draped in velvet

like smut pencilled libels on the walls of caged stalls

invoking desert arroyos cauterized in too bright insight and

ancillary stair cases, exit doors hinged on the brink of madness

daily branded new under skylight copulas in mazes of labyrinthine 

city stages, everywhere histories, footpaths, languages, cellar doors

submerged just below the dust, roots reaching everywhere but up

to steeples and bathhouses, foodcourts marauded w ghosts of

animate dancers, animal handlers cartwheeling over and over the green

coves of time etched in space, dreamscapes laced in sands embrace

sand dollars of stained glass ripped from dining halls enthralled in ash

grave diggers distaff of footsoldier sweet grass, vaguely glowers

w gowns of red wire and bones conferring their silent epitaph

barely buried in brooks and under bridges like white nails

platitudes wrapped in yesterdays fortitude, loomed w worms

pray careful songs forgotten over tables and windows, reflected

over scrupulous entryways chiseled w procession alms and old plays

dead pensioner reclining in your suited antechamber won't you

pardon the air once brought steel mares w chernobyls fare 

staring into the arrow consolations convicted, furrowed implications

in crows feet ruminations ponderously impaired

sightless ferrous inculcations, two spurious flights instilled w night

brooding ortega and andora, narrate your cold logus in luminous aciform

traverse the living word w modes that surpass new leaden dearth

draped in velvet, and pull the folds of night around it

as the careering globes which watch w heavy lids the light

when you have a sense of humor

you cut the cards slowly

just enough and in such a way

so that the the dealer wants to ask for them back

but can't

talk nonsense psychobabble to dullards

beg for money from the beggar

overtalk your boss and make the decisions for him

recollect thoughtfully your last name signing at the dental office

play dumb when it's your turn for the mic

tell the guy w the jag that you keyed it

and wait for him to come back w the proof

ask his wife to buy you a drink

let your girlfriend call all the shots

shoot at pool so that it's always a ball in hand

tip 40 bucks and never say a word edgewise

say nothing until their ears bleed

when they ask if you're a cop say no with two ns

tell the vocalist of your favorite band he's got no style

write f u c k on your dirty windshield

buy everyone at the bar a round of drinks even though

you only went in to take a leak

you have to make them think

slip love yous and thank you notes

under garages

and keep your dick in your pants when 

they return the favor

you fall in love with lap dancers and stay all night

you walk into a party and hit on the monolith

and then regret it

you have to wait for the third pitch and punt it into the dirt

apologize about everything

there's no other way to laugh

missed connections

I was on the coast somewhere. there was a city by the sea, I had been driving north up the 1 looking for a good beach, out for some fresh air. I didn't find anything acceptable and eventually turned back, but met someone somewhere on the way back down and we decided to go for lunch there. the pier was full of people and towered up over the water on an enormous cliff, w steps and guard rails leading narrowly down. a massive footbridge led from the top of it out over the water to a nearby key, obscured from view by shoreline cliff faces which wound to the north, jutting away. the girl took me to a squat in town and a few of her friends were there and we talked about local attractions and food. in time the others leave and we are alone, we are talking quietly on a couch, when you walk in and lean against the opposite wall, looking at me. I recognize you immediately and she doesn't. you are wearing a light brown jacket, dark hair curling down just the way it always did. I leave the couch and walk over, surprised.  you didn't say anything but had a look instead, reading my mind. I wanted to ask you what you were doing there and how did you find me in my own dream. 

the debt

in a modest size adobe in the outskirts of a small sunny village in the guadaramma, relatives filter in through every door and gather in the living room.  there are ranches, as well as woodland. there is a cake w lit candles being brought in and an old man in a blue plaid shirt sits alone at the end of a long four set. he is lucid, cheerful.. but it is not his birthday it is his wifes who has been dead for a long time. there are many reasons for the occasion, but the greater part of it is rudimentary; a son in law shares a birthday on the same week and the season was always most convenient for everyone. besides, nobody knows his, maybe not even he.

this year there is a recently adopted child. orphaned by the franco regime. it is expected to be the old man's last year and he is pleased to be welcoming a new great grandson into the family. he has a bad leg and his heart is weak but he fairs admirably. the child, thinking to pay respect, wants to give him something for a gift.

it is a pocket watch. broken. one of the hands is missing and there is no clasp to the backside, which comes loose in his hands and falls onto the table. the man in the plaid shirt squints down into the open machinery. there is a look of knowing in his face, as he briefly inspects the tiny gears and springs. formulating a semblence of gratitude. 

