BUDDHA

I write and I think of you. I play the guitar and I think of you. I hit the weights and I think of you. I sit in the sauna and I think of you. I study my Portuguese and I think of you. I imagine myself in Argentina and I think of you. I drink a beer at the bar and I think of you. I take a shower and I think of you. I look at my aging face and I think of you. I watch my son play football and I think of you. I hit tennis balls and I think of you. I smoke a joint with my compadre and I think of you. I go for an evening walk and I think of you. I lie in bed at night and I think of you. And when I am dead, I will be thinking of you.

I awake painfully. You are on my mind. Inevitably, I will have no mind. Aye, to sleep so peacefully.

You sentenced me to insanity, but you set me free creativity.

You thought you were going to be an untouched virgin until I discovered your oasis between Jerusalem and Nazareth brimming with vaginal waters. I gave birth to your wild side, which isn't much more than yielding to the ecstatic thrill of sex. Even before I fondle you, your innards drip with anticipation. It excites me when you lose your mind, inebriated by a concatenation of sensations. Entering your viscous vulva with my hard twitching appendage never gets old. Feeling it plunging deeper and deeper into your dark depths gives me a boner. more accurate than a diving rod. I'm a snake slithering into your damp hole. And then there's that explosion of sperm that floods your cavernous cavity. Afterwards, I eat your pulsating pudenda and then we share a sperm-filled kiss with your tongue hissing inside my mouth. You filthy, fabulous nympho. I thank God he brought you into my life.

Can a woman call herself a mother when she's cheated with reckless regularity? Can a woman call herself a mother when she's destroyed family after family? Can a woman called herself a mother when she's turned her children against daddy? Can a woman convince herself she's innocent when as a mother she's been so indecent?

Death is terrible. Death is a tragedy. But death has a dignity. We should extend our gratitude to death. Because without death life has no meaning. Without death there is no love. Without death there is no beauty. Without death we don't even have families as we would move from one relationship to another in an everlasting manner. There would be no memories. Death is both our mother and father. From nothingness we emerge and from nothingness we return. When the priest or the preacher says we are going to a better place, it's because we came from a better place. Without death there would be no consciousness. We would reside in an eternal void. Why are moments so precious? Because they are brief in their beginning and in their ending. Life without death would reduce our existences to absolute meaninglessness. Imagine a game. Take your pick from the scores we play. We'll settle on baseball. What would happen in there wasn't a result after nine innings? What would happen if ...

Paul Gauguin died of syphilis exploring Tahitian women's most inner sanctums, but he had a good time infecting himself. As he went crazier and crazier, his art improved. There was once a great poet who was losing his mind. The doctors gave him back his mind with medications, but he never wrote a decent line of verse the last 40 years of his life. The devil tempts us away from God with art. Secular believers look to Picasso for the answers and not Christ. It all comes down to existence. We know that Jesus is a myth while art is a reality. Do you prefer to fool yourself or fool others? I don't expect to see you in the next life since between eternal time and an infinite universe, we don't even qualify as insignificant since we aren't significant for starters. Alleluia!

The poet Gil Scott-Heron wrote: "I said I wasn't gonna write any more poems like this, but the dogs are in the street." Death is everywhere. The baby boomers are going out with a whimper and not with a bang.  I'm preparing myself for death as I commence my 74th year. My father lived until he was 87 and my mother is 94, so maybe I should be more optimistic, but I've never been more confused, fearful and angry at any time in the previous 73 years.  I live alone and have no beliefs in a god or everlasting life. I believe that when you are dead, you are dead although I have a lingering trepidation that there might be a hell inculcated into me as a result of my Catholic upbringing.  Nuns telling five-year-old children that they could burn forever if they missed Sunday mass can have a traumatic effect on an innocent that leaves him trembling in permanent paranoia until he exhales his last breath. Siddhartha Gautama, before he became the Buddha, was an Indian prince who ...

Why isn't it never enough? Why isn't your talent never enough? Why aren't your wit and creativity never enough? Why isn't your ability as a writer never enough? Why aren't your sons never enough? Why isn't the angel who watches over you never enough? Why isn't the privilege of living another day never enough? Why isn't a woman's love never enough? Why?

I hope when you call,  it is me you want to answer. I hope when you open the door,  it is me you want to see. I hope when you kiss me, it is my lips you want to savor. I hope when you touch me, it is my body you desire. I hope when I leave you,  it is me whom you want to see again. I hope when you are enjoying a beautiful day,  it is me whom you want by your side. I hope when you are sad,  it is me who brings you peace. I hope.

When Hemingway first read Bukowski, he quit attending bullfights. When Faulkner first read Bukowski he quit whipping his slaves. When Steinbeck first read Bukowski he quit feeding his dog Charley. When a prostitute first read Bukowski, she spat, "Who wrote this shit?"

