everything
tightens
around my
spine
with a
foul
taste
nothing
stands
as decent
or good
i'm
watching
the hours
thin
and turn
to broken
arrows

memory is the
undying
companion
of grief

pumping through
the night
even the air is
wearing scant

decades later
you'll love this
all the thin
slender nights

when you wished
the bones had
more meat on them
but were glad

that they didn't
it is clear now
the necessity
of every thorn

now
i'm on my back
sentimentality
standing on
my chest

it's beginning
to stomp and
all my soft
innards
burst

my blood backs up
my brain drowns
in it
my eyes swell
with it

my vision
fractures

down this
corridor
i've traveled often
but never quite
like this


and this might
be the moment
that i
don't make it
through

the rag
in the basin
looks like
a headless bird
plucked of
its feathers
and deflated
the disappointment
comes in waves
alternating
into desperation
and inert
dejection
this might
very well be
all that you
were allowed
to manifest
which today
feels like
a short coming
like not much
at all

when he saw the white bird fly
his child,
that would soon end up like him,
stole two golden coins from
his dead eyes

he was lost within four years
after his wife died
he often stank of ashes
he stole fortunes,
hid them beneath the stairs

i heard his gypsy song yowl
through the predawn,
his ghost came like a blur,
smearing the night
flapping wings and feathers
against the storm

a cold word
written by
a cold hand
the sun
is ablaze
washing out
the sky
stripping off
its azure

she stood
next to him
putting her
arm around him
a chill
like an
ice pick
shot through
his limbs

he wished
to be
satisfied
instantly
even though
it would
mean his soul
not a word
was uttered
as she did
his bidding

him lying
on his back
muscles tight
with pleasure
sneaking peaks
at pink
marvels
and red hot
daydreams

a multitude
of tasks

perhaps it
would have

been worthwhile
to pay

attention to
the flow.

there is
courage

in the
morning sun

yet it
is still

not enough
to remove

the numbing
void.

there it is,
the television,

what little
peace was

mustered, now
is gone.

the lighters
click

the percolator
hisses and

gurgles and
drips.

i try
not to

vomit.

a hell of
a morning.

... and when
it happened
all that
was left
were bits
of bone

scattered

pure and
sterile
cleaned of
meat
like the
first snows
of winter

he collected
all of
them and
somehow
felt redeemed

i guess you just
had to be there

where the music
made you want to
just drive

glancing into blurred
reflections on other cars

never wanting to go home
dreaming of all those
other distant roads

never thinking of
going home

only pining to
be lost in the asphalt
and doubled yellow lines

she knelt
and understood
that she
has yet
to own
a thought
deeper than
she is.

she'll have
to fight
or go
numb.
she read
the first
one and
wished
herself numb.

but she
wrote this
other one
and stayed
to fight.

to forget
everything
in her
vicinity would
only serve
to release
the soul.

watching distant
memories hold
on to
the air,
she feels
the marrow
rot and
the fungus
spread.

go ahead
and set
something
free.
she thought.

as it all, was put together
with dirt and rust
and all of the other
things that would hurt

it bled from the sky
to wash away
the burdens
of him and her.

his father grasped
the book firmly
and declared, i'll read it
and put it to memory.

so he only stared and
felt his heart sink
knowing that
what was written

would not nor could
not compare
because the words
on pages previous to this

are blemishes
ugly and trite
and if it did any good
he still had no will

to fight.

i know
that one day

my heart
will stop

exhausted and
hollowed out.

i will welcome
the peace and rest

i will shed
my regrets

like a worn
leathered skin

no longer
worry about

unjust things
and wrong things.

these days
are for
the dead
and dying.

a slow
descent
onto our
crumbled spirits

below an
exhausted sky
amidst the wet,
pungent leaves.

this is
how october
began and
this is

how it ends.
used up
but still
undone

with a dull
aching in the
bones scraped
of flesh

and a falsified
notion that
how this ends
is just.

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.

the ennui
of this
exhaustion
stretches over
the vastness
in these
hours that
even the
hissing of
insects
and the
clicking of
incandescent
bulbs
cannot span.
everything
here and now
is made only
to strip you
of your
senses.

that waitress will not
give you the time
don't even ask
do not even think it

she'll only break
your yellow little heart
the tiny eggshell
of whatever it is
that you are.

all right than
this place is saved
for someone,
not you

with each analysis
there will be a part
that dies, got rut
shot straight through
into hell.

it turns words
to poison arrows
shooting sparrows
flying through you

covers you with
death and sparrow shit.

and you, too stupid
to move, drowning
drowning in that
poison sparrow shit.