Charles Bukowski's "Death Wants More Death"

death wants more death, and its webs are full:

I remember my father's garage,

how child-like I would brush the corpses of flies from the windows they thought were escape-

their sticky, ugly, vibrant bodies shouting like dumb crazy dogs

against the glass

only to spin and flit in that second larger than hell or heaven

onto the edge of the ledge,

and then the spider from his dank hole nervous and exposed the puff of body swelling

hanging there not really quite knowing, and then knowing-something

sending it down its string,

the wet web, toward the weak shield of buzzing,

the pulsing; a last desperate moving hair-leg there against the glass

there alive in the sun, spun in white; and almost like love: the closing over,

the first hushed spider-sucking: filling its sack upon this thing that lived;

crouching there upon its back drawing its certain blood as the world goes by outside

and my temples scream and I hurl the broom against them:

the spider dull with spider-anger still thinking of its prey

and waving an amazed broken leg;

the fly very still, a dirty speck stranded to straw;

I shake the killer loose and he walks lame and peeved towards some dark corner but I intercept his dawdling his crawling like some broken hero,

and the straws smash his legs now waving above his head and looking

looking for the enemy and somewhat valiant, dying without apparent pain

simply crawling backward piece by piece

leaving nothing there until at last the red gut sack splashes its secrets,

and I run child-like with God's anger a step behind,

back to simple sunlight,

wondering as the world goes by with curled smile

if anyone else saw or sensed my crime

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Later,

Paul Parducci