Come On In!. Charles Bukowski

      we can’t take care of you all your

      life!

      I’m 15 now, I told him, I won’t be around

      much longer.

      but look at you, you just sit around in your room

      all day! other

      boys have jobs, paper routes, Jim Stover works

      as an usher at the

      Bayou!

      HOW IN THE HELL ARE YOU GOING TO

      SURVIVE IN THIS

      WORLD?

      I don’t

      know …

      you make me SICK! sometimes, having a son like

      you, I wish I was

      dead.

      well, he did die, he died more than 30 years

      ago.

      and last year I paid

      $59,000 income

      tax.

       too early!

      there are some people who will

      phone a man at 7 a.m.

      when he is desperately sick and

      hungover.

      I always greet

      these idiots

      with a few violent

      words

      and the slamming

      down of the

      receiver

      knowing that their

      morning eagerness

      means that

      they retired early

      and thus wasted the

      preceding

      night

      (and most likely

      the preceding days, weeks and

      years).

      that they could

      imagine

      that

      I’d want to

      converse with

      them

      at 7 a.m.

      is an insult

      to

      whatever

      intelligent life

      is left

      in our dwindling

      universe.

       the green Cadillac

      he hung the green Cadillac

      almost straight up and down

      standing on its nose

      against the phone pole

      next to the

      All-American Hamburger

      Hut.

      I was

      in the laundromat

      with my girlfriend when

      we heard the sound of it.

      when we got there

      the driver had

      dropped out of the car

      and run off.

      and there was the

      green Caddy

      standing straight

      up and down

      against

      the phone pole.

      it was one of the most

      magnificent sights

      I had seen

      in years:

      in the 9 p.m. moonlight

      it just stood there—

      the people gathered

      the people stood back

      knowing the Caddy

      could come crashing down

      at any moment

      but it didn’t

      it just stood there

      straight as an arrow

      alongside

      the phone pole.

      how the hell

      they were going to get

      that down

      without wrecking it

      was beyond me.

      my girlfriend wanted to

      wait and see how

      they did it

      but we hadn’t

      had dinner

      yet

      and I

      talked her into

      going back into the

      laundromat and then

      back to my place.

      I was not

      mechanically inclined

      and it pissed

      me off

      to watch people

      who were.

      anyhow

      about noon

      the next day

      when I went out to

      buy a newspaper

      the green Caddy

      was gone.

      there was just

      an old bum

      at the counter

      in the All-American

      having a coffee

      but I had already seen

      the real miracle

      and I

      walked back to

      my place

      satisfied.

       I’m not all-knowing but …

      one of the problems is

      that when most people

      sit down to write a poem

      they think,

      “now I am going to write a

      poem”

      and then

      they go on to write a poem

      that

      sounds like a poem

      or what they think

      a poem should sound like.

      this