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charles bukowski - what makes? lyrics

this is hard to explain, i mean who the man was
anyhow, it was in a large structure and he sat in
a chair in uniform, red coat and all, his job was
to examine the hand-stamp of those who left the
structure and returned, there was a lamp you put
your hand under and the stamp appeared (god that
was work) anyhow, as i put my hand under the lamp
the man asked, “listen, what’s your name?”
“hank,” i answered
“listen, hank,” he asked, “what makes a man a
writer?”
“well,” i said, “it’s simple, it’s either you
get it down on paper or you jump off a
bridge
writers are desperate people and when they stop
being desperate they stop being
writers.”
“are you desperate?”
“i don’t know…”
i walked on through and as i took the escalator up
i saw him sitting there, probably thinking that it was possibly
bullsh-t, he had wanted me to suggest some special
school, some special way, like some way to get out
of that red coat, it was not an enlightening job
like designing a bridge or batting cleanup for the
dodgers but
he wasn’t desperate enough, the desperate don’t ask
they do
and at the top of the escalator i pushed through the
gl-ss doors and as i did, i thought, son of a b-tch
i should have asked him his name, and then i felt
bad for him and for myself but a few minutes later
i had forgotten all about him
and the other way around
and he watched more hand-stamps under the lamp
and i watched the toteboard and the horses and
the desperate people
desperate in all the wrong
ways, in-
deed

- charles bukowski lyrics

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