Have you ever stepped out in front of a moving car?
Have you ever nearly fell backwards down a flight of stairs?
Have you ever had gun metal pushed up against your skull?
Have you ever had a blade flash under a streetlight in front of you like the teeth of a rabid dog?
Have you ever climbed to the edge of a tall building?
Have you ever been cornered in a lie?
Have you been completely uncovered?
Entirely discovered?
Soul unearthed?

Die three times and I’ll show you life.

Burnt words die as embers turn to grey
The fluxuations are as predictable as death
I’ve tied the burdened mind to the lightening rod

It has been Seventeen
Months since I last wrote

The ink grew stale in the air
Of the outside world.

The prison bars become thicker
and the canvas is smeared

No rhyme, no reason
A simple etching

I think of the insipiration of
Insanity, like a falling rain

A drought has come
And dried this land

Life is such a beautiful mystery

Last night you taught me
To relinquish control
My arms tied to your bed posts

This morning my therapist
Tied the animal in my mind
To a giant oak tree

The formula to go from
Depressed
To
Manic
Is this-
12 beers
2 valiums
A whiskey on the rocks
A beautiful sunset
And an hour of Bukowski

You don't spit
After dragging a fine cigar

You don't throw up
After drinking a fine scotch

You only purge
When you've been with a fine woman

My shirt hangs off your *******
Like a flag on a conquered citadel

I will pay hell for this
But not in this life

Smoke trails that never left the room
A soft sunlight through the two windows
So many memories crammed into that little room
The tiny kitchen where you cooked breakfast
With your tiny little shorts
You called me with your tiny little voice
Dorian Grey open on the bed
A cocktail of emotion on the counter

If there is one thing that I have learned
From the up and down
Is that there is no such thing
As wholly bad
Or wholly good

Even with the pristine white smile
The suave collar and neck hugging tie
The professional demeanor
And the bullet proof attitude
The devil is in the details

That creeping rage that beats itself
Against the steering wheel as the
Moon stares at you through the
Passenger side window

I've fooled you
And this I know for sure
Because I'm good enough
To fool myself.

In strength I am strong
In weakness I am weak

Things are as they are
That is a double edged sword
Things are as they are-
And things are as they are

Let that be a lesson to you
Beautiful soul
That we wander this landscape together
Despite the ties of seemingly conventional wisdom

It's the kind of voice that comes creeping
Much like the drenched leaves flattened
Leaving silent silhouettes on wet pavement
I've only felt the silent sickness from an intimate distance
I don't know who I will hear this time
But I can assure you,
The message will be
Poetic
In nature.

I was going to write something
But then I lost it.
****.

Suicidal tendencies, alleged attempt in 2011
(National Scholar-Athlete)
Bipolar with psychotic features, meds necessary
(President of student government)
Anti-social features, deceptive, manipulative, lying.
(Captain of varsity athletics)
Qualifies as a pickup. Forfeits all rights. Police involvement if necessary.
(President of an all-star rugby club)
Extreme aggression. Any homicidal idealization should be taken seriously.
(Trustee Scholarship to a renown private college)
Narcotics abuse. Marijuana, LSD, Klonopin, *******, Alcohol, Painkillers
(3.7 GPA)
Masks and shields intentions. Deceptive with professionals.
(Active volunteer)
I advise that he be admitted to a hospital immediately
(Participant in community)
Drug abuse counseling, medication, extensive therapy necessary
(Leader of peers)

Diagnoses fly like a panhandlers love affairs

Your inexact science is a disgrace to what I've created

A philosophy based on your experience

Ignoring the dynamic of the human condition

****** for feeling to much

****** for not feeling enough

"Fitter Happier"

"more productive
comfortable
not drinking too much
regular exercise at the gym (3 days a week)
getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries
at ease
eating well (no more microwave dinners and saturated fats)
a patient better driver
a safer car (baby smiling in back seat)
sleeping well (no bad dreams)
no paranoia
careful to all animals (never washing spiders down the plughole)
keep in contact with old friends (enjoy a drink now and then)
will frequently check credit at (moral) bank (hole in wall)
favours for favours
fond but not in love
charity standing orders
on sundays ring road supermarket
(no killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants)
car wash (also on sundays)
no longer afraid of the dark
or midday shadows
nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate
nothing so childish
at a better pace
slower and more calculated
no chance of escape
now self-employed
concerned (but powerless)
an empowered and informed member of society (pragmatism not idealism)
will not cry in public
less chance of illness
tires that grip in the wet (shot of baby strapped in back seat)
a good memory
still cries at a good film
still kisses with saliva
no longer empty and frantic
like a cat
tied to a stick
that's driven into
frozen winter **** (the ability to laugh at weakness)
calm
fitter, healthier and more productive
a pig
in a cage
on antibiotics"

- A song by Radiohead. I did not write this.

