She draws the stars
Late into the night
Standing in an open field
Soaking in their light
The beauty that they cast
Helps her pen to glide
When she's finished drawing
Is when she takes to flight

She draws the stars
Colors them by numbers
Throws away all diagrams
Prefers the use of different colors
Gives them all the oddest names
One after another
The furthest ones away
Names them after her ex-lovers

She draws the stars
Then gives her drawings away
To those she meets on the street
She feels needs a brighter day
She gives away the ones she loves
The rest she likes to save
Pastes them on her walls
In the galaxy she's made

Before you texted me

I dint know addiction

Before you spoke

I never loved sarcasm

Before your charm

I never felt obsession

Before your wit

I was never struggling for words


Now that your gone...

Iam just another poet!

why can’t I howl like you?  
like the wild dogs un-muzzled
in the karmic night?

why can’t I have honesty,
like well earned sweat,
ooze from every pore
like you, Bukowski?  

why can’t I enter the river
against the flow, like the steamer
which juggernauted you, Joseph  
into the black jungle, where scarlet pulses
of your dark heart spoke the language
of the sword, but  
words cut more savagely than  
the sharpened steel?  

words, so viciously true
they had to be silenced
by the light of day
before they could blind others
like I, who would slash and burn
you for seeing, and speaking  
the horror of truth

as I walked up the neighbors back stairs
there was a distinct smell of Mary Jane on the air
I knocked on the door and waited a while
then the neighbor's son opened the door wearing a stoned smile

in his hand
he had a bag of twisties
he told me
he had the munchies

I
was
nearly
overcome
by
Mary Jane
drifting
out
of
the
window
pane

then he started to laugh uncontrollably
and I looked around to see what was so funny
I thought he might have been having a private joke
after all he'd been tugging on a reefer smoke

I told him to tell his mother
to drop in at my place
as I'd like to talk to her
about her son being off his face