Advice I Wish Someone Had Given Me
by Ann Darr

Be strange if it is necessary, be
quiet, kindly as you can without
feeling the heel marks on your head.
Be expert in some way that pleasure you, story-telling, baking, bed;
marvel at the marvelous
in leaves, stones, intercepted light;
put truth and people in their right-
full angle in the sun...find the shadow,

What it falls upon.
Trust everyone a little, no one much.
Care carefully.
Thicken your skin to hints and hurts, be
Allergic to the soul scrapers.

Alone With Everybody
by Charles Bukowski

the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.

nobody ever finds
the one.

the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills.