Bukowski's Daughter

God damned veins pumping 
all over the place 

I would have liked to see 
that veiny bastard one more time

Veiny vain vainglorious 
frog-kick legs and Blake hair and mustard gas breath

Here I imagine the last call as 
a death throw-swipe kick rausschmiss

Some rauschfrei lullaby 
sung in a thin blood   

Dad in the VW going to the Von's for Wolfschmidt

Driving on the sidewalk scattering people

A turtle shell with the tore-up turtle body coming out 
(oh that make me sick to think about)

He wrote me letters 
always in the third person
(in his fake writers name)

Always telling me to read some same old text 
by some monk or drug addict

No matter what he said 
(or what the character he wrote as said) 
he took it away at the end

"What do I know?"

The only thing a daughter ever wants from a father 
-ever- 

Is some reassurance 

So I never knew anything either

Like what was his favorite day ever? 

The card sorting and the memorization

Put the mail in the slot 
-discard 
-repeat for a million citizens 

Hands cut in pulp and bleach and glue and ink

When he quit something he thought 
That's that

So a uterus is just another hostile place 

A real dive

Women made him hard 
(with a bone to pick)

But it was hard for him

I am made from 
abandonment

Like some petrified old tree stump 
that no one remembers 

ever being a tree

the roots with knurls smooth and polished as cabriolets

I could imagine I had a father 
and he and I sat together

"No one remembers when this was just fields"

The German blue eyes are just 
filling with tears 
when I smooth his hand on my dirndl


(2010)