Charles Bukowski — Finish

Finish The hearse comes through the room filled with the beheaded, the disappeared, the living mad Flies are a glue of sticky paste, their wings will not lift I watch an old woman beat her cat with a broom The weather is unendurable; a dirty trick by god The water has evaporated from the toilet bowl The telephone rings without sound, the small limp arm petering against the bell I see a boy on his bicycle The spokes collapse, his tires turn into snakes and melt away The newspaper's oven-hot Men murder each other in the streets without reason The worst men have the best jobs The best men have the worst jobs or, are unemployed Or blocked in mad houses I have four cans of food left Air-conditioned troops go from house to house From room to room Jailing, shooting, bayoneting the people We have done this to ourselves, we deserve this It is as if, the sun has become disgusted with waiting It is as if the sun were a mind that has given up on us I go out on the back porch and look across the sea of dead plants Now thorns and sticks shivering in a windless sky Somehow I'm glad we're through, finished The works of art, the wars, the decayed loves The way we lived each day When the troops come up here, I don't care what they do For we've already killed ourselves each day we get out of bed Now go into the kitchen, spill some hash from a soft can It is almost cooked already And I sit eating, looking at the fingernails My fingernails The sweat comes down behind my ears And I hear this shooting in the streets And I chew and I wait without blunder