Too little,
The rabbit,
Bukowski,

counted,
scheduled,
realized

that the clock
is unkind
and fate
unkinder,

In college
I went home
regularly

but the work week
doesn't have winter
or summer break,

and this town
isn't home yet
but it's the closest
thing to it,

Nights like
this I smoke
cigarettes on
my porch,

think about
what being a good son
is,

think about the nights
I didn't show up
for dinner when my dad
got home from his
forty hour weeks,

but it's all the times
I was there that bother
me the most.

Dec. 7, 1987

With what silken threads
we weave the web
to bind our loves.
How tenderly they’re trapped;
with kind caresses,
we kiss them into oblivion.
And when unconscious,
how sweetly do we ****
the life from them!

Do they struggle in the
silken web, and know
that they are being caught?
Or do they look into
our fixed eyes, and
lose themselves in depths
of need and pity there?

Struggling to free you,
I tear the web to pieces.
Cast upon the ground,
I watch you flutter off,
and wait, self-bound, until
I become the prey
of some unkinder
devourer.
             *   *