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Bukowski, Charles: My Father

Portre of Bukowski, Charles

My Father (English)

was a truly amazing man 
he pretended to be 
rich 
even though we lived on beans and mush and weenies 
when we sat down to eat, he said, 
"not everybody can eat like this."

and because he wanted to be rich or because he actually 
thought he was rich 
he always voted Republican 
and he voted for Hoover against Roosevelt 
and he lost 
and then he voted for Alf Landon against Roosevelt 
and he lost again 
saying, "I don't know what this world is coming to, 
now we've got that god damned Red in there again 
and the Russians will be in our backyard next!"

I think it was my father who made me decide to 
become a bum. 
I decided that if a man like that wants to be rich 
then I want to be poor.

and I became a bum. 
I lived on nickles and dimes and in cheap rooms and 
on park benches. 
I thought maybe the bums knew something.

but I found out that most of the bums wanted to be 
rich too. 
they had just failed at that.

so caught between my father and the bums 
I had no place to go 
and I went there fast and slow. 
never voted Republican 
never voted.

buried him 
like an oddity of the earth 
like a hundred thousand oddities 
like millions of other oddities, 
wasted.






Uploaded byGarai Péter Sándor
Source of the quotationhttps://www.poemhunter.com/charles-bukowski/poems/

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