November's mists

wandering through
November's mists
I search
for a light
that light
that dwelled in your
eyes

but your eyes
veiled in
November's mists
do not
look for me
anymore

and their sullen laments
rising no more than
a gentle dirge
walk me blindly
through
November's mists
the greatest requiem
of them all

and even if I
find a way
to keep from shivering
as I call your name
I hear no more
than my own words
drowning in circles
and tainted
in November's mists

Into starlight.

Small music from broken windows

a poem is a city filled with streets and sewers
filled with saints, heroes, beggars, madmen,
filled with banality and booze,
filled with rain and thunder and periods of
drought, a poem is a city at war,
a poem is a city asking a clock why,
a poem is a city burning,
a poem is a city under guns
its barbershops filled with cynical drunks,
a poem is a city where God rides naked
through the streets like Lady Godiva,
where dogs bark at night, and chase away
the flag; a poem is a city of poets,
most of them quite similar
and envious and bitter...
a poem is this city now,
50 miles from nowhere,
9:09 in the morning,
the taste of liquor and cigarettes,
no police, no lovers, walking the streets,
this poem, this city, closing its doors,
barricaded, almost empty,
mournful without tears, aging without pity,
the hardrock mountains,
the ocean like a lavender flame,
a moon destitute of greatness,
a small music from broken windows...

a poem is a city, a poem is a nation,
a poem is the world...

and now I stick this under glass
for the mad editor's scrutiny,
the night is elsewhere
and faint gray ladies stand in line,
dog follows dog to estuary,
the trumpets bring on gallows
as small men rant at things
they cannot do.

- Charles Bukowski

Into twilight.

Driftwood

the world has gone
cold
drowning
as sadness pours
from your eyes

and in this silent darkness
this never fulfilled
dawn
you shiver and listen
to the trickling waters
of sadness

no murmurs
no dreams
no candles dying out
and a rope of silence
is all you grasp for

but you live
and you breathe
as you wait

for
even broken
you have a heart
and you count the pieces
of the most beautiful
driftwood

Into starlight.

This is the sea

"Sick in my soul I tried to face the ordeal of seeking forgiveness. From whom? What God, what Christ? They were myths I once believed, and now they were beliefs I felt were myths. This is the sea, and this is Arturo, and the sea is real, and Arturo believes it real. Then I turn from the sea, and everywhere I look there is land; I walk on and on, and still the land goes stretching away to the horizons. A year, five years, ten years, and I have not seen the sea. I say unto myself, but what has happened to the sea? And I answer, the sea is back there, back in the reservoir of memory. The sea is a myth. There never was a sea. But there was a sea! I tell you I was born on the seashore! I bathed in the waters of the sea! It gave me food and it gave me peace, and its fascinating distances fed my dreams! No Arturo, there never was a sea. You dream and you wish, but you go through the wasteland. You will never see the sea again. It was a myth you once believed. But, I have to smile, for the salt of the sea is in my blood, and there may be ten thousand roads over the land, but they shall never confuse me, for my heart's blood will ever return to its beautiful source."

- John Fante

Into starlight.

At dawn's last breath

give me a desk
a desk
a pen
and a notebook
to chronicle eternity
even if there's no one beyond it

no attentive reader
or subtle censor
no infuriated student
or drunken lecturer

I am judgemental
or so they tell me
but I wonder who's there to judge
if the cells are empty
and I see nothing
but hangmen
with bibles under their belts

sooner or later
walking into this room
-they'll know why no more than me-
I shall be asked to rise
for the calling of the noose
its shadow dangling loosely
in the morning sun
that is still too weak to break
the cold and sweetness
of dawn's last breath

- do you have any requests?
but one, sir
- speak up
raise a flower on my blood
if you will

Into twilight.