When Michelangelo first saw Jackson Pollock's paintings, the Italian drank arsenic. When Donatello first encountered  Jackson Pollock's paintings, the Italian hung himself. When Rafael first viewed  Jackson Pollock's paintings, the Italian cut his throat. After finishing one of his paintings, a drunk Jackson Pollock  lost control of his speeding car  and killed himself.

During the marriage ceremony the priest or the pastor will say: "For better or worse" this couple will endure. For better or worse, I will always be your father. And for better or worse, you will always be my son.

"Our lust has dissolved into dust and our love has crashed back to earth like a riddled dove," thought Estanislao Contreras, the author of Chicano Fuck Songs. He knew that wouldn't do. It would defeat the whole purpose of a dozen roses and a card. He was trying his best to avoid confrontations, not initiate them. He knew that there would be an incident in the next few days that would ignite a war of words. He did not need to fan the flames that were burning beneath the surface. Instead, he penned, "Thank-you for all the joy you have brought into my life. I give thanks to God every day for our love." Would she see through his words? He hadn't told her anything affectionate in years and she knew that he didn't believe in God. But he wasn't good at sweet nothings. And the only reason she wanted flowers sent to her office was to avoid the embarrassment of her colleagues displaying their husbands and boyfriends' offerings at their desks. She was alway...

I am inevitably committing suicide with my vice-ridden life, but a woman is responsible for my slow demise. She is like a cancer that goes into remission and then suddenly upon my next visit to the psychiatrist I discover that the disease has metastasized. The doctor increases my medication. He comments that my condition is terminal, but the meds will allow me a few more months or years of life. She infected the marrow in my bones and the matter in my brain. I am imploding. When I hear and read about women complaining that their men are abusing them, I ask myself if these gals are at fault and then act surprised when their ex-lovers want to drag them over the edge and into the abyss with them. I have never known a more vicious animal than the human female. They will truly lure you into their webs or lairs. After they have sucked you dry with the calculated way they give their loose bodies, they fill you with their venom and laugh at you as their poisons consume you while they turn thei...

With the exception of the first which is reserved for thinkers who were secular rather than religious, Donald Trump could be condemned to the other eight circles of Dante's hell. Two through five are for those culpable of lust, gluttony, greed and wrath. Trump is the epitome of all all four. He is a fat pig angrily suppurating sperm instead of sweat from his corpulent body as he rants and raves heinous rhetoric. Has there ever been a more despicable politician in the history of the United States? He is the modern Pied Piper whose followers are idiots rather than rats. The final four, six through nine, carry harsher tortures and punishments. These outcasts have been sentenced to eternal misery for heresy, violence, fraud and treachery. He precipitated violence on January 6th. His whole life has been consumed by fraud for which he is presently paying a handsome price for his ugly acts and treachery oozes like pus from the belly flab of innumerable open sores. Even lepers keep their d...

I feel like all I do is write obits. I'd rather write about death itself than laud a person who just died. We entered this world not knowing we were doomed to exit it. Another friend died yesterday. The wind blows and the fronds fall from their heights. Rain or shine, the Grim Reaper keeps his appointed rounds.  

And so it begins, the daily struggle, the battle to make sense out of life. We are alone. There is no consciousness after we are dead. Some of the worst people adhere to a fictional mythology. We return to the state from which we emerged. There is no heaven. Certain moments can be described as heavenly, but there is no blissful afterlife, not even for the Islamic martyrs who have been told there will be virgins waiting for them once they cross the threshold from existence to non-existence. There is hell and hell is here. We are meant to suffer. We must try our best to overcome our suffering or we will fall victims to insanity or even take our own lives. We are all destined to die, even our beautiful babies and young children, and we are destined to be forgotten. Unless you're a great artist, not a trace will remain of you or those who used to remember you. It is all a foregone conclusion. Two weeks don't pass that someone I know doesn't pass. These constant concatenations o...

SHE: "You need to teach me how and how hard to press your nipples, so that the electricity can flow through your body. I'll learn. The pleasure that it gives you satisfying me is the same pleasure I want to give satisfying you." HE: "You have learned the basics. Nasty talk has always excited me and you seem to be very frank in detailing your past. Dirty stories provide me with a mental pornography. As you have discovered, I'm not kinky sexually. I consider myself more traditional in love-making, but I know how to touch all the bases. I particularly like making a women experience an orgasm while I'm eating her. I like exploring you with with my finger or two fingers in order to make you wider. You have definitely become more accommodating in comparison to the first time. You were extremely tight although I was able to ejaculate. Practice makes perfect and the lubricant has added to furthering our pleasure." SHE: "You complained that I shouldn't p...

