how are your balls, bukowski?

my balls are itching,
red, sore
and haven’t
been happy
for years.

that’s all women
really want
no matter what
they say. no one

or two in particular
just lots. and you
try but they’re
so goddamned
fragile and dem-
anding. she’ll say
something like,

“you’re real nasty
when you drink
after we have sex”
and i’ll say
“then go find
yourself
a man who
doesn’t drink
or fuck
so much, but,
for chrissake,
just stick
with him.”

and then i
might call her
a whore or
something and
it’s good
to know that when-

ever a woman
gets out of line
you can just
kick her in
the face.


and i’ve always
thought of
vaginas
like flowers
and myself
a big ugly
grunting mean
sad drunk
frankenstein

and they all say
“have you seen
him? he’s the
new voice of
a new lost
generation.”
i said, “i’m
no great writer,
i can’t even
make an honest
woman”

but then,
that money can
make you
do wonderful things
and drink
the good scotch
not that rat piss
they drink over
on skid row

and i told her
that i always thought
whores were
beautiful, and
i’m not too drunk
yet, but i’m
out of money,
darlin.

i don’t
cry when you’re
gone, i put on
Brahms, sleep
with these
young strangers
who’ve read
my stuff, and

i sit at
my typewriter
and start
wishing it was
a gun.

Tournament of Champions (philosophical nitpicking is for idiots)

I hate that someday im going to die and this has severely affected the entirety of my life. The end is nigh! The end is nigh! And im watching Jeopardy! and drinking guiness. Dinosaurs. New World College Dictionary. Women of Country. Musical Instruments. If its Tuesday, this must be Belgium! I miss you for 600! What is chiraz? Who is faith hill? What is Georgia on my mind? What is gulf war syndrome? What is karaoke in the kitchen? Who is bruce springsteen? What is the end all be all of existence? Failure or failing to say the right thing is a terrible thing to undergo because there are a million other things you could’ve said that could’ve been better but there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it. Everything dies baby that’s a fact! Someone said that, paul or bruce, or camus, or karl marx. I cant keep track of all the things I hear. Why do you smoke cigarettes? Typically, I smoke them to kill time.

Sunday at the De Young

Ah, to be young, and alive, and appreciative
of company in the afternoon where we try
to be as non-intrusive as possible to Susanna
who is naked in Missouri with pubic hair,
apparently, which says something about the
piece, or artist, or America. I can’t recall. But
it doesn't really matter. Let’s fuck in the
middle of the gallery and confuse people
by being in the wrong section for stains, abstractions
in the midday and you said you had never seen a
Motherwell in person or a Chinese running turtle
but being young and alive is enough excuse for
anything these days. Isn’t it? I’ve never understood
these things, these esoteric declarations, hidden
semaphores like breadcrumbs or like when a writer
says things like, “the afternoon kisses the sky cold
and blushing,” or “your nose soft and wet never
forgot winter.” Without which no cohesive story
could ever manifest beyond silly things like sunsets
and cigarettes rolling between knuckles
and lips and dark clouds in the park waiting
for us to remember that we aren’t quite old
yet and there’s not so much to remember or
contemplate but there’ll be plenty of time
for weeping and such when last night tiptoes
down the hallway in the morning limping
with hairs stuck in teeth and coffee breath
from six days ago when Susanna was still
naked but I was nervous until in the next room
I realized how geometrically sound it all is! And
staring hopelessly at these shapes, I prayed there
was a kennel to put our love until the yard is big enough
and the house has plenty of wall space for stains
and abstractions that I’ll still look at with thick
brow and forehead but enjoying their company
as they stare back giggling at our fetishes
for domestication and oil paints.

Out of Breath: A Literal translation (An Ode to Owning Things)

I will not play at tug o’ war—I’d rather play at hug o’ war
Don’t leave, he says—Sounding like her now
But thinking of logistics—The practicality of rope
Legs braided in the unmade bed—And stomachs
With so much to say—So happy to see each other
They won’t shut up or settle—And we don’t get
Their sick jokes or know the meaning of—Their sounds
It’s like watching a foreign film—Probably French
Given the circumstances—Of dialogue and overt chauvinism
Soverignty spoke tender—And there’s revolution in the air but
You can never tell— With women these days particularly
Women with short hair—They’re absolutely unpredictable
Come closer just for a second—So the line is loose enough for
I—Would like to tie you to this banister and
Kill you with my kisses all night!—For if you
The— End

Sex-isms

Women are like chores,
easy ones get done.

