then made it to the bed, made it to the edge, tripped, fell down, fell down across the mattress, slept, slept, slept…
In the morning it was morning and I was still alive. Maybe I’ll write a novel, I thought. And then I did.
A major contemporary American writer, Charles Bukowski was born in Andernach, Germany, in 1920, and brought to the United States when he was two. He was raised in Los Angeles where he continues to live. He began writing in his early twenties, published his first poems at the age of thirty-five, and has now published more than fifteen books of poetry and prose. Sartre and Genet have called him “the best poet in America.” Hundreds of his poems and stories have appeared in magazines and newspapers.
© 1971 by Charles Bukowski
Black Sparrow Press
P. O. Box 3993
Santa Barbara, CA 93105
ISBN 0-87685-086-7 (paper) ISBN 0-87685-087-5 (cloth)
Several of these chapters appeared as short stories in
