too fat 
too thin 
or nobody. 

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 Marilyn 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 by 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 

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 
thought of. 

who put this brain inside of me? 

it cries 
it demands 
it says that there is a chance. 

it will not say 
“no.”

-Bukowski