An Answer

within the past six years

there have been four

different rumors that i

have died.

I don’t know who begins

these rumors

or why.

and certainly humans

do worse things than

this.

yet I always feel strange

when i must tell people,

usually over the

telephone, that I am

not yet dead.

somebody out there

or perhaps several

people

evidently get some

satisfaction

in announcing that I am

no longer

around.

some day,

some night

the announcement will be

true.

to put it mildly,

I am no longer

young.

but these death-

wishers

are an unsavory

group,

these hyenas,

these vultures,

these failed writers,

will also some day be dead,

their petty bitterness,

their lying gutless

beings gone into

the dark.

but for the moment,

I am here

and these last lines

are for them:

your cowardice will not be missed.

even the roaches

lived with more

honor

and you were always

dead

before

me

without

rumor.

Charles Bukowski 1991

San Pedro, California