TO CHARLES BUKOWSKI IN HEAVEN

Hank you old dog.

You wanted to be Jesus of

the drinking, fucking, playing the horses crowd.

I’m glad you wrote it down.

The way you saw Venus fade into dawn

till the sky gets blasted with the sandpaper light of day,

the tortured romantic, cynical, hard softness,

distilled, etherlike, the gin of street poets.

You must be surprised to find yourself in heaven.

Your crazy daemon, if ever you should return to this

green earth, I pray you will listen for the horses

running so very hard in your heart.