Consummation of Grief (Bukowski)

I even hear the mountains
the way they laugh
up and down their blue sides
and down in the river
the fish cry
all the water is their tears.
I listen to the water
on nights I drink away
and the sadness becomes so great
I hear it in my clock
it becomes knobs upon my dresser
it becomes paper on the floor
it becomes a shoehorn
a laundry ticket
it becomes
cigarette smoke
climbing a chapel of dark vines...
it matters little

very little love is not so bad
or very little life

what counts
is waiting on walls
I was born for this

I was born to hustle roses down the avenues of the dead.

Homecoming

I remember this routine: wake up to beeping, coffee, bagel, shower, BART, work-emails-meetings, beer, cigarettes, chatting, BART, music-home-sleep. Repeat. The key is to keep the work to a slow hum and to keep the rest at a roar. The further you get from a vacation, the harder this is - so it remains to be seen if I have the composition to keep it up. I'm hoping inertia will keep the ball rolling for me for a while.

Life. Is. Too. Short.

It's all prep for the following:

Saturday morning. Woken up by the dog - he's huge enough that the drool runs from his mouth in little rivers of saliva. Grab the leash and head outside to get coffee and breakfast. Come back home with a tired dog and some fresh bread and cheese. Grab dog, coffee, food and book. Head out to the back and load it all into the boat. Cast off for the day and tool around the canals until the sun sets.

I'm moving to Amsterdam. One day it will be mine, oh yes, it will be mine. One of these days I won't be a stoned tourist watching people float by on their boats with their dogs. I'll be watching the stoned tourists from my boat. And yes, it will be flying the pirate flag.