it was raining

which was apt
for the bleak conversation
when he walked in it was near close

i gave him a dirty look before recognizing him
and making fun of his hat
fucking everyone has a fancy hat these days
tall men in hats in the rain
like the 40s
anyway he had his usual air of entitlement
but you could see
even in the candlelight
something had turned his skin red
you could tell he had been picking at it
scratches that crossed my mind
like a shadow of a junky

he still talks like a proper Californian knowitall
for some reason his attitude makes me try to impress him
like when we were kids
so i set him a flight
of amber to brown to deep dark sips in polished cups

he wants to go drink wine when im off
so we can further battle for the better tongue
at least that's what i thought

i realize im not listening to him
and he's saying "I almost 5150'd myself."
i really look at his face now
he is frantic
and manic
he's crying

he was going to drive his car off a cliff
guilty that anyone ever has to deal with his bullshit
worried that the whole world was a cage full of rats
tired of lying to himself

he kept driving through red lights
and trying to hit the pipe at the same time

maybe the problem is multi tasking
i try to make him laugh

after an hour
we find a bar still open at 130am
the bartender takes shots with us
he's a peach

when we leave
he immediately begins to cry again
nothing in his life is as good as that conversation with the bartender
im close to home when he decides jack n' the box tacos are the answer to all life's problems
i agree

he's speeding and almost misses the turn
yelling at me for being skittish
begins crying again
i'm sorry i'm sorry
over and over

don't tell me you're sorry
i'ma get you some tacos
so i do
while i wait i watch him pace around the car in the parking lot

when i jump back in the car he drives off
eating the tacos at the same time
he tells me he wants to sleep in his car
he knows a place he wants to wake up by the conservatory of flowers
he wants to listen to the rain on the tin roof

i kiss him goodbye
he cackles through the passenger window as i try to find the right key
he drives away when my heavy door slams shut
it didn't stop raining for three days

then i remember the last thing he said

go write about this

god damn narcissist

The Object Of Affection

that old flurry of passion
it strange when you don't miss it
but you know it when you see it
wanting
coveting
what you can't
or shouldn't
shouldn't
I couldn't
could I
Have

needing
yearning
          god what an ugly word
filthy
   to yearn
but it is       accurate

calculated

like
 a snake
that needs the sun
bakes itself like a hot cinnamon bun

then count down
ten
to
one
ten
to
two

let the body cool

To The Whore Who Took My Poems

some say we should keep personal remorse from the
poem,
stay abstract, and there is some reason in this,
but jezus;
twelve poems gone and I don't keep carbons and you have
my
paintings too, my best ones; its stifling:
are you trying to crush me out like the rest of them?
why didn't you take my money? they usually do
from the sleeping drunken pants sick in the corner.
next time take my left arm or a fifty
but not my poems:
I'm not Shakespeare
but sometime simply
there won't be any more, abstract or otherwise;
there'll always be mony and whores and drunkards
down to the last bomb,
but as God said,
crossing his legs,
I see where I have made plenty of poets
but not so very much
poetry.

Charles Bukowski

Everything you wish was true is true

But my wishes are lonely
i'm always letting go of the raft
and hoping it makes it to shore
my body bloated and sun bleached
follows
because my dreams don't have me making it
my dreams are for survivor's
for civilians
for the hopefull, selfish and stupid.
i wish on that star
falling fast and far
but the dark matter
takes the sunshine
and follows like a moth
my dreaming
a clean white cotton dress
life making dark
well lived
in others hopes
in hand me downs
in pushing to pull up
in the out

Another Bukowski kind of day...

:Art can’t operate in Crowds. Art does not belong at parties, nor does it belong at Inauguration Speeches.” —letter to Jon Webb, 1962, in Screams from the Balcony, Black Sparrow Press, 1993

i guess being a writer in LA makes it this way...

Modern Romance

She drinks and reads Bukowski.
Rinse and repeat
looking for a filthy poet
looking for a man with balls
to see you
for who you are
and love you anyway

she drinks more

once she had a dream
then she had it again
and again
she was twelve or thirteen
her bedroom was bared
the nazis were ready to bake her
then
there he was
setting her free
she was free from the moment she saw him
they never got away
they always got caught at the train station
because there was no where else to go
no one else who would help

such is life

she drinks more
till the words blur
she's a Bukowski dream
sprawling across the city
killing the country

are you a poem or a poet
are you a poem or a poet
her brain asks itself
so many times
her lips begin to move
till she's screaming it

the couple next door save her
banging on their shared wall
they have a baby

The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)