Afterwards, it was awkward. We smiled
and she cries, “You never

take me
seriously.”

Waking up to the open refrigerator air makes
morning wishes for a carton of
milk without an expiration date—

which is pretty pointless
considering how quickly it goes,
but it’s a lot easier than
owning a cow.

I’m sorry I’m always tired.
I’m sorry for getting tired.

They say that orgasms will make you
believe in God, but, I don’t like ecstasy,
and already stomach enough guilt with the subject.

Some girls say I love you when they’re happy.
Some say they can’t come.

Both of us spent the rest of our lives
wishing that we never crawled out
of the bed;

where we made a mess
fingerpainting all night with our judgment
significantly lowered.

Other bedrooms get the best of us.

Terrified of our shadows we turn out the lights
and make love to blankets.

Your eggshell skin rolling onto the bed
with my cautious self. Who came first?

We’re both scared but you’re pretty
but you’re smart and smart girls scare me.

We drove home from the beach quiet,
grinding sand in our
teeth.

Timing is everything.

You praise the telephone and
everything that happened during the day
until the doorbell finally rings. Anticlimax.

Every man is God when he says things to get laid
and young girls swear by them and turn them in
to pillars of a faith.

Every girl is (becomes)
a planet, a country, a home.

And we’re all the bastard children of a
someone who doesn’t love us.

Le Saboteur!

thursday morning/afternoon after
the night before/ early morning
two tired bodies/ happy birthday!
cigarettes smile/ always tensed
it’s getting late/ do you like your present?!
Noon thursday? do you like

breakfast in bed/ cigarette cereal
lips still tipsy/ strawberry champagne
orgasms are okay/ something glib
spread like jam/ the toast is burning!
two toothbrushes spoon/ scrubbing ash off teeth.
Burnt toast in bed.

late at night/ early a.m.
she’s been waiting/ oh oh ohhhhh!
where’d it go?/ it’s hard to miss
horseback blues/ goodbye
until morning/ please come.
Oh! good night, are you done yet?

dust mouth/ driving south
jokes bone dry/ barren balls
rolling over/going along
skeleton bush/ sarsaparilla saloon
passive shrubbery/ shrugging passion
Tumbling tumbleweed tumbles

at the end of the day
we never wanted algebra

we’re kids, we like rock n roll
and repeating ourselves and staying
up late and other things that
don’t really exist, but we believe
with all our heart in what’s under the bed-
spread like strawberry jam over the morning

Unprotected sex is the only kind worth having

Early morning spoils
left out with last century’s milk
and all my poetry turns

into this sky broken out
with stars again itching
and burning through 2a.m.

There used to be a god for this
but hes buried in france or italy

where his mourning women are beautiful
and drunk and naked with purple stains
on their skin running wild and moaning.

Here under the western sun
we’ll lay curdled in the brush
of young america with raspberries
in our thighs and backs and
dirt in our fingernails

then burn our offering
of penicillin in the incense tray.

I spent the day in bed listening to Joshua Clover
and a good friend in Europe talking about how
uselessly American I have become over the years
of watching teen flicks and stumbling out of cars
with ash all over my pants or Southern breath.
Its dark at 5: 30 p.m. making it seem like its at
the other end of day, so right now I’m writing this
poem from China right after the genocide at
the opium dens where the weary went to
lay on the floor and look sad as hell while
the Lumiere brothers made a thirty second
movie about, well, anything that they could.
Did you check bbc.co.uk today? while I was
reading The Map Room because it’s the only
one of his poems I could find online;
Has the internet become the new moon?
In that case, ill read the horoscopes off
the freckles on your back and be anything
but a Taurus because I cant change when
I was born and I don’t believe in any of
that bullshit anyway but I want to lay next
to you knowing or not knowing that
tomorrow will be there,
laying next to me.