a smile to remember- charles bukowski
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNsIIJRXSG8]
we had the goldfish and they went around and around
in the bowl on the table near the purple drapes
across our front picture window and
my mother, poor fish, always smiling, wanting to
appear happy, she always told me, "be happy, Henry,"
and she was right: it's better to be happy if you
can be
but my father beat her two or three times a week while
raging through his 6 foot two frame because he couldn't
defeat what was attacking him.
my mother, poor fish, poor goldfish, poor nothing fish,
wanting to be happy, being beaten two or three times a
week and telling me to be happy: "Henry, smile!
why don't you smile?
and then, she always did to show me how, and it was the
saddest smile I ever saw upon the earth, like hell and
hell and hell and hell, and nothing else
one day all the goldfish died, all five of them,
they floated on top of the water, on their sides, the
eye on each top side still open,
and when my father got home he threw them to the cat
there on the kitchen floor and we watched as my mother
smiled
we had the goldfish and they went around and around
in the bowl on the table near the purple drapes
across our front picture window and
my mother, poor fish, always smiling, wanting to
appear happy, she always told me, "be happy, Henry,"
and she was right: it's better to be happy if you
can be
but my father beat her two or three times a week while
raging through his 6 foot two frame because he couldn't
defeat what was attacking him.
my mother, poor fish, poor goldfish, poor nothing fish,
wanting to be happy, being beaten two or three times a
week and telling me to be happy: "Henry, smile!
why don't you smile?
and then, she always did to show me how, and it was the
saddest smile I ever saw upon the earth, like hell and
hell and hell and hell, and nothing else
one day all the goldfish died, all five of them,
they floated on top of the water, on their sides, the
eye on each top side still open,
and when my father got home he threw them to the cat
there on the kitchen floor and we watched as my mother
smiled
