short order

I took my girlfriend to your last poetry reading,
she said.
yes, yes? I asked.
she’s young and pretty, she said.
and? I asked.
she hated your
guts.
then she stretched out on the couch
and pulled off her
boots.

I don’t have very good legs,
she said.

all right, I thought, I don’t have very good
poetry; she doesn’t have very good
legs.

scramble two.

-Charles Bukowski

The Blackbirds Are Rough Today

lonely as a dry and used orchard
spread over the earth
for use and surrender.

shot down like an ex-pug selling
dailies on the corner.

taken by tears like 
an aging chorus girl
who has gotten her last check.

a hanky is in order your lord your
worship.

the blackbirds are rough today
like
ingrown toenails
in an overnight
jail—-
wine wine whine,
the blackbirds run around and
fly around
harping about
Spanish melodies and bones.

and everywhere is
nowhere—-
the dream is as bad as
flapjacks and flat tires:

why do we go on
with our minds and
pockets full of
dust
like a bad boy just out of
school—-
you tell
me,
you who were a hero in some
revolution
you who teach children
you who drink with calmness
you who own large homes
and walk in gardens
you who have killed a man and own a
beautiful wife
you tell me
why I am on fire like old dry
garbage.

we might surely have some interesting
correspondence.
it will keep the mailman busy.
and the butterflies and ants and bridges and
cemeteries
the rocket-makers and dogs and garage mechanics
will still go on a
while
until we run out of stamps
and/or
ideas.

don’t be ashamed of
anything; I guess God meant it all
like
locks on 
doors.

-Charles Bukowski (1920-1994)

Be Kind

we are always asked
to understand the other person’s
viewpoint
no matter how
out-dated
foolish or 
obnoxious.

one is asked 
to view
their total error
their life-waste
with 
kindliness,
especially if they are
aged.

but age is the total of
our doing.
they have aged
badly 
because they have
lived
out of focus,
they have refused to
see.
	
not their fault?

whose fault?
mine?

I am asked to hide
my viewpoint 
from them
for fear of their
fear.

age is no crime

but the shame
of a deliberately
wasted 
life 

among so many 
deliberately
wasted 
lives 

is.

-Charles Bukowski

8 Count

from my bed

I watch

3 birds

on a telephone

wire.

one flies 

off.

then

another.

one is left,

then

it too

is gone.

my typewriter is 

tombstone 

still.

and I am

reduced to bird

watching.

just thought I’d

let you

know,

fucker.

-Charles Bukowski