somethingeveryday

Max Wallis: The Crunch - Charles Bukowski

too much too little 

too fat

too thin

or nobody. 

laughter or

tears 

haters

lovers 

strangers with faces like

the backs of

thumb tacks 

armies running through

streets of blood

waving winebottles

bayoneting and fucking

virgins. 

an old guy in a cheap room

with a photograph of M. Monroe. 

there is a loneliness in this world so great

that you can see it in the slow movement of

the hands of a clock 

people so tired

mutilated

either by love or no love. 

people just are not good to each other

one on one. 

the rich are not good to the rich

the poor are not good to the poor. 

we are afraid. 

our educational system tells us

that we can all be

big-ass winners 

it hasn’t told us

about the gutters

or the suicides. 

or the terror of one person

aching in one place

alone 

untouched

unspoken to 

watering a plant. 

people are not good to each other.

people are not good to each other.

people are not good to each other. 

I suppose they never will be.

I don’t ask them to be. 

but sometimes I think about

it. 

the beads will swing

the clouds will cloud

and the killer will behead the child

like taking a bite out of an ice cream cone. 

too much

too little 

too fat

too thin

or nobody 

more haters than lovers. 

people are not good to each other.

perhaps if they were

our deaths would not be so sad. 

meanwhile I look at young girls

stems

flowers of chance. 

there must be a way. 

surely there must be a way that we have not yet

though of. 

who put this brain inside of me? 

it cries

it demands

it says that there is a chance. 

it will not say

“no.”