during my worst times
 on the park benches
 in the jails
 or living with
 whores
 I always had this certain
 contentment-
 I wouldn't call it
 happiness-
 it was more of an inner
 balance 
 that settled for
 whatever was occuring
 and it helped in the
 factories
 and when relationships 
 went wrong
 with the 
 girls. 
 it helped 
 through the
 wars and the
 hangovers
 the backalley fights
 the 
 hospitals. 
 to awaken in a cheap room
 in a strange city and
 pull up the shade-
 this was the craziest kind of
 contentment
 
 and to walk across the floor
 to an old dresser with a 
 cracked mirror- 
 see myself, ugly,
 grinning at it all. 
 what matters most is
 how well you 
 walk through the
 fire.

Poet: Charles Bukowski
Poem: How Is Your Heart?
Poem of the Day: Sep 6 2007

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