guttersnipish murmurs

I'm sitting on the sidewalk
selling fallen stars
rotten with wishes
sunken below dreams,
people walk by 
with helplessness 
stuck in their eyes

But they'd rather 
still look up at night..

Friends within the darkness

  I can remember starving in a
small room in a strange city
shades pulled down, listening to
classical music
I was young I was so young it hurt like a knife
inside
because there was no alternative except to hide as long
as possible--
not in self-pity but with dismay at my limited chance:
trying to connect.

the old composers -- Mozart, Bach, Beethoven,
Brahms were the only ones who spoke to me and
they were dead.

finally, starved and beaten, I had to go into
the streets to be interviewed for low-paying and
monotonous
jobs
by strange men behind desks
men without eyes men without faces
who would take away my hours
break them
piss on them.

now I work for the editors the readers the
critics

but still hang around and drink with
Mozart, Bach, Brahms and the
Bee
some buddies
some men
sometimes all we need to be able to continue alone
are the dead
rattling the walls
that close us in. 

                 -Charles Bukowski 

from carlin

This is a lttle prayer dedicated to the separation of church and state. I guess if they are going to force those kids to pray in schools they might as well have a nice prayer like this: Our Father who art in heaven, and to the republic for which it stands, thy kingdom come, one nation indivisible as in heaven, give us this day as we forgive those who so proudly we hail. Crown thy good into temptation but deliver us from the twilight's last gleaming. Amen and Awomen.

Inked

i'm waiting for things beautiful
to write
desolation is still staring
from under my pen
as too
the wrinkled piece
of paper
like many of the other things
better left naked

Bed of roses

i have nothing to breed but silence
there are flies in my stomach
that have not fed on roses
for a while
my hands are full with breasts
i think they said something
it was a funny feeling
                      inside

A regular occurrence

Squatting intently at the edge of the
pond
he had been launching stones into
the water
as if to find holes

a wise man passing by looked over in disgust
and said
"you could be doing a lot more with your life,
you could change something in the world"


the young man turned around in amusement
"can't you see i'm trying?"

Perplexity

there are noises of cars
pumping smoke
in my dreams
trees lying on roadsides
smiling
dragging themselves to dirt
in search for the sea
and still smiling

as wines choke to their
final vows
peace is abound
in trained thoughts..