Poem by Henry Charles Bukowski

Are You Drinking?

 washed-up, on shore, the old yellow notebook
 out again
 I write from the bed
 as I did last
 year.
 will see the doctor,
 Monday.
 "yes, doctor, weak legs, vertigo, head-
 aches and my back
 hurts."
 "are you drinking?" he will ask.
 "are you getting your
exercise, your
 vitamins?"
 I think that I am just ill
 with life, the same stale yet
 fluctuating
 factors.
 even at the track
 I watch the horses run by
 and it seems
 meaningless.
 I leave early after buying tickets on the
 remaining races.
 "taking off?" asks the motel
 clerk.
 "yes, it's boring,"
 I tell him.
 "If you think it's boring
 out there," he tells me, "you oughta be
 back here."
 so here I am
 propped up against my pillows
 again
 just an old guy
 just an old writer
 with a yellow
 notebook.
 something is
 walking across the
 floor
 toward
 me.
 oh, it's just
 my cat
 this
 time.

1. Having the Flu and with Nothing Else to Do
2. Small Conversation in the Afternoon with John Fante
3. Rhyming Poem
4. Trouble with Spain
5. decline

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