good one

death sat on my knee and cracked with laughter 

by Charles Bukowski

I was writing three short stories a week

and sending them to the Atlantic Monthly

they would all come back.
my money went for stamps and envelopes

and paper and wine

and I got so thin I used to suck my cheeks together
and they'd meet over the top of my
tongue (that's when I thought about
Hamsun's Hunger - where he ate his own flesh; I once took a bite of my wrist
but it was very salty).

anyhow, one night in Miami Beach (I

have no idea what I was doing in that 

city) I had not eaten in 60 hours
and I took the last of my starving
pennies
went down to the corner grocery and 
bought a loaf of bread.
I planned to chew each slice slowly - 
as if each were a slice of turkey
or a luscious 
steak
and I got back to my room and
opened the wrapper and the 
slices of bread were green
and mouldy.

my party was not to be.

I just dumped the bread upon the
floor
and I sat on that bed wondering about
the green mould, the
decay.

my rent money was used up and 
I listened to all the sounds
of all the people in that 
roominghouse

and down on the floor were 
the dozens of stories with the 

dozens of Atlantic Monthly

rejection slips.

it was early evening and I 

turned out the light and

 went to bed and

it wasn't long before I

heard the mice coming out,

I heard them creeping over my

immortal stories and

eating the 

green mouldy bread.

and in the morning

when I awakened

I saw that

all that was left of the

bread

was the green mould.

they had eaten right to the 

edge of the mould

leaving chunks of 

it

among the stories and 

rejection slips

as I heard the sound of

my landlady's vacuum 

cleaner

bumping down the

hall

slowly approaching my 

door.