Charles Bukowski

"Throughout his life, Bukowski held a series of low-paying jobs so dismal that they are unbearable to list, though he did keep a position as a mail carrier for many years...." (King of Pain, Jim Harrison, NYT 11-25-07)

Day after day
you carried my mail
and the days when you rang
I hid behind the door
until you gave it up,
hiding my packages
behind the rhododendron,
sticky note tacked to my door--
you've got mail...
How does one greet
such monstrous visage?
Lovely weather we've having?
You're looking well, Mr. B?
And one day I read
how the words had gone
how you’d waited to die
while Linda vacuumed
Nothing to declare…
If only I'd known of your love

for that godforsaken cat,

if only I’d asked Esmeralda.

Cardboard Boat










The thing to remember
about Hope
is that she is
always elusive,
will o the wisp,
a wily little imp
who asks you to dance
and smiles sardonically
as she steps on
your toes.

In an unguarded moment
Is/Will Be
dissolves into
Was..
Separated as if by a hedge
grown high--
no passage through.
Voices on the other side
Whisper Taunt
What if /Would have
and should some oh so clever mind
Invent a machine,
a transport through time--
we would only
despair at the moon
howling over opportunity twice missed.

(Image: Odilon Redon, Bateau Rouge)

Beautiful

He saw her bright hair waving on her neck;-- “How beautiful if properly arranged! ”
(Daphne and Apollo, Ovid)

Daphne my dear
you’re beautiful but
that curl would be far more
compelling tossed
casually over the shoulder.
Beautiful but
my dear that dimple
--precious, overstated--
subtlety rules
except when it comes to
The Twins...
Daphne my dear perhaps a tighter tee
would afford a lovelier view,
and those dainty little feet
--delicate shoes--
before we know it
Daphne New Improved.

I know you've dreamed
of days on the lea
spent hunting the prize of the herd
My Dear you've snared
a magnificent catch
--immortals die before me
sacrificial demeanor
breathless with desire
their loss your gain--
Dearest Daphne, I choose you
Delightful in every way
Dare I say "Perfect"

well perhaps...

Twilight of the Ice Nymphs

They met in Mandragora
in the unfading light of the sun
and fell ever constant

until

obsession crept in--
hunger for the unhaveable--
they longed to kiss
in soft candlelight,
to wade hand-in-hand
in a gelid blue sea,
conceal love
in some dark corner
far removed from curious eyes.
But the eye of the sun
burned endless.

In moonless Mandragora
love is only a game,
satyrs at play
in sunpressed skin.
Love holds no mystery--
vision transparent
nothing unknown--

every flawed soul revealed
in the light, in the light,
no secret concealed
in the merciless light
of sunsurfeit Mandragora.

(Image: Dawn at Maggiore, Turner)

Rejected

Questions unanswered
unasked for advice
so Succulent so Sweet
one bite..

The core
tossed carelessly to the ground
buried under a bush
foreshadowing rot
the dawn of decay.

Succulent
Sweet...
somehow she's forgotten the taste.
All that remains is
an angry bitterness
congealed to the roof of her mouth
and a memory of the day
she stood at the gate
watching sorrow
inhabit the eyes
of her Father.

(Image: He Qi, Losing Paradise)

Chosen

Out of Bethlehem
I Call
out of faith
out of fear
she ran
while mothers wept
unconsoled.
Out of Egypt
I Call
out of faith
out of fear
(blind obedience)
she returned.
The wonder is
the women didn't stone her
or look askance
from the corners of their Eyes
comforting their daughters with
one day she'll get hers--
human nature.
Out of the depths
I call
out of faith
out of fear
thirty years later
she would come to understand
the ineffable liberation
of grief.


(Image: Flight Into Egypt, He Qi, 2001)

Sonora Webster Carver, horse diver, Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, Atlantic City. 1904-2003.


Notes on a Death at Ninety-nine


Sonora walks through
the tackroom,
looking back on a life well-lived,
considering the nature of miracles.
Blind men see
paralytics walk,
Answered prayer--
what purpose when
the masses applaud the ordinary
and the sacred becomes a circus.
Most open their eyes
to greet the new day
but take for granted
the wonder of a sunrise or
a single yellow flower
bending in the breeze.

Sonora Sees with her heart--
Seizes the moment
when the horse runs by.
Grabs onto life
with bare hands
Riding high whole unstoppable,
Sonora looks over her shoulder
and winks at the wind.