hank chinaski wrote me an email

but it was before when he was on AOL
so i'm not sure if it ever got through
but if it did, it sounded something like
this:

i was a kid
and got beat-up
by everyone in the
neighborhood at least
once or maybe that's
just the past i
want you to
see and
not see
not the
real me
i want to
see the real
me and then recall
what i was brought here
to do, what i was meant to be,
for real and without cause, i
trudge along in the check-out
line, remembering lines from
poems now long out of style.

last night of the earth!
poems.

classic moments brought back.

i want to escape to who i am,
not now and not then, but the
'who i am' in the future,
tense, worn out, distracted,
miserable, laughing, taking it
in stride as much as possible;
a zombie still in motion, i am
called in for an application of
interview techniques. i don't
remember you. i don't remember
me.

even now, i can't hesitate to
recall the one moment or two,
that one choice or two i
never made and now it's
too late.

bukowski wrote me a secret
message buried in midst of
his words and i'm just now
deciphering it.

that crazy bastard.