I saw her in the window again
Nothing special about the window
The focus is on her

Old, grey, weary
Eyes like caves, holes with no end
Skin sags like old curtains

She stares out the window
Any window
Nothing special about the window

I almost went up to breath
My fog on the windowpane
Some ghosts are better left unspoken to.

The moon pulls on the earth
And the earth pulls back
Yet, for now
They are so far away

The beautiful thing
however,
Is that the moon is the remnant
Of a devastating impact
Wrought from the earth

Let that be a lesson for you
My love
That as the earth suffers in orbit
The moon silently whispers back
"I carry you with me."

Don't ever tell them the truth
They'll load every statement into the chamber
And fire them back through your teeth

It is my sincere hope that at the end of this tunnel
Awaits a light that illuminates the constellations
That I could once see in your hands.

You is all of you. And I need to fall in love with all of you
Again.

Each and every one of you.

Someone has snuck up behind me
And cut the strings of my mask

I am sweating
The headaches are coming on

The old devils crawl on the walls
And claw at my skin

Nothing will get you like
Mail.
Bills, spam, bills.
A bank statement, some
Numbers. An overdraft.
That's okay,
You filled the car with your voice
Last night.
Just some of that radio *******,
But I liked it when it came
Out of your mouth.
I guess that is what will
Keep me alive today.

They won't stop.
They'll take your individuality
under the guise of diversity.

They'll neuter you, too.
Rip your ***** right off
and give them back in a glass jar.

They'll leave you hollow,
chasing emptiness, trying to
fill a paper bag with water.

Sweetie,
you're throwing your dimes in a wishing well
that pays no dividends.

If it weren't for the fear
Of hell
I'd be gone

I saw the woman again.
The one who looked as if she has
Lost a child.
(I grew to love a face who lost a child)
There's nothing quite like that look
Behind those hollowed out eyes.
Wilting instead of blinking. The tired,
Weighted expression where lips have been
Draw tight to teeth by years
Of choking back tears.

There was a boy
Three fingers on each hand
Bent spine
"We have to spend..."
Money
"On your surgeries..."
Parents said to him
He overdosed
On painkillers
His brother went
To a good College

Even the star of our solar system
Is blocked out by mere vapors

Even the clouds
Can hide the rays of the sun

Imagine a nightmare
While you're awake.

Imagine a knife's edge
With a ghost at the hilt.

Imagine a death
Not instantaneous.

And then I realized-
I am not suffering.
The I is not constant.
The sick father, that is
Constant. The drawling
Pain of humanity, that
Is constant. Those of us,
The Bukowski's, are merely
Those conscious of the
Continuous and everlasting
Stream of human
Suffering.

I saw you in a Dream.
I was lying in the grass,
The panic filled my lungs
With a silent scream and my
Eyes with tectonic tremor.
You sat across from me.
I had never seen you before,
A gentle touch to my temples.
Perhaps it was the uncorrupted love
Of a beautiful stranger that
Made me ache for you when
I awoke. I know that I will
Never see you again.

It's the optimists that I can't bear
Chinese skin farms torture for a
Collection of innocent flesh and hair
Look on the brighter side of it, bud!
As your lie writhing in a stinking pile
Of naked muscle and pooling blood

The little girl whose teeth are smashed
Whose daddy has relapsed
And sold her as a piece of ***
To be ****** over and over for some cash
So that he can buy his ****** crack
And bleed his veins for a dwindled stash

The starving owl-eyed boy who
Believes himself evil for the thought of
Turning his little brother into his next meal
And not even a little left to steal
As ribcages tell a thousand tales
Along lines of skin and bone so frail

So **** your rhyme schemes
And your bleeding heart activists
Who scream in college courts
And completely lack the knack of it
Skin them alive and burn them as well
And maybe they'd have given their
Very souls to the fires of hell

They moved in back in 1956
New lovers, New breath, New life
A New house. Yellow and white shutters,
The lake in plain view, sloped lawn.
Children came forth, grew, left
Dandelion seeds on a wind's ride.
They planted a tree in the back
It grew as they shrunk. The wife died.
Dad can't stay on his own, we must
Find him a home. We're too busy, Susan
and Bill just had a baby. Put him on a shelf
In the closet. For sale sign comes up.
Old money young couple in a Black SUV.
The white shutters should be blue. The yellow
Is an off color. This tree in the back simply
Won't do. It blocks the view. It must come down.
Memories rot and rust and are painted over
The stain in the carpet where she spilled her wine
That one night when they had a little too
Much to drink, they fell into each others
Arms. Rip out the carpet.
The tree must come down.

