Gamblers All by Charles Bukowski

sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, 
I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside 
remembering all the times you've felt that way, and 
you walk to the bathroom, do your toilet, see that face 
in the mirror, oh my oh my oh my, but you comb your hair anyway, 
get into your street clothes, feed the cats, fetch the 
newspaper of horror, place it on the coffee table, kiss your 
wife goodbye, and then you are backing the car out into life itself, 
like millions of others you enter the arena once more.
 

you are on the freeway threading through traffic now, 
moving both towards something and towards nothing at all as you punch 
the radio on and get Mozart, which is something, and you will somehow 
get through the slow days and the busy days and the dull 
days and the hateful days and the rare days, all both so delightful 
and so disappointing because 
we are all so alike and so different.
 

you find the turn-off, drive through the most dangerous 
part of town, feel momentarily wonderful as Mozart works 
his way into your brain and slides down along your bones and 
out through your shoes.
 

it's been a tough fight worth fighting 
as we all drive along 
betting on another day.


if you haven't figured out that I'm stuck somewhere between Plath and Bukowski then read again and pass the whiskey and 
ham on rye.