Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SICKNESS, by CHARLES BUKOWSKI


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SICKNESS, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: If / one night / I write
Last Line: It.
Subject(s): Poetry & Poets


if
one night
I write
what I consider to
be 5 or 6 good poems
then I begin
to worry:

suppose the house
burns down?

I'm not worried
about
the house

I'm worried
about those 5 or 6
poems
burning
up

or

an x-girlfriend
getting in
here
while I'm away
and stealing or
destroying
the poems.

after writing
5 or 6 poems
I am fairly
drunk
and
I sit
having a few
more
drinks
while deciding
where to hide
the poems.

sometimes I
hide the poems
while
thinking about
hiding
them

and when I
decide to
hide them
I can't find
them . . .

then
begins the
search

and the
whole room is
a mass of
papers
anyhow

and

I'm very clever
at
hiding poems
perhaps more
clever than I
am
at
writing
them.

so
then
I find them
have another
drink

hide them
again
forget it
then
go
to sleep . . .

to
awaken in
late morning
to remember
the poems
and
begin the
search
again . . .

usually only a
ten or fifteen
minute
period of
agony

to find
them
and read
them
and then
not like them
very much

but you know
after all
that
work

all that
drinking
hiding
searching
finding

I decide
it's only
fair
to send
them
out
as a
record of
my travail

which
if accepted
will appear in
a little
magazine
circulation
between
100 and
750

a year-and
one-half
later

maybe.

it's
worth
it.






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