The woman downstairs is angry
She asks:
Why do you shut the stars out and not let the moonlight in?
I think, but not say:
Listen *****, the night is bright and bustling
And I just want to ******* sleep
I want to forget the pleasantries and just heal
From the day, the week, the year
Of this seemingly inconvenient life of mine
Hating yourself is easier in the dark
Being hopeful seems easier when nobody is looking
I just want to ******* sleep

The guy who wore a scarf at the bar,
he chose not to write
because he's ‘no Hemingway.’
I told him no one stops me.
Memories of Ginsberg, Frost, Thomas,
and even Bukowski's drunken ghost
make me feel at home in my words.
That didn't change the guy's mind,
so I told him to drink up
and do something else.

-Ron Gavalik

Bukowski was a genius,
Angelou a writing goddess,
Neruda made people dream,
and Kaur still does

words were their essence of life
a pen their strongest weapon
and their mind
their closest ally

Take it from me,
It’s not even worth screaming against.
The boxes among us and around us solidify
The only doors left leading from one to the next.

To the ones who’re left standing,
I know you are desperately ripping through the pages
For the verse, for the line, a bit of that escaping light
Clawing at anything that will do anything other than exist.

To you, I’m sorry to say this but,
It seems we’ve forgotten what the madness feels like.

We were promised a broken world
And now, we have nothing to struggle for or against,
Other than ourselves.

I guess all we can do is find each other
And stay close
And watch the stars slowly drift into the darkness.

Or maybe, just maybe

We’ll burn another night
Drinking to this poem
And the rest of what we’ll forget....

One day has just passed into another
and I am sat in my bed
reading poem after Bukowski poem
trying to understand my life
but I am stuck in my head
against a door with no key
and no warden for me
to bargain with
my eyes are locked
on what I used to think
was the truth
but my body knows that
people lie
with the utmost contempt
and I don’t know
if reading all these poems
will ever make me feel whole again
but I wait for my soul
to find my body once more
and continue to move my eyes
across my laptop screen
looking for
the meaning of life

I drink a lot
Different drinks for different reasons
Different times, and different seasons.
I like wine when I want to smile
whiskey when I wish to sleep
Gin for the times I wish to forget all the dark secrets I keep.
Some nights I want to die, that’s when tequila steps in
And beer when I want to be alone with my friends.
I drink a lot
Sometimes to no end.
I drink so that I have no money to spend.

Three bottles in
after a day of the same ****.

Can I compose a poem?
I doubt it.

Maybe another drink will help
then I can be like Bukowski
who has seen more style in dogs
than in men.

Well he isn't wrong is he?

I go to work
to listen to same old tales
of how his wife
keeps falling down
how there's another gun show
this weekend
how this week the diet
is gonna begin
how this company is sinkin'.

And I agree
it's all going to the bottom
of the dark sea
and for some reason
this thought makes me
happy.