Charles Bukowski


the blade

there was no parking near the post office where
I worked at night
so I found this splendid spot
(nobody seemed to care to park there)
on a dirt road behind a
slaughterhouse
and as I sat in my car
just before work
smoking a last cigarette
I was treated to the same 
scene
as each evening tailed off into
night
the pigs were herded out of the
yard pens
and onto runways
by a man making pig sounds and
flapping a large canvas
and the pigs ran wildly 
up the runway
toward the waiting
blade,
and many evenings
after watching that
after finishing my
smoke
I just started the car
backed out of there and 
drove away from my
job.

my absenteeism reached such astonishing
proportions
that I had to finally
park
at some expense
behind a Chinese bar
where all I could see were tiny shuttered
windows
with neon signs advertising some
oriental
libation.

it seemed less real, and that was
what was
needed.