A History of Madness 3

Her hair was black and her lips were red
and she drank a different beer than I was drinking.

We were at the Mexican restaurant close to my apartment
where Happy Hour started at about one in the afternoon,
and at the table she sat across from me and I looked at her
and she was beautiful
and her boyfriend was there too and he was loudly talking
about something but I was not listening
because I had a tall beer the color of amber, without an orange,
and I could pay for it.

After a little while I had to take a piss so I wordlessly stood
and walked toward the bathroom. 

Before you walked right or left for a door they had these miniature saloon doors,
slatted like window shutters, and I opened them and heard footsteps
so I stood to the side
and then her tongue was in my mouth and she was pushing me against the wall
and before I knew it I could breathe.

I said “Are you trying to get me killed?” and she kissed me again
and my desire was careless so I lifted her off the ground
and her arms were around my neck and she was a flood I could not stop
and I tasted the light beer she was drinking and her lips were red
and then there was a sound

so I put her down and quickly went into the bathroom and locked the door
and said “Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ”
although I never believed in Him
and took a piss and washed my hands and by the time I got to the table
she was sitting there by her boyfriend
so I looked over at Mariano and raised my finger so he would know
that I needed another beer.

A History of Madness 2

The hickory nut fell down as green as the wind isn’t,
taking four dried leaves and another nut (entirely closed) down to closely cut grass.

The leaves fluttered slowly in the air
as if they were dancing
and knew they would never dance again.

The two fallen seeds began a conversation.
The younger was livid and screaming “My mother loves me and you took me from her!”
The other smiled where his skin was beginning to split and said
“My brother, she was always going to drop you.
Perhaps you are too young to fall. Maybe you will rot here on the ground,
Maybe the monsters with long teeth and thick tails will spirit you away
and bury you in a secret place, only to eat you when the world is cold.

But this is how we become a tree someday and many of us die,
and maybe it will be you because I made you fall too early
and for that I am sorry
although you would probably have died anyway.”

The younger thought about this for a moment and suddenly a wizened old man
raked them both up and the four leaves too and put them all on the burnpile.

A History of Madness 1

No one else in the world was breathing and there was no light

and only the sound of a second-hand window air conditioner

or the clang of a furnace turning on or off.

Depersonalization is one of the benefits of solitude as you approach sleep.

Only in the darkness can you forget who you are

and pretend that you will not wake the next day to the tedium of life.

almost you disappear but there is still something left,

the taste of a cigarette

the sound a hat did not make as it fell to the ground

skipping a day like a rock on a lake in the rain

but you will always wake up

and you will never be free

Bukowski no. 20

Eric has been my friend for a long time but I’m not sure if we ever have liked each other much.

“Listen,” he said over the noise from the bar. “I know someone and told her all about you, and she really wants to meet you.”

“First off, the answer is no. Also, what exactly is wrong with her, and why the hell are you always trying to set me up with women?”

He furrowed his eyebrows in concentration and looked at his nearly empty glass of rum. “There’s nothing wrong with her, you’d like her. Never been married, mentions art and all that shit in random conversation all the time, doesn’t believe in God or the Republican Party. Has a job. Reads books.”

He drank the rest of his rum and the ice hit his teeth.

He said “Oh, and I try to set you up with women because every time you drink you damn near cry about how goddamn lonely you are or at least you won’t shut up about it for an hour or two.”

I had just gotten a fresh glass of beer and I stared at it. I could tell you how it looked but it was like every other pint of beer in the world.

I said “Get fucked, man. Sometimes I think you hate them. Not exactly, uh, responsible human behavior. Kinda like telling someone to roll around in poison ivy for a while, you know?”

“Well sue me for trying to do a friend a favor. You should meet her though. You’d like her. Her name is Athena, I’ll give you her number. Hell you have that weekly rant where you say that, how do you phrase it? ‘The aspects of the divine are constantly among us, but we do not notice,’ is that it? You give speeches more than anyone I know, I’m just saying. You can’t pass up someone named for a goddess without giving her a shot.”

I laughed.

“I don’t want a goddess. They’re dangerous. I don’t want any of these good women that you periodically try to condemn to me, either. I had good women before and it didn’t turn out so well for them. I want broken women- drug addict waitresses who make three grand a month and never have money, drunks that fuck fifty men and sixty women a year, the ones with razorblade scars on their thighs and hearts, the ones-”

"Jesus!" he broke in, "Why are you so motherfucking lonely then? You know thirty of those women already."

He shook his head, stood, and walked away to get the attention of the nearest bartender.

I looked at my beer again and softly said

"Yeah, but they all throw their cigarette butts on the ground."

Bukowski no. 19

I knew about all sorts of recent happenings that now held no interest to me.
As a younger man I would have talked all about them to anyone who'd listen-
The flag of the United States had been raised in Havana after decades of tension,
a century-old gold mine in Colorado had spilled its poison and fish were dying,
archaeologists found the gate to the ancient city of Gath where once mighty Goliath grew,
legions of innocents died yearly across the globe to famine and violence-
these were the things I knew.

I didn't know how to make my mother proud of me,
or how to stop reading Hamlet all the goddamn time.

The world will drown you if you let it and sometimes even if you can swim
you will drown anyway because the ocean is a woman and the earth is a woman.
She kills us because she cannot tell the difference between her children
and the demons that destroy her but even if she could tell the difference
there is no guarantee that she would give a damn.

Bukowski no. 18

But I guess that was what life was

you collect blue jay feathers when you can

and the woman you love goes home at night to another man

and you end up knee deep in vodka nearly sleeping

next to a woman you do not love in a recliner and she says

I like to feel your arms around me

don’t let go darling

and you say

I won’t darling don’t worry

I won’t

Bukowski no. 17

In the paper

they said

they were gonna kill two million feral cats

in Australia.

I wonder when they will come for me.