Digney: Thanks, great poems, but once again I don't think they are the ones I'm looking for. The poem I remember didn't have such an aggressive, competitive edge. It was more meditative--the changing lights measured the passing of time, or some such thing. Obviously my memory is a little hazy, but let's see if anyone else comes up with something.
Whoops--after a second cup of coffee, I realize that Digney posted one poem, not two. Does anyone remember the details of its publication? The Pushcart Prize Anthology may be right.
The poem Digney links to above, "dog fight," appears in What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through Fire (1999). Its title is slightly adjusted to "dog fight 1990" and one line slightly modified. In the manuscript, Bukowski writes of driving through California traffic in July 1980. In the printed poem, the date appears as July 1990.