remains - Charles Bukowski

things are good as I am not dead yet

and the rats move in the beercans,

the papersacks shuffle like small dogs,

and her photographs are stuck onto a painting

by a dead German and she too is dead

and it took 14 years to know her

and if they give me another 14

I will know her yet . . .

her photos stuck over the glass

neither move nor speak,

but I even have her voice on tape,

and she speaks some evenings,

her again

so real she laughs

says the thousand things,

the one thing I always ignored;

this will never leave me:

that I had love

and love died;

a photo and a piece of tape

is not much, I have learned late,

but give me 14 days or 14 years,

I will kill any man

who would touch or take

whatever's left.