The Anti-Hero Talks Cars

Bukowski in his little Los Angeles shack,

half-drunk, cheap wine,

cigarette

burning down to the filter, gripes about

battery cars gliding

around

silent as ghosts— no growl, no balls,

no stink of gasoline,

oil—

like a real machine that’s been worked

and feels alive,

IS alive.

Instead, I hear a castrated librarian trying

to get it up

Come On!

Give me a beat-up Ford with V8

rattle my liver

alive.