was Li Po wrong?
you know what Li Po said when asked if he’d rather be an
Artist or Rich?
I’d rather be Rich,” he replied, “for Artists can usually be found
sitting on the doorsteps of the
Rich.”
I’ve sat on the doorsteps of some expensive and
unbelievable homes
myself
but somehow I always managed to disgrace myself and / or insult
my Rich hosts
mostly after drinking large quantities of their fine
liquor).
perhaps I was afraid of the Rich?
all I knew then was poverty and the very poor,
and I felt instinctively that the Rich shouldn’t be so
Rich,
that it was some kind of clever
twist of fate
based on something rotten and
unfair.
of course, one could say the same thing
about being poor,
only there were so many poor, it all seemed completely
out of proportion.
and so when I, as an Artist, visited the
homes of the Rich, I felt ashamed to be
there, and I drank too much of their fine wines,
broke their expensive glassware and antique dishes,
burned cigarette holes in their Persian rugs and
mauled their wives,
reacting badly to the whole damned
situation.
yet I had no political or social solution.
was just a lousy house guest,
guess,
and after a while
protected both myself and the Rich
by rejecting their
invitations
and everybody felt much better after
that.
went back to
drinking alone,
breaking my own cheap glassware,
filling the room with cigar
smoke and feeling
wonderful
instead of feeling trapped,
used,
pissed on,
fucked.
Other works by Charles Bukowski...
