Brainwater

(When I sit to make sense of this I’m listening to “Days of Candy” and
imagining Bukowski in a raft on the sea)

Alone for now                          a lie for a lie
makes night familiar to me
and the bad train takes me somewhere I’ve already seen
slams the same window screen          
on the same finger bend
different people say the same words and I let them
let them
let him lessen the leash
I feel the thought starting to reach

like for a moment
did he wonder if it was still me
or hope someone more sweet
might come through the fog

like is love just from hell
or love a good dog
just a dawn a black swan
not nearly worth the hard slog I put on
because how can I sense the leaving when you’re not even gone

in my pulse it’s false footsteps that rush on and on
I reach for that light to touch
like how can I mean nothing in this world

but then in my heart
feel so much