Bukowski no. 9

Things changed a little I suppose.

I moved to New York. The time zone is different.

The cigarettes are more expensive but I still don’t smoke them.

I’ve got the collected fiction of Franz Kafka bound in black paper

sitting overtop the bathroom cupboard-and-mirror

and let me tell you

every time someone takes a shower, the book dies a little more-

the moisture slides up the spine.

I didn’t write much lately and I guess I’m supposed to care about it.

Really there was nothing going on. The earth went around the sun.

This woman I worked with, she had a boyfriend die

in a car accident with her, it sounded romantic.

Marquez fucking died.

When he went into the hospital I said it was impossible,

but he is dead. What do I care about her dead boyfriend?
I would trade a million dead men for another Marquez.

Hell I don’t know what to say about anything.

Mobbs I read your poem the other day and I liked it

but like I said

lately I’ve been reading a lot of Kafka.