The River Styx in Bukowski Minor

Bukowski writes:
"Love is a Dog from Hell."
And speaks of
"...that terror of one person
aching in one place alone
untended
unspoken to".
"People are not good
to each other." (Were
truer words ever spoken?)

Bukowski
was a man
who knew too much.

Dragging
his heart on a chain
behind him, like
the Ghost of Christmas Past,
broken-winged
he flew every
now and then,
but his poems always
make you say "Yes,
this is the way it is,
thanks for telling the truth
when I can't or won't”,

when I forget all that pain
is the price I paid
to the ferryman,
hunched over,
faceless.