It's September: evening
and Bukowski stares at me,
******
My phone rings
"Mhmm, ok, thank you."
wrong number and wrong language.
Pretty sure somebody was just stabbed outside
or got violently ill eating garbage.
I walk down there to have a cigarette
and avoid the stale smell
of the pizza box falling asleep on my bed.
After counting the number of cats I see-
stray as Satan's own- I head back inside
I glance at the bills in my mail jail
at the foot of these foreign stairs
(the building is Chinese, the city is Korean).
A hissing air brake laughs at my back
and the bus' transmission joins in- or farts-
by the time I get back up to the fourth floor
I want music, something that will help the
incense chase away mosquitoes.
And as I'm thinking of what to play
I glance at my bike, blankly,
and I'm reminded of how the rear
tire is ****** and how mean that hill was
and how road bikes belong on the road
not the sidewalk and I can't remember
when I last wore a helmet, so I try.
Half an hour later I finally get some
Stan Getz through my speakers
and don't mind that he invites
Joao Gilberto over.
I push my guitar and used clothes
out of my way so I can
sit on my bed with my
wonderfully cheap pizza box
desk, and my fancy leather pen
and just then she texts me.
Can I please just write?
Still, I can't help but smile
because I really just hope she dreams sweetly.
Sep 10, 2012
Sep 10, 2012 at 10:05 AM UTC
It's September: evening
and Bukowski stares at me,
******
My phone rings
"Mhmm, ok, thank you."
wrong number and wrong language.
Pretty sure somebody was just stabbed outside
or got violently ill eating garbage.
I walk down there to have a cigarette
and avoid the stale smell
of the pizza box falling asleep on my bed.
After counting the number of cats I see-
stray as Satan's own- I head back inside
I glance at the bills in my mail jail
at the foot of these foreign stairs
(the building is Chinese, the city is Korean).
A hissing air brake laughs at my back
and the bus' transmission joins in- or farts-
by the time I get back up to the fourth floor
I want music, something that will help the
incense chase away mosquitoes.
And as I'm thinking of what to play
I glance at my bike, blankly,
and I'm reminded of how the rear
tire is ****** and how mean that hill was
and how road bikes belong on the road
not the sidewalk and I can't remember
when I last wore a helmet, so I try.
Half an hour later I finally get some
Stan Getz through my speakers
and don't mind that he invites
Joao Gilberto over.
I push my guitar and used clothes
out of my way so I can
sit on my bed with my
wonderfully cheap pizza box
desk, and my fancy leather pen
and just then she texts me.
Can I please just write?
Still, I can't help but smile
because I really just hope she dreams sweetly.