in and out of the dark, Bukowski sees on a clear day

i need to feel real
give me
a shock treatment inside a belly laugh
i am lost and desperate in a small café du monde
(goodbye sailor, goodbye yellow brick road!)
drinking bitter herbs from the art of reflection
seduction is a cuckolded divinity
Goya could not have painted me better
reclining and choking
back the golden bars inside the science of my physiognomy

(singing "Is That All There Is?)

let me tell you about the writer:
i've been mugged with indiscreet confessions
i've been assassinated with every error of truth
peace is not a poetry contest
nor the flashing of its odds

i touch these mornings
waiting
for hand-outs of poems,
betrayed, torched-out and desolate
on my way to Mars or the Badlands
where the Sioux sit, hiding tomahawks
in gaming casinos
Crazy Horse, Red Cloud and Sitting Bull
ride the white buffalo,
the ghost dance
with the vixen and the owl
Oh, America!
the eagle whistles
a classical lyrical jazz
piano and horns, luck is no lady
shooting the moon in her Buddha face,
smiling with irony

hell is a closed door, pull down the shades
love is a smoking gun,
a laugh a minute
a strange day
in a man with beautiful eyes.