A Cheery Poem on Aging and Opportunity Squandered

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The Tragedy of the Leaves

by Charles Bukowski

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 good comedian, ancient style, a jester 

with jokes upon absurd pain; pain is 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 fat, sweaty arms 

and screaming 

screaming for rent 

because the world had failed us 

both.