“the American writer”

gone abroad
I sit under the tv lights
and am interviewed again
I am asked questions
I give answers
I make no attempt to be
brilliant.
to be truthful
I feel bored
and I almost never feel
bored.
“do you?…” they ask.
“oh, yeah, well I…”
“and what do you think of…”
“I don’t think of it much. I
don’t think too much…”
somehow it ends.

that evening somebody tells me
I’m on the news
we turn the set on.
there I am. I look pissed.
I wave people off.
I am bored.

how marvelous to be me without
trying.
it looks on tv
as if I knew exactly what I
was doing.

fooled them
again.

Charles Bukowski

from Dangling In The Tournefortia – 1981