New poem: YOU GET SO ALONE, INDEED

whatever one thinks of Charles Bukowski

as poet, lover, gambler, drinker, 

he (or his publisher) devised

one of the all-time-great book titles:

YOU GET SO ALONE
which serves as a definition
for life in Los Angeles
when you arrive
knowing almost no one
and feeling overpowered
by people pushing past you,
strangers refusing to talk
out of fear you might harm them,
cars with human voices yelling
LEARN TO DRIVE!
when you haven't mastered
the split-second timing
of yielding to oncoming traffic
before the light turns red
>
YOU GET SO ALONE
as you look for available work
to pay for rent and food
and hope to meet Angelenos
someday, somewhere
who haven't yet become granite statues
with pitiless eyes