A Valentine for Ben Franklin Who Drives a Truck in California

This is by Diane Wakoski, who I've had the great pleasure to meet. She has a kitchen counter that is literally the stump of a giant tree that stands waist-high from the floor.

I cut the deck
and found a magician
driving a mack truck
down the California grapevine.
His eyes were glistening Japanese beetles,
and his hands were surveyors of the moon.
He pulled a carnation
out of his sleeve,
and offered me a ride.
I took the flower and said I was leaving
to be an illusionist. He said
he specialized in cards
and sleight of hand.
I touched his mouth and ears
with my lips,
"Keep on truckin,"
I said.
But he laughed and told me a bedtime story.
His body was an elm.
His mouth was filled with grapes.
His hands turned my body into new honey.

Now I am home alone,
reading directions
for sawing a beautiful woman in half.
First you start with a mirror....

Before I turn down the crisp sheets of my bed,
I shuffle the tarot deck.
But the magician is missing.
Is he still driving the freeways of California?
Or is he
only an illusion
in my own
magician's
head?

For Jane

This is by Charles Bukowski, a clever and raw old man.


225 days under grass
and you know more than I.
they have long taken your blood,
you are a dry stick in a basket.
is this how it works?
in this room
the hours of love
still make shadows.

when you left
you took almost
everything.
I kneel in the nights
before tigers
that will not let me be.

what you were
will not happen again.
the tigers have found me
and I do not care

Truth about love

I simply don't have words to express how much I appreciate this poem. It's by Bob Hicok, and my copy is in his book Insomnia Diary, which I've carried in my purse for about a year.


I apologize for not being Gandhi or Tom
the mailman who is always kind.

He makes his way every day no matter
the mood of the sky with our words

in a sack and Gandhi made the English
give India back without

taking a gun for a wife. My contribution
to the common good is playing

with the alphabet in a little room
while the world goes foraging

for food. I'm a better poet than man
and it's well known how little

my verbs are worth. I am my only subject,
being the god of my horizons.

What saves me is that just beyond my skin
the world of yours is where

I'd rather live. The AMA says you've added
seven point six years to my life.

In a phrase, love is a transfer of wealth.
This is why Adam Smith gave up

romantic verse. In trying to say what can't
be said I'll take the Dragnet

approach. Just the facts. I'd be dead
sooner without you, you'll die faster

for being a Mrs., raw deal can't be more
clearly defined. To make amends

I offer ten percent more kisses each year.
Or do I do more harm the closer

we become? If yes, leaving would be love
and a better man might. But my thrills

are selfishl domestic. I like sweeping words
into piles and whispering good night.

Don't you know the duece is still wild

The Stones speak my language

How to Speak French

This film is basically about real life.

Cat's Dream

by Pablo Neruda
translated by Alastair Reid

How neatly a cat sleeps,
sleeps with its paws and its posture,
sleeps with its wicked claws,
and with its unfeeling blood,
sleeps with all the rings--
a series of burnt circles--
which have formed the odd geology
of its sand-colored tail.

I should like to sleep like a cat,
with all the fur of time,
with a tongue rough as flint,
with the dry sex of fire;
and after speaking to no one,
stretch myself over the world,
over roofs and landscapes,
with a passionate desire
to hunt the rats in my dreams.

I have seen how the cat asleep
would undulate, how the night
flowed through it like dark water;
and at times, it was going to fall
or possibly plunge into
the bare deserted snowdrifts.
Sometimes it grew so much in sleep
like a tiger's great-grandfather,
and would leap in the darkness over
rooftops, clouds and volcanoes.

Sleep, sleep cat of the night,
with episcopal ceremony
and your stone-carved moustache.
Take care of all our dreams;
control the obscurity
of our slumbering prowess
with your relentless heart
and the great ruff of your tail.