with the rains
the desires to
and images
of war
washed out

great floods
swept away
what little we
have allowed
to remain

in those last
torrents
our reckoning
our breathing
now belabored

took on an
enormity as
of mammoth
beasts doggedly
bleating

beneath the
crude cairn
to the cruel
and sorrowful
sun

in a
darkened
parking lot

sitting under
a street
lamp

with aloneness
on top of
everything

waiting for
someone
or death

and i think
of those i
haven't seen

in a long time
"you still
into bukowski?"

they'd ask
and i'd tell
them, "yes."

feeling
unchanged,
unmoved, stale.

clanking souls
walk by
with their

heads full of
living, getting
on with it.

and i'm sitting,
watching. it all
slides past

and loneliness
bears down.
and my tiny

heart clacks
and clicks
out little dreams.

days bear down.
a tiny thin hope

snaps in the wind,
its end is silent
and deafening.

how can i tell
you it won't change,
not a thing?

this has since
become of no
importance,

now an everyday,
mundane occurrence
and i'd love to help you.

but i know i can't
and you know i can't,
the vapor of this thin

night knows it too.
it is my lack
of will and skill.

too many voids,
where is beauty tonight?
when is it?

as the wheels pull
away from the curb
grand attempts

will be made
to forget it,
to let it slip away.

driving into and
through the mountains

for weeks meandering
on this road or that.

you crest the hill in the
dusted, distant sunlight

ahead the road looks like a
piece of string laid out in the dirt

in the bottom of that valley a storm
cutting a mountain at the base.

the day feels as empty as the world
no one and nothing else around

you descend into it
the storm, that string and you

knowing that down there
it's going to get bad.

my chest heaves
i awake and
can't move
can't see
i feel almost
nothing, just
the tug of
the anchor
holding me
under.

gently swaying
my guts churn
my head lolls
i can feel
my eyes swell
with fatigue.

the walls grin
bare their teeth.
each sound is
thunderous,
maddening.

these pills,
they scrape
the inside
of my head
they boil
the blood
around my brain
they fill my
eyelids with

molten lead

and sand.