love is a dog from hell

can't stop.


feet of cheese
coffeepot soul
hands that hate poolsticks
eyes like paperclips
I prefer red wine
I am bored on airliners
I am docile during earthquakes
I am sleepy at funerals
I puke at parades
and am sacrificial at chess
and cunt and caring
I smell urine in churches
I can no longer read
I can no longer sleep.

eyes like paperclips
my green eyes
I prefer white wine

my box of rubbers is getting
stale
I take them out
Trojan-Enz
lubricated
for greater sensitivity
I take them out
and put three of them on

the walls on my bedroom are blue

Linda where did you go?
Katherine where did you go?
(and Nina went to England)

I have toenail clippers
and Windex glass cleaner

green eyes
blue bedroom
bright machinegun sun

this whole thing is like a seal
caught on oily rocks
and circled by the Long Beach Marching Band
at 3:36 p.m.

there is a ticking behind me
but no clock
I feel something crawling along
the left side of my nose:
memories of airliners

my mother had false teeth
my father had false teeth
and every Saturday of their lives
they took up all the rugs in their house
waxed the hardwood floors
and covered them with rugs again

and Nina is in England
and Irene is on ATD
and I take my green eyes
and lay down in my blue bedroom.

alone with everybody

(bukowski)

the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.

nobody ever finds
the one.

the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills.

charming man.

the crunch -bukowski



too much too little

too fat
too thin
or nobody.

laughter or
tears

haters
lovers

strangers with faces like
the backs of
thumb tacks

armies running through
streets of blood
waving winebottles
bayoneting and fucking
virgins.

an old guy in a cheap room
with a photograph of M. Monroe.

there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in the slow movement of
the hands of a clock

people so tired
mutilated
either by love or no love.

people just are not good to each other
one on one.

the rich are not good to the rich
the poor are not good to the poor.

we are afraid.

our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big-ass winners

it hasn't told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.

or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone

untouched
unspoken to

watering a plant.

people are not good to each other.
people are not good to each other.
people are not good to each other.

I suppose they never will be.
I don't ask them to be.

but sometimes I think about
it.

the beads will swing
the clouds will cloud
and the killer will behead the child
like taking a bite out of an ice cream cone.

too much
too little

too fat
too thin
or nobody

more haters than lovers.

people are not good to each other.
perhaps if they were
our deaths would not be so sad.

meanwhile I look at young girls
stems
flowers of chance.

there must be a way.

surely there must be a way that we have not yet
though of.

who put this brain inside of me?

it cries
it demands
it says that there is a chance.

it will not say
"no."