My Horse Turned Left

Most of the day around here has been a confusion of cords and cables and sub-normal connections. Circuits smoked, signals crossed and wires dead-ended. Wouldn’t it be nice to think that life could really be a case of plug and play? Well, good luck on that. Without my good friend Nobu offering up some expertise I might still be tangled in a hell of connecting cables.

Exhausted at the end of our electronic wrestling match, I flopped into a chair with a highball and reached for the nearest book at hand. Around here you can never be sure what ‘reaching for’ is going to yield, but this time it was Charles Bukowski’s 2007 The People Look Like Flowers At Last: New Poems. Any regular visitor to these pages will already know that Bukowski holds a special place in my heart. His honesty appeals, his bravery inspires. Below are two poems from the 2007 collection.

ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS

all of my knowledge about horse racing
told me that this was a sure bet.
I bet one thousand to win.
the horse had post one
at 6 furlongs.

the bell rang and they came
out of the gate.

my horse turned left
ran through the fence
fell down and
died
right there
at 7/5.

when I tell people this story
they don’t say
anything.

sometimes there’s nothing to say
about
death.

I LIVE IN A NEIGHBORHOOD OF MURDER

the roaches spit out rusted

paper clips

and the helicopter circles and circles

smelling for blood

searchlights leering down into our

bathrooms

searching for our two-lid cache under the

mattress.

5 guys in this court have pistols

another a

machete

we are all murderers and

alcoholics

but there are worse in the hotel

across the street;

they sit in the green and and white doorway

banal and depraved

waiting to be

institutionalized.

here we each have a dying green plant

on our porch

and when we fight with our women at 3 a.m.

we do so

in hushed tones

as outside on each porch

stands a small dish of food

that is always eaten by morning

we presume

by the

cats.