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The Secret Of My endurance poem by Bukowski

The Secret Of My endurance by Bukowski



I still get letters in the mail, mostly from cracked-up

men in tiny rooms with factory jobs or no jobs who are

living with whores or no woman at all, no hope, just

booze and madness.

I get most of their letters on lined paper

written with an unsharpened pencil

or in ink

in tiny handwritings that slant down to the

left

and the paper is most often torn

usually halfway up the middle

and they say they like my stuff,

I've written from where it's at,

they recognize itt. truly, I've given them some chance

chance, some recognition of where they're at.

it's true, I was there, even worse off than most

of them.

but I wonder if they realize where their letters

arrives...

well, it is dropped into a box on a wire fence

behind a six-foot hedge and a long driveway

to a two car garage, rose garden, fruit trees,

animals, a beautiful woman, mortgage about half

paid after years residence, a new car, two cars

fireplace and a green rug two-inches deep

with a young boy to write my stuff now,

I keep him in a ten-foot square cage with a

typewriter, feed him whiskey and raw whores,

belt buckle him pretty good three or four times

a week.

I'm 60 years old now and the critics say

my stuff is getting better than ever.

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