The Pleasures of the Damned: Selected Poems 1951-1993

by Charles Bukowski

on the sidewalk and in the sun I have seen an old man around town recently carrying an enormous pack. he uses a walking stick and moves up and down the streets with this pack strapped to his back. I keep seeing him. if he’d only throw that pack away, I think, he’d have a chance, not much of a chance but a chance. and he’s in a tough district—east Hollywood. they aren’t going to give him a dry bone in east Hollywood. he is lost. with that pack. on the sidewalk and in the sun. god almighty, old man, I think, throw away that pack. then I drive on, thinking of my own problems. the last time I saw him he was not walking. it was ten thirty a.m. on north Bronson and hot, very hot, and he sat on a little ledge, bent, the pack still strapped to his back. I slowed down to look at his face. I had seen one or two other men in my life with looks on their faces like that. I speeded up and turned on the radio. I knew that look. I would never see him again.

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