the candles are blown, there is dinner, reminiscing. toasts are made, and so symbolically also to others recently deceased.. many loved ones didn't survive the war. 

the old man dies in his sleep some days later. they find him on the floor of the same room, belly down and head cradled in the elbow of one arm.

the modest estate, on the edge of town, remains in the family and years pass. fourty. 

fifty. sixty.

a wedding is put on. a pool out on the veranda, empty. kids playing through the courtyard and everyone is drunk. wearing black. white. it's spring and all of the dahlias and the vech.. spider lines trembling in the calm and in the latticeways and an old man in a blue plaid shirtsits at the head of a long table. he is very old, but lucid and cheerful. It is his birthday, or so it's just as well, what's another year.

A small boy he has never seen before approaches quietly and reaches out his hand to give him something. A piece of it falls out of his hand onto the table. Pretending not to notice he looks down and nods, marveling but not because it is a broken watch w an arm missing and the gears rusted over but because he remembers then the words that are engraven on the back. Slowly, delicately, picks up the loose piece and for the first time looks up into the boys eyes.

el temps es or

amb amor, aina

the blue mamba

Packed into this little ballroom on 13th once I saw a thing. Something. I forget the name of the venue but the ceiling looked like the renaissance. We were in rome. Portland oregon. The drinker, I go for drinks at one of the barstands. The show had sold out and everybody's toes are involved meandering to and from and homeward. Looking for C w a gin and tonic and two double shots of scotch pinched in theright for myself, half expecting to find some meathead chatting her up by then I immediately drain one for backers on the way back. Returning I find her still going it alone. Must've fished a middle finger out of her pocket for the lot of them, I'd been away at sea for half an hour. I don't deserve this girl.



Conversation is impossible and we play the charades for a few minutes and hear every word before giving it up. The main act arrives, they play their newer stuff and it's kind of slow and lame. The band is letting me down bad and I her, and on fifty dollar tickets we're just standing it. So I take her hand and dancing backwards into the crowd lead her closer to center stage. Kind of in the mood anyhow with vessels dilated on all 4 rounds. Nobody cares how rudely you push by when it's madlad adonai in his workshirt ferrying an atom bomb over. Catherine of irishland and the snowplow kid.



Still, the music is shit and we try but neither one of us can really get into it. We persist and get a resounding.. "eh". In a manner of apology I finally kinda just rest an arm on C's shoulder. Well then. Like you would your stud in a chapel full of pussy. Baddest in the house.



..Unless?




Bored, I look around and over my shoulder. Sea of faces. There's movement directly behind, over a few heads and I turn. I spot a couple, each in all black and matching derby hats, spanned off a ways in the middle of the audience looking like doc holiday and his poker beretta fresh out of the saloon. I scan the eyes behind them and nobody seems to notice. Odd.



I look down at C, look back. The lights are swimming the crowd and his hat and shoulders blaze over hers, red green blue red. It's almost psychedelic. Surreal. And I begin to wonder if maybe somehow Id been slipped something. No, I don't think so. I nudge C to have a look. She sees them too, thank god, laughs and says something inaudible. Yeah I guess that's what we'd call getting down huh. They seem to be hearing music from another stage somewhere, stepping triangles in this insane waltz, woven together like a couple of mambas. Fucking. Muted, synchronized, sublime. But to have brought a spotlight down into them like in the movies would have killed them flat. I'm certain they would have shriveled into a plume of smoke and mirrors, ghosts. I didn't know what to make of it and turned away.



The show ends. Anxious to get back and reset the mood to something good like meat puppets or skip james, or anything, we make our way out ahead of the crowd. I take her hands and ship her through, plowing backwards again. My bad, my bad, sorry. Didn't see you there. Step aside and go to hell. Both you and your shitty music.



Looking back through the mass I spot the two in black again, the lights now dimmed. Still there, slow dancing alone on a floor all their own. A dance floor from somewhere else altogether. To something nobody heard.



To that something, whatever it is, I tip my glass.

the janitor

chuck steps outside. the air feels good and the sun is warm. theres dust caked w sweat to his collared shirt which he glibly unbuttons as he unbuttons feet first into the light and flings it away indiscriminating.

'i relinquish thee'

'did I bring my ID?

'the smoke smells like cinnamon. i hope i dont have a brain tumor.

'in any case i will be expecting one. why is it the shit that smells like a shopping mall when it heats always the shit w carcinogens?

'i wonder where laura is. she hasnt called in days and she has my caddy.

