Bukowski

If Bukowski is one of the great
American poets,
what does that say about
our troubles?

Maybe it was Los Angeles that did him in.
"There's a city here, I swear," (is what I wrote
the last time I was here.)
Some won't believe it, but
it does get cold at night,
it does get lonely.
For all the people here, there
are even more walls,
and even more ways to get
stuck in them.

San Pedro could have been better for him--
working class port--
his deathplace, his homeplace,
his southerly corner
in this southwesterly cornered-off state.

Faces fall off

We were sitting in the car
and I was thinking about his
muscles.
Not arm or jaw, but the muscles
above his bones and
underneath
his skin,
the muscles that are out of reach.

And as I was thinking
his face began to fall off,
and the muscles underneath
that speak in a code I try so hard
to understand
were shown,
serendipitously,

and I felt better we were going there together.