SHREDDING in a large shopping bag you have saved expired credit cards bank statements, mortgages certificates of marriages, divorces— all evidence of your existence until one day you realize most of it is almost over and why, why are you holding on…? so you drag it to the library shredder and little by little you shred your life away with each slice of the blade gulp of the feeder you feel yourself disintegrate certain now your name is eradicated from all affirmation once you had a family, a job, a house a real place in the universe that might or might not have mattered and the machine is no longer hungry but well fed, well fed by all the shredded, irreplaceable pieces of you Bukowski, when I first saw your face I thought-- my god, he's uglier than I ever imagined! that big, pock marked puss bulbous, alcoholic nose looking like some scary Halloween mask so how did you get all those women? some of them 'dogs', I admit whores and druggies but a few-- almost sophisticated artistic, even beautiful and when I read your poems I don't think of your face or saggy flesh in baggy pants stumbling along owl streets after an all night binge greedily, I suck on your words let them touch me like a tongue in places no man has ever gone