Like rain brings out the mosquitoes, hangovers buzz with demons. I'm struggling to my feet at noon. I am going to fill my glass --half filled-- with freshly squeezed orange juice. The comeback slowly begins, not with a winning streak, but with a few victories. You suggested that I read Pablo Neurda's Ode to the Present. I believe I would prefer an ode to the past or the future although they wouldn't be too different from the present. Next beer's on me, amigo.  

One day they will talk about those happy Sunday afternoons when the last of the Baby Boomers would congregate on the deck at Cobbleheads where they would drink copiously while Emilio Crixell and his eclectic band of musicians would belt out the blues as well as the sixty and seventy tunes that had stood the test of time. Proprietor Joe "The Irish Prick" Kenney, healthy once again that his throat cancer had been declared in remission, would stroll between the tables and greet everyone in his thick Philly accent. A cigarette would be dangling from his mouth. His many customers would bum a smoke from him with the intention of saving his life. All the characters would be in attendance. Time had taken its toll as the men did their best to hide their beer bellies behind loose fitting shirts while there wasn't much the women could do about the wrinkles searing their faces. They were also from a time when being natural was the mantra, so their principles excluded breast jobs. The...

Harlingen is filled with mothers who don't deserve the title. Harlingen is filled with mothers who squeeze out kids like they squeeze out shits. Harlingen is filled with mothers who destroy their families because they want to spread their legs and open their mouths for other men's cocks. Harlingen is filled with mothers who refuse child support because they don't want their children to have anything to do with their fathers. Harlingen is filled with mothers who pervert their children with lies because they don't want them to know the truth. Harlingen is filled with mothers who tell their children on Father's Day not to answer the door or the phone while they satiate other men by swallowing their sperm. Harlingen is filled with mothers who will spend an eternity in hell because they severed the sacred ties between fathers and their children. Harlingen is filled with mothers who play the victims when they are the culprits. Harlingen is filled with mothers who refuse t...

"What is your mental state, compadre? With the exception of painting the town red the other day, you're not drinking much wine or smoking much dope." "I seldom turn to alcohol or drugs recreationally when I'm not well mentally, big guy. Alcohol makes me angry and drugs get me paranoid. I had my most terrible outbursts with women when I was drunk." "What are you doing to stay calm?" "I'm on a steady diet of Xanax, point five my diurnal dose. I'm redefining myself physically. In the last two months I've dropped from 200 to 185. My goal is 175. When I was 30, I weighed 150. At 74 I have limited appeal and I have to eliminate as many negatives as possible in order to make a good first impression. My biggest challenge is the belly. Underneath this shrinking keg there may be a six pack." "What are doing to become young and handsome again?" "I'm doing American yoga every day." "What the hell is American y...

You teach him to fly and he abandons you. You raise him to think and he calls you a fool. You give him money and he steals from you. You guide him along a path and he chooses the opposite direction. You go to embrace him and he pushes you away. You tell him you love him and he looks at you with hate. You pour him a drink and he spits in your face. You forgive him and he blames you. You build a house for him and he burns it down. You extend a helping hand and he tries to lop off your arm. You invite him to a feast and he feeds the food to the dogs. You want to care for your grandson and he pays for a babysitter. You spend thousands on him and he accuses you of being miserly You are sick and he doesn't visit you. You die and he skips the funeral.

READER: I want to make you great. WRITER: And how do you intend to do that? READER: I want you to write about two dogs fucking in the street from a stream of consciousness perspective. WRITER: What are you smoking? Two dogs fucking in the street is disgusting. Dogs don't experience stream of consciousness thoughts. They don't think. A bitch is in heat and the closest to the moneymaker makes his deposit. A dog urinating on a fire hydrant would be more realistic although I'm sure there wouldn't be much interest in that scene. Are you suggesting that a dog could be having a stream of consciousness moment while he was peeing?. READER: Dogs are very smart animals. I have no doubts they are having a stream of consciousness moment when they are retrieving your newspaper. WRITER: I hate to sound trite with this response, but you are barking up the wrong tree if you expect me to write about two dogs humping in the middle of the street for starters. I have never heard of anything...

Charles Bukowski hooked up with a buddy at a downtown L.A. bar. He had fucked the ugliest chick of his life the previous night. He had drunk himself into a blind state. He had to get drunk this afternoon in order to feel sober again. He smoked one cigarette after another as he poured double whiskeys down his throat. He didn't feel like talking. He just wanted to growl. "I didn't know you were a painter. I saw some of your works at a Hollywood show." "I'm not a fuckin' painter, asshole. I just splash colors on a canvas. We live in a world of idiots who would call a pile of shit a contemporary sculpture and pay thousands for that crap." "You underestimate yourself. I've been reading your poetry lately and..." "I don't write poetry. I start typing a bunch of inchoate words and the idiots of the world want to call it poetry and publish books. We live in a world of fucking screwballs." "Next thing you're going to tell ...