'keys... i forgot my keys

'thats alright you wont be needing them today

chuck spots an incoming bird and flails his arms hoping it better recognize and rechart.

'..because i cant, move it or lose it buddy

'oh my god. so many people out now. i hope i look good. dignified.

'i forgot to check a mirror.. guess i left that too. ah well.

'god look at that runner. i bet shes got a great ass. 

'one for the books.

chuck veers to the right a little, fighting the wind, tentatively working pink panties into the trajectory for a future reconnoitering.

'the intersections are all crowded w people now. not just ants.

'was there a parade today?

'pink panties doesnt seem to mind.

'ill bet shes got a really nice ass

'look at her go...

chuck feels something warm at the fly and realizes his own ass is on fire.

'fuck. i really liked these dickies. my only good pair.

the inner monologue stops as he struggles a moment and pats the flames out.

'wish id thought to bring the mug of joe w me

'its ugly and a throwaway piece of shit much like myself anyhow, im sure laura wouldnt ve minded

'how is it that the distance always so much more than you planned for?

'why does the dog take so long. why so many traffic lights for that matter. why not more underpasses? questions for the initiated.

'a sandwhich wouldve been nice too. fuck. im not even halway there.

'cancel that appointment and get me a handjob

'and a cup of coffee while i pontificate on the mysteries of dog shit and inconveniently synchronized traffic stops i think i need to think life over a few minutes.

'there was never any time. and somehow now theres too much of it.

'god is the great con artist. 

'not the thief, not the faithful. god is the crook.

'i know this because all of the fat boys and preachers and grifters between venice beach and venice italy are too stupid to ever have written in a world as heinous and farcical as this one.

'thats how i know god exists

tell them. tell the faithful their god is real and he hates us all equally

'better to get up on your horse, preach, your pulpit and preach up a storm of how to build a world without god. one with pens that dont dissappear into thin air under the table, children that dont grow legs and walk off the planet, workers that really work, banks that still run on holidays. food that doesnt cost an arm and leg. relationships that dont break, and break everything in their path. lets build a god bunker and start from scratch without all raping asshole in the sky driving everybody screwy.

'that might be a first step in the right direction

'the second to to go make merry w the underdogs down below and screw eachother over in peace

'yeh, first things first. it could work. im headed there now anyhow.

'i hope hades likes leather oxfords bc thats all i got now thats worth a room.

'i think the cat pissed in one of them.

'come to think of it that dirty bastards been pissing and shitting everywhere but the litter box

'he should be the one sprawl-eagled out here

'i wasnt even working today, for godsake, i just forgot to lock the mop up and figured it an excuse to the misses while i hit jackson on the way back for a few drinks w this gal i met in the lobby

'blame the cat. 

'and god. theyre both rotten

'my name is charles bukowski and tell that dirty son of a bitch i hate him.

charles bukowski checks his watch

'...christ it is a long way down.

'stick that in the ledger, motherfucker!

'they say they die of heart failure first. just my luck... not a flutter. i dont think, and i should think weve passed that stop by now. still pumping good, baby. how do you like that.

'guess there is still the question of the flashing of life before the eyes... guess ill find out soon enough

'i think margies onto me.

'i think this because we started having sex again. and its been really good. and i know that because she hasnt turned on the tv

'i should call sarah let her know i wont be making it. sarahs been good for our marriage.

'sarahs been good for everyone.

'no time. here comes the pavement. get out of the way, you shitheads!

'wheres pink panties at now i dont see her. 

'my moral support has gone MIA.

'im probably too old and ugly for her anyway

'id arch my arms and really dive like the silver surfer but im afraid id come in too hot and really hit someone. im a novice goddammit. havent got my wings yet.

'fuck id go for a pig if i could.

'id... what the hell. here it comes.

'tell sarah she needs to shave more. my cock has had enough sandpaper.'

when he hits the ground it isnt very dignified. and each leather oxford shoots a 30 foot course respectively. one hitting a cameraman. there is otherwise no further cruelty and no bystanders are injured by charles' flight from floor 77 of tower one. but many of them will be in the proceeding 30 minutes when it too comes down.

