---

Trash can poem by Charles Bukowski

The trash can

this is great, I just wrote two
poems I didn't like.

there is a trash can on this
computer.
I just moved the poems
over
and dropped them into
the trash can.

they're gone forever, no
paper, no sound, no
fury, no placenta
and then
just a clean screen
awaits you.

it's always better
to reject yourself before
the editors do.

especially on a rainy
night like this with
bad music on the radio.

and now--
I know what you're
thinking:
maybe he should have
trashed this
misbegotten one
also.

ha, ha, ha,
ha.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From Betting on the Muse - Poems and Stories
***

Black Sparrow Press, 1996.