Looking for Bukowski in Palos Verdes
I stumble over graves,
crushing flowers with my heels.
The sun fades into the hills,
gates scheduled to lock
at the first hint of night.
I scan the headstones,
they all look the same.
Rows of strangers
tucked under grass.
I am not afraid
as the dark settles in.
I feel alive surrounded
by ghosts, especially
the ones who died drinking
whisky as they typed.
I don’t mind silhouettes
gliding over mausoleum
walls, dead faces staring
through leaves.
I’m looking for the home
of his pockmarked skin,
and voice of a dying beast.
Whose words make witches cry,
and devils blush. They pull me
to my pen, haunt my poems
with their anthems.
They call me to this place,
perched on the peninsula’s tip.
To search for his simple epitaph.
Finally, I see him, resting on the ridge.
Alone. A space by his side,
waiting for his wife.
I kneel, wipe dust off his plaque,
smile as I read Don’t try
etched in stone.
I say a prayer,
and cry.
A Poem is the Chelsea Hotel
after Bukowski
A poem is a hotel bed,
with stained sheets,
and bras twisted under silk.
It’s the housekeeper counting
her tips, receptionist singing
the blues. It’s portraits of dead
artists glaring at strangers
slinking up stairs, haunted
eyes following them to their doors.
A poem is marble floors bruised
by the boots of Schuyler, Thomas,
Cohen, Vicious, Smith and Mapplethorpe.
It’s lyrics whispered into smoke,
lines scratched on envelope flaps,
pages crumpled in the trash,
chapters aborted in the dark.
A poem is face-slapping arguments
between lovers, poets coughing
up blood, blowjobs given
by fallen rock stars.
A poem is punks, pockmarked
and pale, shooting heroin
on the toilet tile. Knives thrust
into hearts. Fashion models
shivering on the roof, barefoot,
and alone.