One thirty-six a.m. Charles Bukowski

I laugh sometimes when I think about
Say
Céline at a typewriter
Or Dostoevsky...
Or Hamsun...
Ordinary men with feet, ears, eyes
Ordinary men with hair on their heads
Sitting there typing words
While having difficulties with life
While being puzzled almost to madness

Dostoevsky gets up
He leaves the machine to piss
Comes back
Drinks a glass of milk and thinks about
The casino and
The roulette wheel

Céline stops, gets up, walks to the
Window, looks out, thinks, my last patient
Died today, I won't have to make any more
Visits there
When I saw him last
He paid his doctor bill;
It's those who don't pay their bills
They live on and on
Céline walks back, sits down at the
Machine
Is still for a good two minutes
Then begins to type