the letter

greenback morning 

the pane is roaring

have a word w the phone

a cigarette to wake the blue rise

west and fairbank a 

piper at the gate 

please write if you can 

i do like the mean look in your mind

carrion men at the 5am stand

wait in fedoras and cinder silk ties

gaucho one in them

move to shake your hand 

grace keep you in the white of his blind eye

temples ten stories pillage the dories that 

syphon tall tales back from the skies

dragged and beaten 

some shark that cheated 

slips into the dark again wearing a smile

let the two lights 

of los cruces you find

nightly be shown from its good side

as the girl at the bridge 

burning both ends

the owls swear they found christ in her lies

screaming his bowls

hounding of hounds 

I heard one hang once stripped to the chin

in life a mother 

saint of a stalker 

death wings like no other no friend

bloodlet the coward

w a cold lupin arbor

let your dreams knife arteries and stain the last mile

find waters still solemn 

w stones at the bottom 

w loves beneath those beyond where or when

let whats tenderly sewn 

at the lip of a rhone

rip tailors ride sailors crossing the sea

and monday morning 

i wont be calling

but the main is alive 

and i love you, i love you my child goodnight.

riverboat chorale

i pulled the leaks clean out that white fleece hovering
thrown the reeds clean mounds in the dried grass covering


sew them good
sew them good mind the greens


larks bringing clouds to the fulled
mouth of tennessee
deleware river the catskills
full-send forever seeds

sew them good
sew them far south roxbury

let my girl go proud let her go in the spring
when the ferns come on 

innertubers laughing in the breeze

where the distant dawn drove dires and fauns
wild streets beckoning

miracles
singing rounds sweet st louis

the carillon

in the islands north on a crescent of day i took a long road that wound where they stayed, through the winded leaves that slept on their stakes on a break in the rain. on the way stood a door clear and tall as the trees, a great golden sail that loomed in the halls and it breathed, and it walked and it shimmered and spoke to me. like some far away thing that watches all the time and lives on in a stream. 

carillons a musique, they made a road that winds south at eastsound.

ive heard stories about the key that lies in the center just off the beach.

but unlike the trees you know time never sleeps, so as the sail died i stalked through it and knew it was mine. because those words that still stand, though dead others who died, those words were a mans and the end of the night.

the huntsman

Drifting through this press of castellated steel and concrete, there's been word of the old cat I met back at the gallows. I don't know what he's up to these days, some have seen him watching jeopordy in the dinner hall in a hospital bed malaised, some working in the 5th street garden they said in a ball cap and cordoroy or puffing a cigar, streaks of gray whisked round his head. Or playing hangman at the park on the bricks in sidewalk chalk, in a crowd of lunch kids tall as a corn stalk. Myself I thought I saw him on front street once stood in a window striking a match, turning round only found a young attorney in tweed checking his watch. 

And in the papers they say there's danger on the edge of town, I hear shouts in the alleys and the parking garages, loud sirens calling up the 90 or on broadway or paramount. They've seen fires at the precinct and I heard a clerk say sams bakery is also gone up in smoke, I think. I don't know what it's all about, and I keep hearing 'crazy times these' and 'funny that', but today I'm wondering about that bloke the one with the bow tie and cane. With the wheezy stare and a wheel of fortune grin. Where is that old man, whatever happened to him.

A flodgin peddler wandered through yesterday with the tribune. Thats watches rings nickles and knives, and three dollar bills that rhyme with plumes. I asked his name he said ben, ben from everclear and I kicked down a wad of fifteen fins. Offered a seat he pulled up a chair tossing me a luckystrike and set his derby down over the fare, 'Remember that Lorie w the trunk you know I think they called me up the other day'

I asked him what about, but saying nothing fished into his pockets and presented a rock his hand stretched out, just some rock and says there's danger on the edge of town. 

'you still on the mephedrone, guy? what was it about'

'can't you see it writ there, fires, and a lighthouse'

Squinting, I motion warily for the bottle and he throws the duffle up on to the table next to the hat.

'I was seeing my brother about a gun out in Roanoke. Two quarts and an old coach. He lives up the drive on a few acres of trees. What's a roan billy fish hawk like you need with a hitch I said and he says he's got a couple out to buy his ford and they want his wood too. And I say but no gun huh.. "Protestants".

What's a city slicker like you need with a gun. Look, move along with your news we're not all daft, I can read too, and no more passages from the sunday oatmeal, I think I've got something I have to get to now..

'We went out to the back to fetch the piece and there's deer, a whole family of them maybe ten or fifteen, grazing. I said these your animals? they don't look scared. He says the rivers been right flush with the buzzards since the tackle shop down the way closed up and "wait watch this, hold on and you just watch".

So he loads it up..

'No. He goes inside and returns w an apple. Walks out to them casual as livestock and sits down at the first stump, ten or fifteen feet between and with a bowie knife in hand offers the apple up in the other'.