El teléfono según Hank.

The Telephone

many women I have known haye

been very much connected to

the telephone.

they can talk virtually forhours.

it is their manner of

measuring where they

are or are

not.

some women have major

problems with aging

and with

men.

on the telephone they
speak of
real and imaginad
injustice,
they let loose their
poison,
they justify their
beliefs and
positions.

my wife has been

speaking to one of her

gender

back cast.

the conversation is

now proceeding

into its second

hour.

if a psychiatrist or

a psychologist

were listening

their notes would be

bulging with

referentes to

trenchant

instability and

gratuitous masturbation

of the

psyche.

but I am neither psychiatrist

nor psychologist.

I am just the poor son-of-

a-bitch who has to pay

the

phone bill.

a misogynist who

writes these

poems.

"The Telephone", by Charles Bukowski.

From "Betting on the muse", Black Sparrow Press, 1996.