I met a kid

Walking along the dead end
Of a Jesuit school
His Colorado accent
Followed me in my every rest

I met a kid

Leaning against existence
Who was spewing forthright words
Smooth, barbaric crab claws
To the blair of his employers –

Leaning over a glowing puddle
He sees the future flashing
A plate glowing with light
At the crossroads of Los Angeles

And dreams of impenitence
The owner of a rough hotel
Throws her pants in his face
The American Mercury

Dripping with cold soup
The Road to Los Angeles,
Is published, one Sunday
He corrects the draft, attacks it,

Makes a place for himself in the dense sun,
Borderline hero armed by the ocean
He plumbs the iron with the unpublished
And then asks the dust,

In prophet of the stellar abysses
The body stretched between two dramas,
In his hand his golf club bleeds and
Slips, and his poker chips

Rain down on his Malibu house;
His garden crumbles under the moral eye
Bathed in garlic by his worried wife
His spotted dog reminds him

If Fox calls him at ten o’clock
The hot Street will be turned.
Tired of venturing
In the nostrils of Bunker Hill,

In Naples and Rome he prostrates himself
Like any holy man,
He prays before the deafening cruelty
Of sidewalks devoured by green plants

Dice-pipers take this kid out of oblivion
Slip his name to Bukowski
A legless ass with a boneless look,
Strangely soaked by death

Has sounded us out. Let them come and throw tomatoes at me
If in this future that one praises so much
Despite our cracks up to date,
Humor does not need John Fante