An Expedition to the Dead Sea without a canteen

They turned her to dust in the morning
Wheeling a cold gurney
forward into
the heated penumbra
Her strawberry nightie lightly floating
As the
rollers moved the old flesh forward
Those arms that gripped
my arm
Those lips, kissed a thousand times
Those loins that bore me squalling into this
carnival
The sparks of sweet neurons gone in 1500 degrees
No more wake up
showers
No more microwaved coffee
All her deeds, good and otherwise
Into the
dissolution of a “ Power Pack II” Cremation system
Two
hours to disassemble
Six decades of a Mother’s love
Suddenly I am alone
on the salt flats
Dizzied, stunned, disoriented and silenced
The dust
stings my eyes
The salty tears wash them clean

Consummation Of Grief




by Charles Bukowski

I even hear the mountains

the way they laugh up and down their blue sides

and down in the water

the fish cry

and the water is their tears.

I listen to the water on nights

I drink away

and the sadness becomes so great

I hear it in my clock

it becomes knobs upon my dresser

it becomes paper on the floor

it becomes a shoe horn

a laundry ticket

it becomes cigarette smoke

climbing a chapel of dark vines

. . .it matters little

very little love is not so bad

or very little life

what counts

is waiting on walls

I was born for this

I was born to hustle roses

down the avenues of the dead.