Bukowski no. 43

Eventually my brain is going to beat me.
Could be twenty years from now
(won't be tonight)
but time is on its side
and it only has to triumph once.
When it happens
I hope people have the decency
to not act surprised.

Anywhere I Lay My Head

My lungs scream that I demand too much,
my muscles burn,
my feet blister from the relentless strain,
but I dare not slow.
He is there behind me,
his breath hot on my neck.
I can hear him
(often he is all I can hear)
but I tell myself that I am not afraid of him
because I am an animal that knows how to run,
and from time to time I taunt him by looking over my shoulder.

But see the moon catch in his red eyes!
See the yellowed teeth smiling at me!
See the slavering mouth that claimed me long ago!


The clouds before me break and I glimpse the future-
I stumble on some pebble I did not think to fear,
my feet slip and fail
and before I can rise
he is upon me and I remember his name.

In the morning
there will be no beast that remains,
nor a sign that ever there was such a thing.
The crows will circle what is left of me
and no one will believe that I tried as hard as I could.

Autobiography no. 29

I can remember it like it was yesterday.
We were standing in the kitchen of our apartment there on 9th Street
and she was deeply frustrated and she said, her voice and body shaking,
“You have depression.”
I argued the point with her at great length,
because I believed
that I had a personality.
So many years have passed since then
and I am still not sure
if either of us were right.

Bukowski no. 42

When they tell me that there other fish in the sea
I notice
that they have not asked
if I am fish or fisherman,
and then I see a glint of light and bite.

Bukowski no. 41

If I think
about asking a woman out
for coffee or on a hike
or to fly a kite or to invade Poland
instead
I sit down with a pen
because writing
is a faster way
to disappoint myself

and them

Moebius

My break could have been two hours long but
I had forty-five minutes and the sun
Was shining, as is its ancient custom,
And I was driving slow with windows down
And my left wrist twisting in the warm air
With cheap speakers blaring out Morrissey,
And for the first time in my whole damn life
I thought, “I am going to be okay.”
I suppose it does not really matter.
You can wait too long to be a good man.
I did.

Carmen 55

True, any moon would be a harsh mistress
But some worlds have two or three satellites
While mine has only one moon to obey.
Luna dominates the starlight, then wanes,
Her silver hands heavy upon the tide
Of an ocean that I no longer see.
She has grown deaf to the music of my prayers.