and the next I remembered I’m on a table,
everybody’s gone: the head of bravery
under light, scowling, flailing me down. . .
and then some toad stood there, smoking a cigar:
“Kid you’re no fighter,” he told me,
and I got up and knocked him over a chair;
it was like a scene in a movie, and he stayed there on his big rump and said
over and over: “Jesus, Jesus, whatsamatta wit
you?” and I got up and dressed,
the tape still on my hands, and when I got home
I tore the tape off my hands and
wrote my first poem,
and I’ve been fighting
ever since.
-Charles Bukowski
