On Love

by Charles Bukowski

put me down for dancing you much more dead, I am a dish for your ashes, I am a fist for your air.

your eyes are gold your hair is gold your love is gold your grave is gold

the tigers have found me and I do not care.

and if the mind grows harrowed and the rose bites like a dog, they say we have love . . .

maybe some day she will bury me that would be very nice if it weren’t a responsibility.

my love is a hummingbird sitting that quiet moment on the bough as the same cat crouches.

I don’t know why people think effort and energy have anything to do with creation.

and the living do not arrive and the dead do not leave, I won’t blame you.

love is the phone ringing and the same voice or another voice but never the right voice

love is the way we boil like the lobster

no luck for that there is a place in the heart that will never be filled a space and even during the best moments and the greatest of times we will know it we will know it more than ever there is a place in the heart that will never be filled and we will wait and wait in that space.

(I mean, if you’re going to be here you might as well fight for the miracle).

there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I pour whiskey on him and inhale cigarette smoke

waiting for death like a cat that will