My Bukowski Phase: 3 poems

WOMEN COME AND GO

Women

Come and go.

Some come smiling, some come like

They’re doing me a favor.

They all go

Angry

But feel better

once they’re gone.

One woman, Rita,

Tried to come and go and the same time.

Turned herself inside out.

Her guts and all her organs flopped out

On my floor.

I called 911 and while I waited I

Gathered all her parts together and wrapped them up in a blanket.

Her heart was more gray than red

And heavy.

The paramedics accused me of doing something to her

To turn her inside out.

One of them asked me,

“What did you do?”

I shrugged.

“She tried to come and go at the same time,” I said.

The paramedic wanted to know why she’d done that so

I told him,

“She hates herself for wanting me,”

and he nodded, and scooped her up

and carried her away in an ambulance.

I saw Rita a year later

In the produce aisle

Squeezing the peaches.

She was fixed but had some scars.

We caught up and she said maybe she’d come by sometime, for a drink

But I said

“No, that’s all right. You take care.”

I’d seen her heart

And it was gray

And how heavy it was.

MY BUKOWSKI PHASE

I’m going through a Bukowski phase.

Cheap cigars
(technically an e-cigarette, for health reasons)

Beer
(craft stuff, locally brewed, because my palette is very delicate)

Writing poems about stuff like

What time it is

And some dog I saw.

Havent done much gambling because

The forms are confusing, all numbers

And I’ve never been good at math

Oh, and I call women

twats

And the C word

And leer at them

 and pray for them to save me

And get mad at them when they don’t.

I’m writing this poem right now

In a bar

On the inside of a beer label I peeled off a bottle.

I’m waiting for someone to ask me what I’m writing.

When they ask I’ll say

A poem.

They’ll say

A poem?

I’ll say

A poem. Because only poetry can capture how sad I want to let you know I feel,

Because of how different I am, and also I’m an intellectual.

Only actually I won’t say that last part.

CRYING IN THE NIGHT

A dog barks

On maybe the next block over

At 3am

On a Sunday.

I used to bark all night

And howl

At the moon.

Not literally.