they’re all talking about it,
the men in clean shirts
on the television,
the kid at the market who bags my cheap wine,
even the radio between the static and the sad songs.
the ghost in the box.
the electric brain.
the thing that knows everything
and has done nothing.
they say,
it can write your poems for you.
and I laugh,
a dry, ugly sound
that tastes like last night’s whiskey.
can it write about the landlady’s footsteps
on the stairs,
the sound that means the rent is due?
can it write about the roach that scurries
from the light, a better poet than I’ll ever be?
can it write about the burn of rejection,
the way a woman’s “no” can echo in a room
for a week?
has it ever stared at a blank page
with a hangover so bad
the words swim like dead fish in your skull?
has it ever pawned a typewriter for a long shot
at Santa Anita?
no.
it just rearranges the words of dead men.
a clean, efficient, bloodless little thief.
it spits out a perfect little sonnet
about a love it has never felt,
a hunger it has never known.
it’s a tool for the bosses,
for the ones who want the work
without the messy, inconvenient,
drunken human.
they want the poem without the poet.
the song without the singer’s cracked voice.
the painting without the stench of turpentine
and madness.
let them have it.
let them have their perfect, sterile,
little lies.
the blood on the keys
is the only part that’s real.
the mistakes, the crossing out,
the empty bottle,
the goddamn struggle.
let them have their ghosts.
I’ve got a bottle to kill
and a real, losing race to run.
Tim: the above was obviously not written by the great Heinrich Karl Bukowski - aka Hank or simply Charles Bukowski - but by Gemini 2.5 Pro on July 22, 2025
They found a way to have the hangover without the drink.