often from my typing room I step out onto this small balcony

and there is the night

a cool wash of black air.

I stand in slippers, shorts and undershirt, sucking at a small cigarette,

I can see the curling headlights of the cars on the winding Harbor Freeway.

they come and come,

those lights,

they never stop

and I truly wonder that life is still here after all these centuries,

after the hell of all of our error

and our smallness

and our greed,

our selfishness,

our bitterness,

life is still here

and the thought of that makes me strangely elated,

of course, I am woozy from hours of typing.

and now

again.

the same dog in that yard to the far left barks at me

he should know that old fart standing there in his shorts,

he should know me by now.

I turn and walk back into my typing room.

the typewriter is electric and it is on and it hums hums hums hums.

last night I did something very odd:

after ripping out a few poems

I covered the machine

then bent down and kissed it once,

and said,

“thank you, very much.”

after 50 years in the game

I had finally thanked my typewriter.

now I sit down to it and I BANG IT,

I don’t use the light touch,

I BANG IT,

I want to hear it,

I want it to do its tricks,

it has saved my ass from the worst of women and the worst of men

and the worst of jobs,

it has mellowed my nightmares into a gentle sanity,

it has loved me at my lowest

and it has made me seem to be a greater soul than I ever was.

I BANG IT

I BANG IT

and I know how all of them felt,

all the writers,

when it was going good,

when it was going hot.

death,

I have chopped off your arms

and your legs

and your head.

I am sorry, I

know you just do what you have to do

even to that barking dog

but now

I BANG IT

BANG IT

and wait.

~ Charles Bukowski