Showing posts with label failure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label failure. Show all posts

Saturday, February 26, 2022

A Cheery Poem on Aging and Opportunity Squandered



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The Tragedy of the Leaves

by Charles Bukowski

I awakened to dryness and the ferns were dead, 
the potted plants yellow as corn; 
my woman was gone 
and the empty bottles like bled corpses 
surrounded me with their uselessness;  
the sun was still good, though,  
and my landlady's note cracked in fine and 
undemanding yellowness; what was needed now 
was a good comedian, ancient style, a jester 
with jokes upon absurd pain; pain is absurd 
because it exists, nothing more; 
I shaved carefully with an old razor 
the man who had once been young and 
said to have genius; but 
that's the tragedy of the leaves, 
the dead ferns, the dead plants; 
and I walked into a dark hall 
where the landlady stood 
execrating and final, 
sending me to hell, 
waving her fat, sweaty arms 
and screaming 
screaming for rent 
because the world had failed us 
both.

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