I always get your middle name wrong.
The first time I laid eyes upon you,
My heart thought you were a flower.
You could say the drunken stupor
Filled your veins and veiled your eyes.
You weren't there, a possession, a warm
Body left cold by the absence of a soul.
But your inscription is written upon every
Cell, every fiber of my being. Your heart
Beats alongside my heart. A quiet yet
Powerful cadence. The sounds move the seas.
My body could not transgress. My lips would
Recede, a low-tide effect, a shirking from sin.
My hands would shrivel to ash, my eyes would
Drop from their branches. I've felt the bite of the
Needle's tooth, I've left dust on ***** tissues.
But never will my lips graze another.

The fools have spoken of the
Blessing of insanity as they
Stand without- gazing in through
The impenetrable glass walls to
Where I lay
Naked
Cold
Alone
To have the blessing of ignorance
And that of prideful bliss
Fools, I hiss through my teeth
And they carry on with their
Long winded soliloquies
With their twisted verbage
A show of flair, a petty coat on
An empty bottle.

Cut, paste, carry.
Receive, bleed, recede.

Are these eyes my own?
When did you get here?

A singsong bird out my window,
Calling me to the cemetery.

I'll meet you there.
We can find it together.

Step up, step down, turn around.
Lie awake, fall asleep, fall awake.

The dimes on my counter are blue
Shades like cotton, streaming hues.

Visions of hell. Visions of heaven.
Visions of all the spaces between.

Where have you gone, my friend?
When will this all end?

**** it. Leave it. Scream it.
Jump. Run. Swerve.

This tree in particular
Seems to understand me.

Ant hills made of dish soap
Ink like blood on paper thin walls.

In that moment, a flash, an instance
I chased Orion's heels across the sky
Swiftly moving a light-year's distance
Nebulous flash, a star prepared to die

Ashley,

Just saw a picture of a guy who had his legs blown off today. he was being pushed through a crowd of people in a wheelchair. An army vet who happened to be on site was pinching the guy's arteries at the ends of where his legs used to be. Just dangling there.
What's the point? Ya know? I don't even want justice. What is justice? It's a creation by man- an abstraction that can't rectify what has already passed. You can't change what has happened. Find the guy and put him on trial... let people boo and hiss and threaten him. Maybe he'll get ***** in prison, probably not. Killed or put in solitary would be more likely. What does that change? Won't make that ******* guy's ******* legs grow back. Won't bring that little 8 year old back to life.
I want to believe in humanity. I'd like to believe that there is a point to our existence when I could be running in a marathon and then get my legs blown off. I mean, can you even fathom the depth of that irony? A marathon runner gets his legs blown off.

Normally these tragedies don't get to me. I just don't know... is it because I'm from Boston? Is it the shock of seeing that picture? Nothing makes sense. Nothing. I don't know anything. Nobody knows anything. You could accumulate all of the knowledge, know-how and wisdom in the world and still get your ******* brains splattered on the asphalt. bam, in that instance, your intellect, your personality, every memory that you cherished is now going to settle, dry up and rot away in the cracks in the pavement. Spend your whole life running. Training. Finish the ******* Boston marathon and bam, your legs are disintegrated.
Now you're just some inspirational story on 60 Minutes because you survived and show a positive outlook for a camera and help little kids who are missing their legs.

Somebody give me an answer. Give me an answer that i havent already heard. I've heard all of the answers to this. No answer helps. If there was an answer, this **** would never happen.

I don't know who else to tell this too. I had to get this out of my head.

- Mike

I could paint the walls behind my head
Red and grey shades of intellect

An abstract portrait of Picasso potential
The spaces between are the differential

The tachytelic nature of my mind
Seems to want my body to unwind

To fall away to the wind
A metanoia, I have sinned

The valiant leaves who held on
Through the strongest winter breeze
Defiantly clung to the
Brown weathered trees

And one must read close to
Gather the story of time
hidden in the wrinkled trunks
Of the tall evergreen pines

And I thought of how Aurelius
Challenged the
Justness of God. Well the
Justice of man may not be the
Just course for all.

She kissed the trinkets pinned to the walls
Like memories which crawl inside my mind's halls

Delicately she took each one down
A pursing of lips and a little downward frown

A slip of a finger and the glass began to flow
Down her forearms as the puddles began to grow

And she stood *****, the shock filled her eyes
As the red liquid flowed like a river of dyes

I turned and walked along alone with myself as it fell
And neither of us has ever seemed to listen very well

But it's all well and good; I'll do as I should
And I'll say all the things I swore I never would