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