the wind blows hard to night
and it’s a cold wind
and I think about
the boys on the row.
hope some of them have a bottle
of red.
it’s when you’re on the row
that you notice that
everything
is owned
and that there are locks on
everything.
this is the way a democracy
works:
you get what you can,
try to keep that
and add to it
possible.
this is the way a dictatorship
works too
only they either enslave or
destroy their
derelicts.
we just forget
ours.
in either case
it’s a hard
cold
wind.
Other works by Charles Bukowski...
