Charles Bukowski , Finish

"we are like roses that have never bothered to 
bloom when we should have bloomed and 
it is as if 
the sun has become disgusted with waiting"

finish

the hearse comes through the room filled with
the beheaded, the disappeared, the living
mad.
the 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
the tires turn into
snakes and melt
away.
the newspaper is 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 locked in
madhouses.
I have 4 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
we are like roses that have never bothered to
bloom when we should have bloomed and
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 already killed ourselves
each day we got out of bed.
I go back into the kitchen
spill some hash from a soft
can, almost cooked
already
and I sit
eating, looking at my
fingernails.
the sweat comes from behind my
ears and I hear the
shooting in the streets and
I chew and wait
without wonder.