Bukowski’s cast a spell on me

 

I walk the corridors of madhouses

 

to the tune of Sibelius symphony

 

I opened the door and there he lay

 

there he lay my love

 

across the legs of a woman in a dirty dress

 

a jug of Zinfandel to his left and he’s just

 

gotten off

 

of

 

5 days of

 

tequila

 

a piano in the centre of

 

the room

 

and

 

a bed

 

to the right

 

a table bearing a typewriter

 

hovers over his head

 

‘when you are not around”

 

he says

 

I’ll set this bed on fire

 

sing the National Anthem

 

he rips the telephone wire out

 

but before he does

 

he telephones

 

Paris

 

Madrid

 

Tokyo

 

intoxicated

 

he tells me stories about

 

how he was a

 

matador

 

a boxer

 

a pimp

 

a friend of Ernie’s

 

a friend of Picasso

 

God

 

Sober now he talks of

 

Insurance policies

 

Decaf latte

 

Broccoli

 

A very green lawn and

 

Garbage cans with tight lids.

 

Bukowski’s cast a spell on me

 

I rip the telephone wire out

 

But before that

 

Bonjour

 

Ola

 

Moshi Moshi

Disintegrate

 

It starts out small 

an anomaly, a mild aberration off the ideal reference 

something you ate, something you didn’t 

maybe it's how much you move or didn’t 

it's the stress you say

you continue, you eat, move and live right to the right you know best 

and then it's a tear, an organ on the verge of failure.

You can still save it, they say

just some pills, dietary changes 

MOVE YOU MUST 

but you don’t, your annoyance with the world has earned you a cake 

your annoyance with your husband has earned you a tub of ice-cream

your defeated children earn you your fried up breakfast 

now its 2 organs on the verge of failure

You can still save it, they say

a few procedures, dietary changes 

MOVE YOU MUST

but you don’t, It's my legs, am too tired, where do I go 

I have no friends 

your insecurities earn you a lazy day in bed, a week even, a month perhaps… let's make that a year 

your fears of the unknown keep you with the familiar

you spend your days with the “Could have been’s” 

too late now, I could’ve found love, I could’ve travelled the world, I could’ve danced

now it’s 3 organs, that’s the charm you know 

the third bell that brings you in

the third rap to sentence your deeds 

the third that won’t save the two 

it’s your mind, medical induced psychiatric disorders 

it’s a dog trying to catch its tail. 

MOVE YOU MUST 

Dear mother, I’ve seen you physically and mentally break a little every day 

Its the graduation I missed nursing your hysterectomy 

It's the marriage I walked into to nurse your ego

it's the job I quit to nurse your non-functioning kidneys and lungs 

it’s a matter of time they say

It’ll all come to an end, be patient, find a healer

learn to let go. 

Dear Mother, MOVE YOU MUST

but you can't. 

One Art - Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses, went.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident

the art of losing’s not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.