too long
I guess
I've hunked down over the wood of
bars looking for music

I don't know what made me feel that people of
soul might be more in bars than
elsewhere

that cost me
many years of barren
study

It was when I began finding more interesting things
in the grains of wood
than in the people

that I got what I needed to drink
and took it to a room
and closed the door

--Charles Bukowski