Seems

It seems like so many memories are returning to this yellow post. Like people imprisoned they return to a promised land. Lots of things to unravel, to unknot, lay out straight like a long string. Sometimes with a smile and grin I'll greet these memories that seem to be me.

Ghost

I got my first Chirstmas card addressed to my name, Tortelli. It came from someone I hadn't heard from in a long time. The Ghost of Charles Bukowski wished me Season's Greetings.
"Thanks, Charles," I said to the sky.

The Fight

There was a fight outside the One Lucky. Two strangers clashed. Broken beer bottles cut up each man's face. The police came, but the men had run off. Trails of criss-crossed blood were left behind. The cops questioned the bartender 'Beer Mugs' Moran, but he had eyes that went bad whenever there was trouble. The rest of the witnesses were just as blind. The policemen shrugged their shoulders and said good night to 'Beer Mugs'. With a nod he served another round.

Fallen

Tonight I drive with a fallen angel in my car. I don't know her name and she wont say. We listen to music on the radio. Talk a little. Maybe she'a got too big a secret to tell. First time ever with this fallen angel, deep bruises under her eyes. I'll go to someplace where she can hide and I can drive away.

53 years old
Sometimes there's a blindness in my mind's eye
I see darkness in a mortal sky
Rays of light turn away
Bend in this absent universe
I'll rise up like a city somewhere
But here a morning sun awakes me,
Awaits an answer from a restful eye
In desperate time I pray mercy to another day
Darkness creeping as blind as a mortal sky

Thankful

I walk alone through a rusted part of town. The last jobs and men left long ago. I turn up my collar against a raspy wind; make a weary dance to a working man's song. Thankful for a final drink--a few days away from this empty part of town.

Blank

I sit at a computer and drink cans of diet coke. Popcorn touches these salted lips. With frustrated fingers I can barely type to a yellow screen...a post seems like a distant dream; that oasis hidden by a desert storm. So I sit with blood shot eyes as an eeriness turns inside. Thunder Road plays on the radio: one last chance to make it real. It's late so soon, past 3am. Time to undress a cool bed and sleep long in this empty room.