Bukowski

your
seductive
stinking
honesty
makes my sanitized life
a lie

(poem dedicated to the late Charles Bukowski)

Burning like ice.
          Cold like fire.
                    Somehow,
                              planets will collide.

Can I trust the eyes seeking mine?
I want to
Because they look like home
Through sepia tones
A bittersweet nostalgia before
We learned how easily people break

I want to trust your arms
They look just big enough to hold me
When I know the only way I feel safe
Is in the shape of a ball

And if you were any more beautiful
I’d be *******
Much like the ten beers I should’a
Said no to
Before you
And they
Had me sycophantic and stumbling
And already
just a little bit
*******

I want the smell of you to linger on my clothes
The same way fire does
After a book burning
Just a little bit shameful

I want you to stop my stammering
With a kiss
To preoccupy my mouth
Long enough to subdue my stupid

I want to let go
Of the fever that makes my back sweat
When I see you
And the worry
That your eyes might lose their shine someday

I want you
In all the ways that
I am probably not supposed to want you
But I do

I want our wrinkles to one day fit
Like ****** up Ziploc bags
It’s that bad
So kiss me
Before I tell you that

And maybe
keep your eyes closed
Until I can trust them
Because I want to

sometimes the words just don't come
the thoughts and feelings are there
untainted emotions
so raw they cannot be touched
so fragile do they seem, that the slightest contact would shatter them and scatter them to the four corners of my very soul
this is what really lies within me
this is what I cannot bring myself to share
all history has been stripped and I am left with only me
this is the part of me that no one knows
this is whats left
this is the price I dare not pay

All of my works are "in progress".
None of my words come out right.
My phrases are static, my endings not dramatic.
I need you to turn on my light.

It seems I only know sorrow.
Negative feelings at best.
I've not learned to write what's not said in a fight
But I don't want to give it a rest.

They say an artist must suffer.
Can only make with the pain that she feels.
But you give me no pain; I laugh in the rain.
I want you for all of my meals.

So I guess I will just have to work
And figure out how to write love.
So my words are in progress, my ends have no success
But there's nothing I'd rather write of.

Coffee and Tea, I'll take them both,
Light me up another smoke,
Have a piece of Shoo-Fly pie,
Hear the birdies in the sky,
Take my pen in trembling hand,
Compose some poetry, if I can.

The future is grimunexcitingdepressingunwanted.
Too late to change anything, though.

What a shame.

Back and forth,
side-to-side;
moving in constant motion,
trying to decide.
"Well," I think,
"Which way to go?"
Go?

Grass flutters in the wind,
water droplets sparkle and glimmer
in the sunlight;
"Well," I say,
"I think I'll stay right here."