Charles Bukowski

“I had a dream about you. I opened your chest like a cabinet, it had doors, and when I opened the doors I saw all kinds of soft things inside you—teddy bears, tiny fuzzy animals, all these soft, cuddly things. Then I had a dream about this other man. He walked up to me and handed me some pieces of paper. He was a writer. I took the pieces of paper and looked at them. And the pieces of paper had cancer. His writing had cancer.

each person is only given so many

evenings

and each wasted evening is

a gross violation against the

natural course of

your only

life

it has taken me

decades

but I have finally found out

how to say

“no.”

it

takes

a lot of

desperation

dissatisfaction

and

disillusion

to

write

a

few

good

poems.

it’s not

for

everybody

it’s all right to be a starving writer

but not

a starving writer who

drinks.

drunks are never forgiven

anything.

my cat looks at me and is not sure what I am and

I look back and am pleased to feel

the same

about him…

not writing is not good

but trying to write

when you can’t is

worse.

“you’ll write again,” people

assure me, “you’ll be

better than

ever.”

that’s nice to know.

but the typewriter is silent

and it looks at

me.

meanwhile, every two or three

weeks

I get a fan letter in the mail

telling me that

surely

I must be

the world’s greatest

writer.

but

the typewriter is silent

and looks at

me….

it’s no use, I’ve got to admit,

I am into my first real

writer’s block

after over

5 decades

of typing.

I have some excuses:

I’ve had a long

illness

and I’m nearing the age of

70.

and when you’re near

70 you always consider the

possibility of

slippage.

but I am bucked-up

by the fact that

Cervantes

wrote his greatest work

at the age of

80.

but how many

Cervantes

are there?

I should accept this

writer’s block.

hell, I’m lucky I’m alive,

I’m lucky I don’t have

cancer.

I’m lucky in a hundred

different ways.

sometimes at night

in bed

at one or two a.m.

I will think about

how lucky I am

and it keeps me

awake