well, it sounds like somebody needs to get laid.”

I laughed and stood up as tall as I was and squared my shoulders.
I looked down at her and grinned out of the left side of my mouth and said
“Where do you think your daughter was Thursday?”

Autobiography no. 5

I liked the shape of your hips
and the kindness you showed to animals.
I didn’t like the way you dyed your hair
but that was none of my business.

In some ways I have seen you in every woman
but your voice was like none of theirs.
Your vowels were harsh and clipped,
or long like the trail of goosebumps climbing up your back
as I grasped a handful of your hair and pulled your mouth to mine.

I might have fallen in love with you
if I could have believed that you were not real.

Autobiography no. 4

There have been moments when I forget myself
and I seem as human as the face in my mirror,
but just as suddenly the sensation passes
while you pull a plastic clasp from your hair
as if you were releasing the dam on a river.
You are too young for me
but while your hair dances down your shoulders
you are older than the canopy of rainforests,
more ancient and formidable than a statue
carved into the heart of a mountain.

After you were satisfied and I was tired
you asked me if I would write a poem about your body in the lamplight
and I told you that I would, although it was a lie.
Even this is not about you.

Autobiography no. 3

You blinked the hypnotic sting of sleep away,
your eyes the difference between lanterns and torches,
and spoke a sentence you would not remember.
After falling back into a dream your breasts spilled over the blanket
and I watched your soft skin tighten with the cold
for a few long moments
and then I put the blanket over your chest
and went to make myself breakfast. 

Autobiography no. 2

Sayram Lake is the most beautiful lake in the world
and it is nestled near the mountains of Tian Shan
in the conquered land of Mongolia close to the Kazakh border,
where they bow to the flags of Chinese Empire though once they were masters.

It is an enormous lake and the largest by far at such an altitude,
but speaking of its volume or comparative size disguises the beauty of Sayram.

As with every natural formation that fills us with wonder and awe,
stories have long been told of Sayram.

It is said that once the lake was a vast dry chasm cut deep into a valley beneath the peaks.
A young woman of surpassing loveliness and virtue loved a young man of her village
and with the logic of myth he loved her in return,
but a Devil stole the young woman away and imprisoned her in a cottage in the mountains.
She managed to escape and when she felt the Devil coming close behind her
with his breath blistering her neck and his hands close to grasping her hair
she wept and leapt into the open maw of the earth and fell upon the rocks
and afterward for agonizing days her mortal lover searched for her
until he found her footprints and gazed down to see her body floating upon her tears
and his bitter pain cried out and was added to hers
as he stepped to his death to fall to his rest beside her
and today the waters of Sayram are a monument to their despair and loss.

Autobiography no. 1

I was constantly playing games with language and history.
I knew that the people I spoke with did not understand,
so I would make dozens of references to Ovid in a night
and watch them blink away confusion so many times.

It is not exactly that I was contemptuous of them,
although I held them in slight regard.
In truth I do not know why my life was as it was.
Certainly I resented anyone who was friendly to me
and suspected them to be either idiotic or untrustworthy.

While I slept I was the only one alive
but each morning robbed me of that purity
and forced me to conjure up the world anew.

I was conscious that I was constantly creating reality,
that although it was convenient that I should encounter a woman
who looked liked Titian was painting her as she moved through her day
I must acknowledge the obvious artificiality of her existence.

There was a time when I thought she was what I had been searching for,
but she never displayed cruelty or fits of anger or wanton disregard
and because she had no flaws I knew that she could not be the Muse.

Bukowski no. 32

The moon was the size of my narcissism
and that would have impressed me a little,
but I knew the moon would go away if I waited.

I ate fish yesterday and I drank some black coffee.
I fell in love with a woman again and I did not mean to do this,
but that is the deal you make when you stare at Artemis.