I awakened to dryness and the ferns were dead,
the potted plants yellow as corn;
my woman was gone
and the empty bottles like bled corpses surrounded me with their uselessness;
the sun was still good, though, and my landlady's note cracked in fine and
undemanding yellowness; what was needed now
was a comedian, ancient style, a jester
with jokes upon absurd pain; pain absurd
because it exists, nothing more;
I shaved carefully with an old razor
the man who had once been young and
said to have genius; but
that's the tragedy of the leaves,
the dead ferns, the dead plants;
and I walked into a dark hall
where the landlady stood
execrating and final,
sending me to hell,
waving her sweaty arms
and screaming
screaming for rent
because the world had failed us
both.

By Charles Bukowski