Bukowski
king of
the bar flys
master
handi-
capper
at Santa
Anita race
track –
freak show -
lover of
women
classical
music
on his
death
bed
watching
talk shows
sumo
I don't care what
the map says-
the shortest line
between two points
is not always the
most direct or quickest
way to get someplace-
I speak from experience-
The Cross Bronx Exressway
is the original Highway
to Hell-you know like
that hotel you can check
into but never leave-
you can get there but
never off that highway-
people have died in their
cars-asphyxiated by fumes-
run out of gas & been
bumped along by the stop
& go traffic for like days-
weeks even before they
were found surrounded by
irate motorists in bad
need of attitude adjustments
blowing their horns to
beat the band-you don't
have to believe me but
you'd better be prepared
to face the consequences
once you made that hard
right into the twilight zone
"Where I come from the radio plays 25 hours a day"
with apologies to henry rollins
After a lifetime of hard
drinking his red eyes
looked like twin suns
of a far away world setting
into a dead place of sodden,
fetid swamp and noxious air.
The music of the careening
spheres inside him was
a living, breathing auditory
rap like a disco inferno
hallucination stuck in an
endless repetitive groove
no maount of alcohol could
drown out or subdue.
What he needed no bar
could provide, he was so far
beyond provision now the chorus
of voices trapped inisde him,
crying out for help were like
the places between radio stations
where nothing recognizable
can ever be heard.
Statue
He was
as stone
cold as
a statue
in an
early
morning
rain
Was laid
out in a
puddle
of beer
and broken
glass
on the
barroom
floor
Was
staring
up at me
with his
hard round
unblinking
eyes
Super Nova Fliers
They looked as
if they drank
naplam, laying
down fire and
death in the
morning wherever
they went.
By noon, it
was a vast quantity
of beer, the heat
still crackling
in their heads.
A Conversation with death
"Sure I served him,
he didn't put a handgun
on the bar with his
twenty dollar bills.
Sure he was drunk,
wasted, where the hell
was he going at 3:30
in the morning,
not driving that
one more tap beer
was going to hurt?
Sure, it was him, no
doubt about it, I
tossed him out before
he could drain a glass,
who needs a howling
maniac at last call?
Sure, we had words.
I'm used to that &
so was he. If he had
the gun on him then
maybe I'd be dead
instead of the other one
& he'd be talking to you
instead. How do I feel?
I feel lucky.
Would I serve him again?
Probably. It gets pretty
strange after 3 AM on the street
when there's no one around
but the living dead.
Some day it might be you
but I'm betting you
won't be pushing a service
revolver in my face
but looking at you now,
I could be wrong."
An Exaltation of Larks
She felt the way
Tippi Hendren's character
must have felt-trapped
in an outdoor phone booth-
dialing a 911 emergency
call to nowhere-
surrounded by an attack
of birds-their hard driven
beaks pecking at a shatter
of glass-broken pieces
propelled by a force of flocks
draws blood-the natural order
of things out of balance-
totally askew-no help forth
coming-no relief-not even
a sudden end to avian hostility
feels real-their pecking all about
the booth feels like a false
calming at the eye of storm-
like the sea gulls floating on
a flat plate of mirror glass sea
before Moby Dick rises for
the third and final time-
outside her isolation booth-
in this scene of devastation
playground a murder of crows
is gathering.
