Excerpt, Bukowski

Dakarai, March 01, 2025 (1m ago)10 views

so if you sometimes knock
and i don't answer
and there isn't a woman in here
maybe i have broken my jaw
and am looking for wire
or i am chasing the butterflies in
my wallpaper,
i mean if i don't answer
i don't answer, and the reason is
that i am not yet ready to kill you
or love you, or even accept you,
it means that i don't want to talk
i am busy, i am mad, i am glad
or maybe i'm stringing up a rope;
so even if the lights are on
and you hear sound
like breathing or praying or singing
a radio or the roll of dice
or typing —
go away, it is not the day
the night, the hour;
it is not the ignorance of impoliteness,
i wish to hurt nothing, not even a bug
but sometimes i gather evidence of a kind
that takes some sorting
...
and your hair, if you have some,
or your mind — they cannot enter
until the rope is cut or knotted
or until i have shaven into
new mirrors, until the world is
stopped or opened
forever