Three Walking Riffs for Bukowski

1

I’m walking home from work
and as I approach the lake
I see the woman wrapped
like a pig-in-a-blanket
parked in her chair
and she’s raving screaming
at the whole world
and she probably has good reason
to be angry
but there’s no catharsis
because there’s no one
to take it out on.
Her screams go out
into the empty air.
I’ve been standing all day
and my feet are sore
and I’m not going to skip
the shortcut past the lake
just because a crazy woman
is ranting in a chair.
I head right for her
and now she has a target
she gets louder and angrier
and I tell myself she’s not angry
at me as she thumps her thighs
screaming about walking
and she doesn’t know my feet
are killing me, just
that I’m walking.

2

Say your job is a prison sentence
and you’re serving time
thinking you’re getting duller
and duller but you’re too dim-
witted to know your point’s
already broken.

Say you’re a cup
having sat so long on the shelf
it’s yellow once white.

Say you’re a drawer
full of mechanical watches
each stopped
at a different time.

Say you thought you saw
the worst always happening
now stares back at you
from the workroom mirror.

Say that turtle with fungus
on its back isn’t swimming
with all its might
to devour white bread
thrown from the bridge.

Say this walk is the last
you’ll ever take.

Say every second isn’t
the sweetest.

3

Everything hurts
and if you fall
everything will break
but you haven’t
yet
you’re upright
and ambling
and the sun
is brilliant
after a hard rain
and with your poncho
tucked in your pack
you look ahead
and keep walking.