Poem for Nobody

an apprehension for reality, the death of the flower, the collapse of hope, the crush of wasted years, the nightmare faces, the mad armies attacking for no reason at all and/or old shoes abandoned in old corners like half-forgotten voices that once said love but did not mean love. see the face in the mirror? the mirror in the wall? the wall in the house? the house in the street? now always the wrong voice on the telephone and/or the hungry mouse with beautiful eyes which now lives in your brain. the angry, the empty, the lonely, the tricked. we are all museums of fear. there are as many killers as flies as we dream of giant sea turtles with strange words carved into their hard backs and no place for the knife to go in. Cain was Able, ask him. give us this day our daily dread. the only solace left to us is to hide alone in the middle of night in some deserted place. with each morning less than zero, humanity is a hammer to the brain, our lives a bouquet of blood, you can watch this fool still with his harmonica playing elegiac tunes while slouching toward Nirvana without expectation or grace.

Charles Bukowski